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WAGER OF BATTLE;
A TALE OF SAXON SLAVERY IN SHERWOOD FOREST.
BY HENRY W. HERBERT,
AUTHOR OF "HENRY VIII AND HIS SIX WIVES," "THE CAPTAINS OF THE GREEK
AND ROMAN REPUBLICS," "THE ROMAN TRAITOR," "MARMADUKE WYVIL," "OLIVER
CROMWELL," ETC. ETC. ETC.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS,
23 PARK ROW.
1855.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
MASON BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District
of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY
THOMAS B. SMITH,
82 & 84 Beekman St.
PRINTED BY
JOHN A. GRAY,
79 Cliff St.
TO
ISRAEL DE WOLF ANDREWS, ESQ.,
OF EASTPORT, MAINE,
THIS HISTORICAL ROMANCE,
"Wager of Battle,"
Descriptive of the manners, customs and institutions of our mutual
ancestry, Saxon and Norman, at the period of their fusion into the
great race, speaking the English tongue, by whatever name, in distant
and widely severed isles and continents, it is destined to be known,
and illustrative of the nature of Saxon serfdom in the twelfth century
of our era, is dedicated, as a slight token of great esteem, of
gratitude for many good offices, and of friendship, which, he hopes
and wishes, will stand all tests of time and change, unaltered,
By his sincere friend and servant,
HENRY WM. HERBERT.
THE CEDARS, July 20, 1855.
PREFACE.
It is, perhaps, unfortunate that the period and, in some degree, the
scene of my present work, coincide nearly with those of the most
magnificent and gorgeous of historical romances, Sir Walter Scott's
Ivanhoe.
It is hoped, however, that--notwithstanding this similarity, and the
fact that in both works the interest turns in some degree on the
contrast between the manners of the Saxon and Norman inhabitants of the
isle, and the state of things preceding the fusion of the two races
into one--notwithstanding, also, that in each a portion of the effect
depends on the introduction of a judicial combat, or "Wager of
Battle"--the resemblance will be found to be external and incidental
only, and that, neither in matter, manner, nor subject, is there any
real similarity between the books, much less any imitation or absurd
attempt, on my part, at rivalry with that which is admitted to be
incomparable. It will be seen, at once, by those who have the patience
to peruse the following pages, that I have aimed at something more than
a mere delineation of outward habits, customs, and details of martial
or pacific life; that I have entered largely into the condition of
classes, the peculiar institution of Serfdom, or White Slavery, as it
existed among our own ancestors--that portion of whom, from which our
blood is in the largest degree descended, being the servile population
of the island--in the twelfth century, and the steps which led to its
gradual abolition.
In doing this, I have been unavoidably led into the necessity of
dealing with the ancient jurisprudence of our race, the common law of
the land, the institution of Trial by Jury, and that singular feature
in our old judicial system, the reference of cases to the direct
decision of the Almighty by Wager of Battle, or, as it was also called,
"the Judgment of God."
I will here merely observe that, while the gist of my tale lies in the
adventures and escape of a fugitive Saxon Slave from the tyranny of his
Norman Lord, my work contains no reference to the peculiar institution
of any portion of this country, nor conceals any oblique insinuation
against, or covert attack upon, any part of the inhabitants of the
Continent, or any interest guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
Nevertheless, I would recommend no person to open a page of this
volume, who is prepared to deny that slavery _per se_ is an evil and a
wrong, and its effects deteriorating to all who are influenced by its
contact, governors alike and governed, since they will find nothing
agreeable, but much adverse to their way of thinking.
That it is an evil and a wrong, in itself, and a source of serious
detriment to all parties concerned, I can not but believe; and that,
like all other wrongs and evils, it will in the end, by God's wisdom,
be provided for and pass away, without violence or greater indirect
wrong and evil, I both believe and hope.
