THE NORMAN LORDS.
"Oh! it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous
To use it like a giant."
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
High up in a green, gentle valley, a lap among the hills, which,
though not very lofty, were steep and abrupt with limestone crags and
ledges, heaving themselves above the soil on their upper slopes and
summits, perched on a small isolated knoll, or hillock, so regular in
form, and so evenly scarped and rounded, that it bore the appearance
of an artificial work, stood the tall Norman fortalice of Philip de
Morville.
It was not a very large building, consisting principally of a single
lofty square keep, with four lozenge-shaped turrets at the angles,
attached to the body of the place, merlonwise, as it is termed in
heraldry, or corner to corner, rising some twenty feet or more above
the flat roof of the tower, which was surrounded with heavy projecting
battlements widely overhanging the base, and pierced with crenelles
for archery, and deep machicolations, by which to pour down boiling
oil, or molten lead, upon any who should attempt the walls.
In the upper stories only, of this strong place, were there any
windows, such as deserved the name, beyond mere loops and arrowslits;
but there, far above the reach of any scaling-ladder, they looked out,
tall and shapely, glimmering in the summer sunshine, in the rich and
gorgeous hues of the stained glass--at that time the most recent and
costly of foreign luxuries, opening on a projecting gallery, or
bartizan, of curiously-carved stonework, which ran round all the four
sides of the building, and rendered the dwelling apartments of the
castellan and his family both lightsome and commodious. One of the
tall turrets, which have been described, contained the winding
staircase, which gave access to the halls and guard-rooms which
occupied all the lower floors, and to the battlements above, while
each of the others contained sleeping-chambers of narrow dimensions,
on each story, opening into the larger apartments.
This keep, with the exception of the tall battlemented flanking walls,
with their esplanades and turrets, and advanced barbican or
gate-house, was the only genuine Norman portion of the castle, and
occupied the very summit of the knoll; but below it, and for the most
part concealed and covered by the ramparts on which it abutted, was a
long, low, roomy stone building, which had been in old times the
mansion of the Saxon thane, who had occupied the rich and fertile
lands of that upland vale, in the happy days before the advent of the
fierce and daring Normans, to whom he had lost both life and lands,
and left an empty name alone to the inheritance, which was not to
descend to any of his race or lineage.
Below the walls, which encircled the hillock about midway between the
base and summit, except at one spot, where the gate-house was thrust
forward to the brink of a large and rapid brook, which had been made
by artificial means completely to encircle the little hill, the slopes
were entirely bare of trees or underwood, every thing that could
possibly cover the advances of an enemy being carefully cut down or
uprooted, and were clothed only by a dense carpet of short, thick
greensward, broidered with daisies pied, and silver lady's smocks; but
beyond the rivulet, covering all the bottom of the valley with rich
and verdant shade, were pleasant orchards and coppices, among which
peeped out the thatched roofs and mud walls of the little village,
inhabited by the few free laborers, and the more numerous thralls and
land-serfs, who cultivated the demesnes of the foreign noble, who
possessed them by right of the sword.
Through this pleasant little hamlet, the yellow road, which led up to
the castle, wound devious, passing in its course by an open green, on
which half a dozen sheep and two or three asses were feeding on the
short herbage, with a small Saxon chapel, distinguished by its low,
round, wolf-toothed arch and belfry, on the farther side; and, in
singular proximity to the sacred edifice, a small space, inclosed by a
palisade, containing a gallows, a whipping-post, and a pair of
stocks--sad monuments of Saxon slavery, and Norman tyranny and wrong.
In one of the upper chambers of the feudal keep, a small square room,
with a vaulted roof, springing from four clustered columns in the
corners, with four groined ribs, meeting in the middle, from which
descended a long, curiously-carved pendant of stone, terminating in a
gilt iron candelabrum of several branches, two men were seated at a
board, on which, though the solid viands of the mid-day meal had been
removed, there were displayed several silver dishes, with wastel
bread, dried fruits, and light confections, as well as two or three
tall, graceful flasks of the light fragrant wines of Gascony and
Anjou, and several cups and tankards of richly-chased and gilded
metal, intermixed with several large-bowled and thin-stemmed goblets
of purple and ruby-colored glass.
The room was a very pleasant one, lighted by two tall windows, on two
different sides, which stood wide open, admitting the soft, balmy,
summer air, and the fresh smell of the neighboring greenwoods, the
breezy voice of which came gently in, whispering through the casement.
The walls were hung with tapestries of embossed and gilded Spanish
leather, adorned with spirited figures of Arab skirmishers and
Christian chivalry, engaged in the stirring game of warfare; while, no
unfit decoration for a wall so covered, two or three fine suits of
chain and plate armor, burnished so brightly that they shone like
silver, with their emblazoned shields and appropriate weapons, stood,
like armed knights on constant duty, in canopied niches, framed
especially to receive them.
Varlets, pages, and attendants, had all withdrawn; and the two Norman
barons sat alone, sipping their wine in silence, and apparently
reflecting on some subject which they found it difficult to approach
without offense or embarrassment. At last, the younger of the two, Sir
Philip de Morville, after drawing his open hand across his fair, broad
forehead, as if he would have swept away some cloud which gloomed over
his mind, and drinking off a deep goblet of wine, opened the
conversation with evident confusion and reluctance.
