THE SUPPLIANT.
Brother, be now true to me,
And I shall be as true to thee;
As wise God me speed.
AMYS AND AMYLLION.
The year had by this time worn onward to the last days of summer, or
one might almost say to the earliest days of autumn, and the lovely
scenery of the lake country had begun to assume its most beautiful and
picturesque coloring.
For in the early summer months the hues of the whole region are too
generally green, without any variation except that produced by the
effect of sunshine and shadow. The sides of the turf-covered
mountains, the birch and oak coppices on their lower slopes, the deep
meadows, at their base, are all overspread with the richest and most
intense verdure; even the reflections in the bosom of the clear lakes
preserve the same general tints, diversified only by the cerulean blue
caught from the deep overhanging heavens, and the not dissimilar hue
of the craggy summits of the loftier hilltops, where the slaty
character of the rocks, partly impregnated with iron, partly incrusted
with gray lichens, "overspread in many places," to quote the words of
a fine writer and true lover of nature, "the steep and almost
precipitous sides of the mountains, with an intermixture of colors
like the compound hues of a dove's neck."
"When, in the heat of advancing summer," he proceeds thereafter, "the
fresh green tint of the herbage has somewhat faded, it is again
revived by the appearance of the fern profusely spread every where;
and upon this plant, more than upon any thing else, do the changes,
which the seasons make in the coloring of the mountains depend. About
the first week in October, the rich green, which prevailed through the
whole summer, has usually passed away. The brilliant and various
colors of the fern are then in harmony with the autumnal woods; bright
yellow, or lemon color, at the base of the mountains, melting
gradually, through orange, to a dark russet brown toward the summits,
where the plant, being more exposed to the weather, is in a more
advanced state of decay. Neither heath nor furze are generally found
upon the sides of the mountains, though in some places they are richly
adorned by them. We may add, that the mountains are of height
sufficient to have the surface toward the summits softened by
distance, and to imbibe the finest aërial hues. In common also with
other mountains, their apparent forms and colors are perpetually
changed by the clouds and vapors which float round them; the effect
indeed of mist or haze, in a country of this character, is like that
of magic. I have seen six or seven ridges rising above each other, all
created, in a moment, by the vapors upon the side of a mountain,
which, in its ordinary appearance, showed not a projecting point to
furnish even a hint for such an operation.
"I will take this opportunity of observing, that they who have studied
the appearances of nature feel that the superiority, in point of
visual interest, of mountainous over other countries, is more
strikingly displayed in winter than in summer. This, as must be
obvious, is partly owing to the forms of the mountains, which, of
course, are not affected by the seasons, but also, in no small degree,
to the greater variety that exists in their winter than their summer
coloring. This variety is such, and so harmoniously preserved, that it
leaves little cause of regret when the splendor of the season has
passed away. The oak coppices, upon the sides of the mountains, retain
russet leaves; the birch stands conspicuous with its silver stems and
puce-colored twigs; the hollies, with green leaves and scarlet
berries, have come forth into view from among the deciduous trees,
whose summer foliage had concealed them; the ivy is now plentifully
apparent upon the stems and boughs of the trees, and among the wooded
rocks. In place of the uniform summer-green of the herbage and fern,
many rich colors play into each other over the surface of the
mountains; turf, the tints of which are interchangeably tawny-green,
olive, and brown, beds of withered fern and gray rocks being
harmoniously blended together. The mosses and lichens are never so
flourishing as in winter, if it be not a season of frost; and their
minute beauties prodigally adorn the foreground. Wherever we turn, we
find these productions of nature, to which winter is rather favorable
than unkindly, scattered over the walls, banks of earth, rocks and
stones, and upon the trunks of trees, with the intermixture of several
species of small fern, now green and fresh; and, to the observing
passenger, their forms and colors are a source of inexhaustible
admiration."--WORDSWORTH.
Thus far have I quoted the accurate and simple language of the great
Poet of the Lakes, since, none other that I can choose would place
before the eyes of my readers so vivid a reality of the scenery of
that loveliest portion of picturesque England, in its finest aspect.
It was not, indeed, quite so deep in the season, that all the changes
so beautifully depicted above had yet occurred, when, late in a clear
autumnal evening, Kenric and Edith stood together in the porch of
their new home, gazing across the tranquil bosom of the little mere,
and down the pastoral valley of the Kent, yet the face of the picture
was close to that described in the quotations. The trees, in the level
ground and in the lower valleys, had not lost all their verdure,
though the golden, the russet, and the ruddy-red, had intermingled
largely with the green; the meadows, by the water-edge, had not
changed a tint, a shade of their summer glory, but all the hill-sides
were as they stand painted by the poet-pen of the child of Nature.