But I neither arrogate to myself the wisdom of imagining how this is to
be peacefully brought about in the lapse of ages, nor hesitate to
dissent from the intemperance of those who would cut the Gordian knot,
like Alexander, with the sword, reckless if the same blow should sever
the sacred bonds that consolidate the fabric of the Union.
HENRY WM. HERBERT.
THE CEDARS, September, 1st., 1855.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
THE FOREST 11
CHAPTER II.
THE GOOD SERVICE 27
CHAPTER III.
THE GUERDON OF GOOD SERVICE 39
CHAPTER IV.
THE NORMAN LORDS 47
CHAPTER V.
THE SERF'S QUARTER 58
CHAPTER VI.
THE SAXON'S CONSTANCY 69
CHAPTER VII.
THE SLAVE-GIRL'S SELF-DEVOTION 81
CHAPTER VIII.
GUENDOLEN'S BOWER 91
CHAPTER IX.
GUENDOLEN 100
CHAPTER X.
THE LADY AND THE SLAVE 110
CHAPTER XI.
THE LADY'S GAME 126
CHAPTER XII.
THE DEPARTURE 136
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PROGRESS 148
CHAPTER XIV.
THE NEW HOME 159
CHAPTER XV.
THE OLD HOME 166
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ESCAPE 177
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PURSUIT 187
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SANDS 198
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SUPPLIANT 217
CHAPTER XX.
THE LADY AND HER LOVER 230
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ARREST 245
CHAPTER XXII.
THE SHERIFF 260
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE TRIAL 272
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ACQUITTAL 285
CHAPTER XXV.
THE FALSE CHARGE AND THE TRUE 300
CHAPTER XXVI.
WAGER OF BATTLE 310
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BRIDAL DAY 324
SHERWOOD FOREST;
OR,
WAGER OF BATTLE.
CHAPTER I.
THE FOREST.
"He rode half a mile the way;
He saw no light that came of day;
Then came he to a river broad,
Never man over such one rode;
Within he saw a place of green,
Such one had he never erst seen."
EARLY METRICAL ROMAUNTS. GUY OF WARWICK.
In the latter part of the twelfth century--when, in the reign of Henry
II., fourth successor of the Conqueror, and grandson of the first
prince of that name, known as Beauclerc, the condition of the
vanquished Saxons had begun in some sort to amend, though no fusion of
the races had as yet commenced, and tranquillity was partially
restored to England--the greater part of the northern counties, from
the Trent to the mouths of Tyne and Solway, was little better than an
unbroken chase or forest, with the exception of the fiefs of a few
great barons, or the territories of a few cities and free borough
towns; and thence, northward to the Scottish frontier, all was a rude
and pathless desert of morasses, moors, and mountains, untrodden save
by the foot of the persecuted Saxon outlaw.
In the West and North Ridings of the great and important Shire of
York, there were, it is true, already a few towns of more than growing
importance; several of which had been originally the sites, or had
grown up in the vicinity and under the shelter of Roman Stative
encampments; whereof not a few of them have retained the evidence in
their common termination, _caster_, while others yet retain the
more modern Saxon appellations. Of these two classes, Doncaster,
Pontefract, Rotherham, Sheffield, Ripon, may be taken as examples,
which were even then flourishing, and, for the times, even opulent
manufacturing boroughs, while the vastly larger and more wealthy
commercial places, which have since sprung up, mushroom-like, around
them, had then neither hearths nor homes, names nor existence.
In addition to these, many great lords and powerful barons already
possessed vast demesnes and manors, and had erected almost royal
fortalices, the venerable ruins of which still bear evidence to the
power and the martial spirit of the Norman lords of England; and even
more majestic and more richly endowed institutions of the church, such
as Fountains, Jorvaulx, and Bolton Abbayes, still the wonder and
reproach of modern architecture, and the admiration of modern artists,
had created around themselves garden-like oases among the green glades
and grassy aisles of the immemorial British forests; while, emulating
the example of their feudal or clerical superiors, many a military
tenant, many a gray-frocked friar, had reared his tower of strength,
or built his lonely cell, upon some moat-surrounded mount, or in some
bosky dingle of the wood.