"Well, well," he said, "it must out, Sir Yvo, and though it is not
very grateful to speak of such things, I must needs do so, lest I
appear to you uncourtly and ungracious, in hesitating to do to you,
mine own most tried and trusty friend, to whom I owe no less than my
own life, so small a favor as the granting liberty to one poor devil
of a Saxon. I told you I would do it, if I might; yet, by my father's
soul, I know not how to do it!"
"Where is the rub, my friend?" replied the other, kindly. "I doubt
not, if we put both our heads together, we can accomplish even a
greater thing than making a free English yeoman of a Saxon thrall."
"I never was rich, as you well know, De Taillebois; but at the time of
the king's late incursion into Wales, when I was summoned to lead out
my power, I had no choice but to mortgage this my fortalice, with its
demesne of Waltheofstow, and all its plenishing and stock, castle and
thralls, and crops and fisheries, to Abraham of Tadcaster, for
nineteen thousand zecchins, to buy their outfitting, horses, and
armor; and this prohibits me from manumitting this man, Kenric,
although I would do so right willingly, not for that it would pleasure
you only, but that he is a faithful and an honest fellow for a thrall,
and right handy, both with arbalast and longbow. I know not well how
to accomplish it."
"Easily, easily, Philip," answered Sir Yvo, laughing. "Never shall it
be said that nineteen thousand zecchins stood between Yvo de
Taillebois and his gratitude; besides, this will shoot double game
with a single arrow. It will relieve our trusty Kenric from the actual
bondage of a corporeal lord and master, and liberate my right good
friend and brother in arms, Philip de Morville, from the more galling
spiritual bondage of that foul tyrant and perilous oppressor, debt.
Tush! no denial, I say," he continued, perceiving that Sir Philip was
about to make some demur; "it is a mere trifle, this, and a matter of
no moment. I am, as you well know, passing rich, what with my rents in
Westmoreland, and my estates beyond the sea. I have even now well-nigh
twice the sum that you name, lying idle in my bailiff's hands at
Kendall, until I may find lands to purchase. It was my intent to have
bought those border lands of Clifford's, that march with my moorlands
on Hawkshead, but it seems he will not sell, and I am doubly glad that
it gives me the occasion to serve you. I will direct my bailiff at
once to take horse for Tadcaster and redeem your mortgage, and you can
take your own time and pleasure to repay it. There is no risk, Heaven
knows, for Waltheofstow is well worth nineteen thousand zecchins three
times told, and, in lieu of usance money, you shall transfer the man
Kenric from thee and thine to me and mine, forever. So shall my
gratitude be preserved intact, and my pretty Guendolen have her fond
fancy gratified."
"Be it so, then, in God's name; and by my faith I thank you for the
loan right heartily; for, on mine honor! that same blood-sucker of
Israel hath pumped me like the veriest horse-leech, these last twelve
months, and I know not but I should have had to sell, after all. We
must have Kenric's consent, however, that all may be in form; for he
is no common thrall, but a serf of the soil, and may not be removed
from it, nor manumitted even, save with his own free will."
"Who ever heard of a serf refusing to be free, more than of a Jew not
loving ducats? My life on it, he will not be slow to consent!"
"I trow not, I trow not, De Taillebois, but let us set about it
presently; a good deed can not well be done too quickly. You pass the
wine cup, too, I notice. Let us take cap and cloak, and stroll down
into the hamlet yonder; it is a pleasant ramble in the cool afternoon,
and we can see him in his den; he will be scant of wind, I trow, and
little fit to climb the castle hill this evensong, after the battering
he received from that stout forester. But freedom will be a royal
salve, I warrant me, for his worst bruises. Shall we go?"
"Willingly, willingly. I would have it to tell Guendolen at her
wakening. 'T will be a cure to her also. She is a tender-hearted child
ever, and was so from her cradle. Why, I have known her cry like the
lady Niobe, that the prior of St. Albans told us of--who wept till she
was changed into a chipping fountain, when blessed St. Michael and St.
George slew all her tribe of children, for that she likened herself,
in her vain pride of beauty, to the most holy virgin mother, St. Mary
of Sienna--at the killing of a deer by a stray shaft, that had a
suckling fawn beside her foot; and when I caused them to imprison
Wufgitha, that was her nurse's daughter, for selling of a hundred
pounds of flax that was given her to spin, she took sick, and kept to
her bed two days and more, all for that she fancied the wench would
pine; though her prison-house was the airiest and most lightsome
turret chamber in my house at Kendal, and she was not in gyves nor on
prison diet. Faith! I had no peace with her, till I gave the whole
guidance of the women into her hands. They are all ladies since that
day at Kendal, or next akin to it."
"Over god's forbode!" answered Philip, laughing. "It must have been a
black day for your seneschal. How rules he your warders, since? My
fellow, Hundibert, swears that the girls need more watching than the
laziest swine in the whole Saxon herd. But come; let us be moving."