In the East Riding, all to the north of the ancient city of the Shire,
even then famous for its minster and its castle, even then the see and
palace of the second archbishop of the realm, was wilder yet, ruder
and more uncivilized. Even to this day, it is, comparatively speaking,
a bleak and barren region, overswept by the cold gusts from the German
ocean, abounding more in dark and stormy wolds than in the cheerful
green of copse or wildwood, rejoicing little in pasture, less in
tillage, and boasting of nothing superior to the dull market towns of
the interior, and the small fishing villages nested among the crags of
its iron coast.
Most pitilessly had this district been ravaged by the Conqueror and
his immediate successor, after its first desperate and protracted
resistance to the arms of the Norman; after the Saxon hope of England
fell, to arise no more, upon the bloody field of Hastings; and after
each one of the fierce Northern risings.
The people were of the hard, old, stubborn, Danish stock, more
pertinacious, even, and more stubborn, than the enduring Saxon, but
with a dash of a hotter and more daring spirit than belonged to their
slower and more sluggish brethren.
These men would not yield, could not be subdued by the iron-sheathed
cavalry of the intrusive kings. They were destroyed by them, the lands
were swept bare,[1] the buildings burned, the churches desecrated.
Manors, which under the native rule of the Confessor had easily
yielded sixty shillings of annual rent, without distress to their
occupants, scarcely paid five to their foreign lords; and estates,
which under the ancient rule opulently furnished forth a living to
two[2] English gentlemen of rank with befitting households, now barely
supported two miserable Saxon cultivators, slaves of the soil, paying
their foreign lords, with the blood of their hands and the sweat of
their brows, scarcely the twelfth part of the revenue drawn from them
by the old proprietors.
[1] Omnia sunt wasta. Modo omnino wasta. Ex maxima parte
wasta.--_Doomsday Book_, vol. i. fol. 309.
[2] Duo Taini tenueri. ibi sunt ii villani cum I carruca.
valuit xl solidos. modo ilii sol.--_Ibid._ vol. i. fol.
845.
When, in a subsequent insurrection, the Norman king again marched
northward, in full resolve to carry his conquering arms to the
frontiers of Scotland, and, sustained by his ferocious energy, did
actually force his way through the misty moorlands and mountainous
mid-regions of Durham, Northumberland, and Westmoreland, he had to
traverse about sixty miles of country, once not the least fertile of
his newly-conquered realm, in which his mail-clad men-at-arms saw
neither green leaves on the trees, nor green crops in the field; for
the ax and the torch had done their work, not negligently; passed
neither standing roof nor burning hearth; encountered neither human
being nor cattle of the field; only the wolves, which had become so
numerous from desuetude to the sight of man, that they scarce cared to
fly before the clash and clang of the marching squadrons.
To the northward and north-westward, yet, of Yorkshire, including what
are now Lancashire, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Cumberland,
though the Conqueror, in his first irresistible prosecution of
red-handed victory, had marched and countermarched across them, there
was, even at the time of my narrative, when nearly a century had fled,
little if any thing of permanent progress or civilization, beyond the
establishment of a few feudal holds and border fortresses, each with
its petty hamlet clustered beneath its shelter. The marches, indeed,
of Lancashire, toward its southern extremity, were in some degree
permanently settled by military colonists, in not a few instances
composed of Flemings, as were the Welch frontiers of the neighboring
province of Cheshire, planted there to check the inroads of the still
unconquered Cymri, to the protection of whose mountains, and
late-preserved independence, their whilom enemies, the now persecuted
Saxons, had fled in their extremity.
It is from these industrious artisans, then the scorn of the high-born
men-at-arms, that the trade had its origin, which has filled the bleak
moors, and every torrent gorge of Lancaster and Western York, with a
teeming population and a manufacturing opulence, such as, elsewhere,
the wide earth has not witnessed. Even at the time of which I write,
the clack of their fulling-mills, the click of their looms, and the
din of their trip-hammers, resounded by the side of many a lonely
Cheshire stream; but all to the north and westward, where the wildest
hillsides and most forbidding glens are now more populous and richer
than the greatest cities of those days, all was desolate as the aspect
of the scenery, and inhospitable as the climate that lowers over it in
constant mist and darkness.
Only in the south-western corner of Westmoreland, the lovely land of
lakes and mountains and green pastoral glens, beyond Morecambe Bay and
the treacherous sands of Lancaster, had the Norman nobles, as the
entering tide swept upward through the romantic glens and ghylls of
Netherdale and Wharfedale, past the dim peaks of Pennigant and
Ingleborough, established their lines in those pleasant places, and
reared their castellated towers, and laid out their noble chases,
where they had little interruption to apprehend from the tyrannic
forest laws of the Norman kings, which, wherever their authority
extended, bore not more harshly on the Saxon serf than on the Norman
noble.
To return, however, toward the midland counties, and the rich regions
with which this brief survey of Northern England in the early years of
the twelfth century commenced--a vast tract of country, including much
of the northern portions of Nottingham and Derbyshire, and all the
south of the West Riding of York, between the rivers Trent and Eyre,
was occupied almost exclusively by that most beautiful and famous of
all British forests, the immemorial and time-honored Sherwood--theme
of the oldest and most popular of English ballads--scene of the most
stirring of the old Romaunts--scene of the most magnificent of modern
novels, incomparable Ivanhoe--home of that half historic personage,
King of the Saxon greenwoods, Robin Hood, with all his northern
merry-men, Scathelock, and Friar Tuck, and Little John, Allen-a-Dale,
wild forest minstrel, and the blythe woodland queen, Maid Marion--last
leafy fortalice, wherein, throughout all England proper, lingered the
sole remains of Saxon hardihood and independence--red battle-field of
the unsparing conflicts of the rival Roses.
There stand they still, those proud, majestic kings of bygone ages;
there stand they still, the
"Hallowed oaks,
Who, British-born, the last of British race,
Hold their primeval rights by nature's charter,
Not at the nod of Cæsar;"
there stand they still, erect, earth-fast, and massive, grasping the
green-sward with their gnarled and knotty roots, waving "their free
heads in the liberal air," full of dark, leafy umbrage clothing their
lower limbs; but far aloft, towering with bare, stag-horned, and
splintered branches toward the unchanged sky from which so many
centuries of sunshine have smiled down, of tempest frowned upon their
"secular life of ages."
There stand they, still, I say; alone, or scattered here and there, or
in dark, stately groups, adorning many a noble park of modern days, or
looming up in solemn melancholy upon some "one-tree hill," throughout
the fertile region which lies along the line of that great ancient
road, known in the Saxon days as Ermine-street, but now, in common
parlance, called "the Dukeries," from seven contiguous domains,
through which it sweeps, of England's long-lined nobles.
Not now, as then, embracing in its green bosom sparse tracts of
cultivated lands, with a few borough-towns, and a few feudal keeps, or
hierarchal abbayes, but itself severed into divers and far-distant
parcels, embosomed in broad stretches of the deepest meadows, the most
teeming pastures, or girded on its swelling, insulated knolls by the
most fertile corn-lands, survives the ancient Sherwood.
Watered by the noblest and most beautiful of northern rivers, the calm
and meadowy Trent, the sweet sylvan Idle, the angler's favorite,
fairy-haunted Dee, the silver Eyre, mountainous Wharfe, and pastoral
Ure and Swale; if I were called upon to name the very garden-gem of
England, I know none that compares with this seat of the old-time
Saxon forest.
You can not now travel a mile through that midland region of plenty
and prosperity without hearing the merry chime of village bells from
many a country spire, without passing the happy doors of hundreds of
low cottage homes, hundreds of pleasant hamlets courting the mellow
sunshine from some laughing knoll, or nestling in the shrubberies of
some orchard-mantled hollow.