With that they descended the winding stone stairway into the great
hall or guard-room, which occupied the whole of one floor of the
castle--a noble vaulted room, stone-arched and stone-paved, its walls
hung with splendid arms and well-used weapons,
"Old swords, and pikes, and bows,
And good old shields, and targets, that had borne some stout old
blows."
Thence, through an echoing archway, above which in its grooves of
stone hung the steel-clinched portcullis, and down a steep and almost
precipitous flight of steps, without any rail or breastwork, they
reached the large court-yard, where some of the retainers were engaged
in trying feats of strength and skill, throwing the hammer, wrestling,
or shooting with arbalasts at a mark, while others were playing at
games of chance in a cool shadowy angle of the walls, moistening their
occupation with an occasional pull at a deep, black tankard, which
stood beside them on the board.
After tarrying a few minutes in the court, observing the wrestlers and
cross-bowmen, and throwing in an occasional word of good-humored
encouragement at any good shot or happy fall, the lords passed the
drawbridge, which was lowered, giving access to the pleasant country,
over which the warder was gazing half-wistfully, and watching a group
of pretty girls, who were washing clothes in the brook at about half a
mile's distance, laughing as merrily and singing as tunefully as
though they had been free maidens of gentle Norman lineage, instead of
contemned and outlawed Saxons, the children, and the wives and mothers
of slaves and bond-men in the to be hereafter.
"Hollo! old Stephen," cried the Knight of Morville, gayly, as he
passed the stout dependent; "I thought thou wert too resolute a
bachelor to cast a sheep's-eye on the lasses, and too thorough-paced a
Norman to let the prettiest Saxon of them all find favor in your
sight."
"I don't know, sir; I don't know that," answered the man, with a grin,
half-bashfully, and between bantering and earnest. "There's little
Edith down yonder; and, bond or free, there's not a girl about the
castle, or within ten miles of it, for that matter, that has got an
eye to come near those blue sparklers of her's; and as for her voice,
when she's singing, it would wile the birds out of heaven, let alone
the wits of a poor soldier's brain-pan. Hark to her now, Sir Philip.
Sang ever nightingale so sweetly as yon trill, Sir Knight?"
"Win her, Stephen. Win her, I'll grant you my permission, for your
paramour; and if you do, I'll give her to you for your own. I owe you
a boon of some sort, for that service you did me when you knocked that
Welch churl on the head, who would have driven his long knife into my
ribs, that time I was dismounted in the pass near Dunmailraise. Win
her, therefore, if you may, Stephen, and yours she shall be, as surely
and as steadfastly as though she were the captive of your spear."
"Small chance, Sir Philip," replied the man, slowly; "all thanks to
you, natheless. But she's troth-plighted to that tall, well-made
fellow, Kenric, they say, that saved the lady Guendolen from the stag
this morning. They'll be asking your consent to the wedding and the
bedding, one of these days, Beausire. To-morrow, as like as not,
seeing this feat of the good youth's will furnish forth a sort of plea
for the asking of a favor."
"That will not much concern you, warder," said Sir Yvo. "Your rival
will be out of your way shortly. I have asked his freedom but now of
Sir Philip, and shall have him away with me the next week, to the
North country."
"I don't know that will do me much good. They say she loves him
parlously, and he her; and she ever looks coldly on me."
"A little perseverance is a certain remedy for cold looks, Stephen.
So, don't be down-hearted. You will have a clear field soon."
"I am not so sure of that, sir. I should not wonder if he refused to
go."
"Refused to go--to be free--to be his own master, and a thrall and
slave no longer!"
"Who can tell, sir?" answered the man. "Saxon or Norman, bond or free,
we're all men, after all; and women have made fools of us all, since
the days of Sir Adam in Paradise, and will, I fancy, to the end of all
time. I'd do and suffer a good deal myself to win such a look out of
Edith's blue eyes, as I saw her give yon Saxon churl, when he came to
after we had thrown cold water on him. And, after all, if Sir
Hercules, of Greece, made a slave of himself, and a she-slave, too, as
that wandering minstrel sang to us in the hall the other day, all to
win the love of the beautiful Sultana, Omphale, I don't see, for
myself, why a Saxon serf, that's been a serf all his life, and got
pretty well used to it by this time, shouldn't stay a serf all the
rest of it, to keep the love of Edith, who is prettier a precious
sight than the fair Turk, Omphale, I'll warrant. I don't know but what
I would myself."
"Pshaw! Stephen; that smacks Norman--smacks of the _gai science_,
chivalry, sentiment, and fine high romance. You'll never see a Saxon
sing 'all for love,' I'll warrant you."
"Well, sir, well. We shall see. A Saxon's a man, as I said before; and
a Saxon in love is a man in love; and a man in love isn't a man in his
senses any more than Sir Hercules of Greece was, and when a Saxon's in
love, and out of his senses, there's no saying what he'll do; only one
may guess it will be nothing over wise. And so, as I said before, I
should not wonder if Kenric should not part with collar, thong, and
shackles, if he must needs part too with little Edith the Fair. I
would not, any wise, if I were he, Beausire."