Nor are large, prosperous, and thriving towns, rich marts of
agricultural produce, or manufactures of wealth richer than gold of El
Dorado, so far apart but that a good pedestrian may travel through the
streets of a half a dozen in a day's journey, and yet stand twenty
times agaze between their busy precincts in admiration--to borrow the
words of the great northern Romancer, with the scene and period of
whose most splendid effort my humble tale unfortunately coincides--in
admiration of the "hundreds of broad-headed, short-stemmed,
wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed, perhaps, the stately march of
the Roman soldiers."
And here, let none imagine these to be mere exaggerations, sprung from
the overflowing brain of the Romancer, for, not fifty miles distant
from the scene described above, there is yet to be seen a venerable
patriarch of Sherwood, which boasted still, within a few short years,
some garlands of surviving green--the oak of Cowthorpe--probably the
largest in the island; which is to this day the boundary corner of
two marching properties, and has been such since it was constituted
so in Doomsday Book, wherein it was styled _quercum ingentem_, the
gigantic oak.
Since the writing of those words eight centuries have passed, and
there are many reasons for believing that those centuries have added
not an inch to its circumference, but rather detracted from its vigor
and its growth; and, to me, it seems far more probable that it was a
full-grown tree, with all its leafy honors rife upon it, when the
first Cæsar plunged, waist-deep, into the surges of the British
Channel from the first Roman prow, than that it should have sprung up,
like the gourd of a Jonah, in a single night, to endure a thousand
years' decay without entirely perishing.
In those days, however, a man might ride from "eve to morn, from morn
to dewy eve," and hear no sound more human than the deep "belling" of
the red deer, if it chanced to be in the balmy month of June; the
angry grunt of the tusky boar, startled from his mud-bath in some
black morass; or, it may be, the tremendous rush of the snow-white,
black-maned bull, crashing his way through shivered saplings and rent
under-brush, mixed with the hoarse cooings of the cushat dove, the
rich song-gushes of the merle and mavis, or the laughing scream of the
green woodpecker.
Happy, if in riding all day in the green leafy twilight, which never,
at high noon, admitted one clear ray of daylight, and, long before the
sun was down, degenerated into murky gloom, he saw no sights more
fearful than the rabbits glancing across the path, and disappearing in
the thickets; or the slim doe, daintily picking her way among the
heather, with her speckled fawns frolicking around her. Thrice happy,
if, as night was falling, cold and gray, the tinkling of some lonely
chapel bell might give him note where some true anchorite would share
his bed of fern, and meal of pulse and water, or jolly clerk of
Copmanhurst would broach the pipe of Malvoisie, bring pasties of the
doe, to greet the belated wayfarer.
Such was the period, such the region, when, on a glorious July
morning, so early that the sun had not yet risen high enough to throw
one sweeping yellow ray over the carpet of thick greensward between
the long aisles of the forest, or checker it with one cool
shadow--while the dew still hung in diamonds on every blade of grass,
on every leaf of bush or brackens; while the light blue mists were
still rising, thinner and thinner as they soared into the clear air,
from many a woodland pool or sleepy streamlet--two men, of the ancient
Saxon race, sat watching, as if with some eager expectation, on a low,
rounded, grassy slope, the outpost, as it seemed, of a chain of gentle
hills, running down eastward to the beautiful brimful Idle.
Around the knoll on which they sat, covered by the short mossy turf,
and over-canopied by a dozen oaks, such as they have been described,
most of them leafy and in their prime, but two or three showing above
their foliage the gray stag-horns of age, the river, clear as glass,
and bright as silver, swept in a semicircle, fringed with a belt of
deep green rushes and broad-leaved water-lilies, among which two or
three noble swans--so quietly sat the watchers on the hill--were
leading forth their little dark-gray black-legged cygnets, to feed on
the aquatic flies and insects, which dimpled the tranquil river like a
falling shower. Across the stream was thrown a two-arched freestone
bridge, high-backed and narrow, and half covered with dense ivy, the
work, evidently, of the Roman conquerors of the island, from which a
yellow, sandy road wound deviously upward, skirting the foot of the
rounded hill, and showing itself in two or three ascending curves, at
long intervals, above the tree-tops, till it was lost in the distant
forest; while, far away to the eastward, the topmost turret of what
seemed a tall Norman keep, with a square banner drooping from its
staff in the breezeless air, towering above the dim-wood distance,
indicated whither it led so indirectly.
In the rear of the slope or knoll, so often mentioned, was a deep
tangled dell, or dingle, filled with a thickset growth of holly,
birch, and alder, with here a feathery juniper, and there a graceful
fern bush; and behind this arose a higher ridge, clothed with tall,
thrifty oaks and beeches, of the second growth, and cutting off in
that direction all view beyond its own near horizon.
It was not in this direction, however, nor up the road toward the
remote castle, nor down across the bridge over the silver Idle, that
the watchers turned their eager eyes, expecting the more eagerly, as,
at times, the distant woods before them--lying beyond a long stretch
of native savanna, made probably by the beaver, while that industrious
animal yet figured in the British fauna--seemed to mourn and labor
with a deep, indefinite murmuring sound, half musical, half solemn,
but liker to an echo than to any known utterance of any living human
being. It was too varied for the noise of falling waters, too
modulated for the wind harp of the west, which was sighing fitfully
among the branches. Eagerly they watched, with a wild look of almost
painful expectation in their keen, light-blue eyes, resembling in no
respect the lively glance with which the jovial hunter awaits his
gallant quarry; there was something that spoke of apprehension in the
haggard eye--perhaps the fear of ill-performing an unwilling duty.
And if it were so, it was not unnatural; not at that day, alas!
uncommon; for dress, air, aspect, and demeanor, all told them at first
sight, to be of that most wretched, if not most abject class, the
Saxon serfs of England. They were both clad alike, in short, close-cut
frocks, or tunics, of tanned leather, gathered about their waists with
broad buff belts, fastened with brazen buckles, in each of which stuck
a long buckhorn-hafted two-edged Sheffield whittle; both were
bare-headed, both shod with heavy-clouted shoes, and both wore,
soldered about their necks, broad brazen dog-collars, having the brand
of their condition, with their own names and qualities, and that and
the condition of their master.
Here, however, ended the direct resemblance, even of their garb; for,
while the taller and better formed man of the two, who was also
somewhat the darker haired and finer featured, wore a species of rude
leather gauntlets, with buskins of the same material, reaching as high
as the binding of the frock, the other man was bare-armed and
bare-legged also, with the exception of an inartificial covering of
thongs of boar-hide, plaited from the ankle to the knee upward. The
latter also carried no weapon but a long quarter-staff, though he held
a brace of noble snow-white alans--the wire-haired grayhounds of the
day--in a leash of twisted buckskin; while his brother--for so strong
was their personal resemblance, that their kinship could scarcely be
doubted--carried a short, steel-headed javelin in his hand, and had
beside him, unrestrained, a large coarser hound, of a deep brindled
gray color, with clear, hazel eyes; and what was strange to say, in
view of the condition of this man, unmaimed, according to the cruel
forest code of the Norman kings.
This difference in the apparel, and, it may be added, in the neatness,
well-being, and general superior bearing of him who was the better
armed, might perhaps be explained by a glance at the engraving on the
respective collars. For while that of the one, and he the better clad
and better looking, bore that he was "Kenric the Dark, thral of the
land to Philip de Morville," that of the other stamped him "Eadwulf
the Red, gros thral" of the same Norman lord.
Both Saxon serfs of the mixed Northern race, which, largely intermixed
with Danish blood, produced a nobler, larger-limbed, loftier, and more
athletic race than the pure Saxons of the southern counties--they had
fallen, with the properties of the Saxon thane, to whom they had
belonged in common, into the hands of the foreign conqueror. Yet
Kenric was of that higher class--for there were classes even among
these miserable beings--which could not be sold, nor parted from the
soil on which they were born, but at their own option; while Eadwulf,
although his own twin-brother, for some cause into which it were
needless to inquire, could be sold at any time, or to any person, or
even swapped for an animal, or gambled away at the slightest caprice
of his owner.
To this may be added, that, probably from caprice, or perhaps from
some predilection for his personal appearance and motions, which were
commanding, and even graceful, or for his bearing, which was evidently
less churlish than that of his countrymen in general, his master had
distinguished him in some respects from the other serfs of the soil;
and, without actually raising him to any of the higher offices
reserved to the Normans, among whom the very servitors claimed to be,
and indeed were, gentlemen, had employed him in subordinate stations
under his huntsman, and intrusted him so far as occasionally to permit
his carrying arms into the field.
With him, as probably is the case in most things, the action produced
reaction; and what had been the effect of causes, came in time to be
the cause of effects. Some real or supposed advantages procured for
him the exceeding small dignity of some poor half-conceded rights; and
those rights, the effect of perhaps an imaginary superiority, soon
became the causes of something more real--of a sentiment of half
independence, a desire of achieving perfect liberty.
In this it was that he excelled his brother; but we must not
anticipate. What were the characters of the men, and from their
characters what events grew, and what fates followed, it is for the
reader of these pages to decipher.
After our men had tarried where we found them, waiting till
expectation should grow into certainty for above half an hour, and the
morning had become clear and sunny, the distant indescribable sound,
heard indistinctly in the woods, ripened into that singularly
modulated, all sweet, but half-discordant crash, which the practiced
ear is not slow to recognize as the cry of a large pack of hounds,
running hard on a hot scent in high timber.
Anon the notes of individual hounds could be distinguished; now the
sharp, savage treble of some fleet brach, now the deep bass of some
southron talbot, rising above or falling far below the diapason of the
pack--and now, shrill and clear, the long, keen flourish of a Norman
bugle.
At the last signal, Kenric rose silently but quickly to his feet,
while his dog, though evidently excited by the approaching rally of
the chase, remained steady at his couchant position, expectant of his
master's words. The snow-white alans, on the contrary, fretted, and
strained, and whimpered, fighting against their leashes, while Eadwulf
sat still, stubborn or stupid, and animated by no ambition, by no
hope, perhaps scarce even by a fear.
But, as the chase drew nigher, "Up, Eadwulf!" cried his brother,
quickly, "up, and away. Thou'lt have to stretch thy legs, even now, to
reach the four lane ends, where the relays must be, when the stag
crosses. Up, man, I say! Is this the newer spirit you spoke of but
now? this the way you would earn largess whereby to win your freedom?
Out upon it! that I should say so of my own brother, but thou'lt win
nothing but the shackles, if not the thong. Away! lest my words prove
troth."
Eadwulf the Red arose with a scowl, but without a word, shook himself
like a water-spaniel, and set off at a dogged swinging trot, the
beautiful high-bred dogs bounding before his steps like winged
creatures, and struggling with the leashes that debarred their perfect
freedom--the man degraded, by the consciousness of misery and
servitude, into the type of a soulless brute--the brutes elevated, by
high breeding, high cultivation, and high treatment, almost into the
similitude of intellectual beings.
Kenric looked after him, as he departed, with a troubled eye, and
shook his head, as he lost sight of him among the trees in the
fore-ground. "Alack!" he said, "for Eadwulf, my brother! He waxes
worse, not better." But, as he spoke, a nearer crash of the hounds'
music came pealing through the tree-tops, and with a stealthy step he
crossed over the summit to the rear of the hillock, where he concealed
himself behind the boll of a stupendous oak, making his grayhound lie
down in tall fern beside him.
The approaching hounds came to a sudden fault, and silence, deep as
that of haunted midnight, fell on the solitary place.