The sun was setting far away, to the right hand, as they gazed down
the long dale to the southward, behind the mighty tops of Hawkshead
and Blackcomb, which towered against the gorgeous golden-sky, flecked
with a thousand glowing cloudlets, orange and rosy-red, and glaring
crimson, like a huge perpendicular wall of dusky purple; with the long
basin of Windermere, visible from that elevation over the lower
intervening ridges, lying along their bases as it seemed, though in
truth many miles distant, a sheet of beaten-gold. The lower hills, to
the west of Kentmere, downward to Bowness, whose chapel-window gleamed
like fire in the distance, were shrouded in soft purple haze, and
threw long blue shadows across the rich vale, broken by the slant
golden beams which streamed through the gaps in their summits, in
far-reaching pencils of misty light. At the same time, the little lake
of Kentmere lay at the feet of the spectators, still, clear, and
transparent as an artificial mirror, giving back a counterfeit
presentment of every thing around and above it, only less real than
the actual reality; while toward the precipitous and craggy hills,
behind them and on their left, the westering sun sent forth such
floods of rosy and golden light as illuminated all their projections
and cavities, bringing them, with all their accidents of crag or
coppice, ivy-bush or silvery birch-tree, close to the eye of the
beholder, blended with an intermixture of solemn shadows, seen
distinctly through the clear atmosphere.
Over this scene the happy couple gazed with such feelings as none can
gaze, but they who are good and happy. The sleepy hum of the good
mother's wheel came drowsily through the open doorway; the distant
laugh and cry of the hunter's boys, as they were clearing the kennels
and feeding the hounds for the night, with an occasional bay or
whimper of their impatient charges, rose pleasantly on the night air.
Most of the natural sounds and sights had ceased; the songs of the
birds were silent, for the nightingales visit not those valleys of the
west; the bleat of the flocks was heard no more; the lowing of the
herds had passed homeward; only a few late swallows skimmed the bosom
of the mere, which a leaping trout would break, now and then, with a
loud plash, into a silvery maze of circling dimples; and the jarring
note of the nighthawk, as his swift wing glanced under the brown
shadows of the oak, in chase of the great evening moths, was heard in
the gloaming; and the pinions of the great golden-eagle hung like a
shadow, leagues up in the burning sky.
Perfect contentment was the breathing spirit of the calm and gentle
scene, with something of that heavenly peace which induced the friend
of Izaak Walton to apostrophize the Sabbath, as
"Sweet day, so calm, so pure, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;"
and perfect were the contentment and peace which the adjuncts inspired
into the hearts of those, who, of late so hopeless and suffering, now
looked over the face of the fair earth, and thence upward to the
boundless sky, as who should say, "Not in one only, but in both of
these, we have our heritage."
But while they gazed, the sun sunk lower in the west, the round tops
of the vast blue mountains intercepted his lustrous disk, and heavy
twilight fell, like the shadow of a cloud, over the valley and the
steep faces of the north-eastern hills.
Just at this moment, while the girl was whispering something about
entering the house and preparing the evening-meal, she observed her
husband's eye fixed on the declivity of the hills above the lake
shore, and, following the direction of his glance, she speedily
discovered a dark figure making its way in a crouching attitude among
the stunted shrubs, and evidently avoiding, or striving to avoid,
observation.
Something between a shudder and a start seemed to shake the manly form
of Kenric for an instant; and his young wife, perceiving it as she
clung to his arm, looked up to his face for explanation.
"Something is going wrong up yonder," said the verdurer; "some
marauder after the roe-deer, I trow. I must up and after him. Give me
my bugle, Edith, my wood-knife, and my gisarme; I will take the black
alan with me; he lies under the settle, by the hearth. Fetch them,
girl."
And while she went, he stood gazing with his hawk's eye on the lurking
figure, though it was wonderful, in the distance and gloom, that he
could distinguish even the outlines of the human form. Yet it was
evident that he did distinguish something more than that, for he smote
his thigh with his hand heavily, as he muttered, "It is he, by St.
Edward the Confessor! What new disaster can have brought him hither?"
The next moment Edith stood beside him, bearing the weapons, and
accompanied by the great grizzly deer-grayhound.
"Kenric," she said, as he was leaving her, "this is something more
than mere marauders. There is danger!"
"I trust not, girl," he answered, kindly; "but if there be, I and
Black Balder here, are men enough to brunt it. But hark you, girl, get
supper over as quickly as you may, and have our mother to her chamber,
and the varlets to their quarter in the kennels; and do you sit up,
without a light, mark me, and, whatever shall fall out, be silent. I
may bring some one with me."
"I knew it," she murmured to herself, as she turned away to do his
bidding. "It is Eadwulf. What brings him hither? No good, I warrant
me."
Meanwhile Kenric scaled the crags rapidly, with the hound at his
heels, and, when he reached the spot where he had seen the figure,
halted, and whistled a bar or two of an old Saxon ballad of Sherwood.
It was answered, and from out of the brushwood Eadwulf came, cringing,
travel-soiled, weary, and disaster-stricken, to the knees almost of
his brother.
"So. This is thou, Eadwulf? I thought as much. What brings thee
hither?"
"Almost as fair cause as I find fair welcome."
"I looked for no other. Thou art a runaway, then, and pursued? Come,
speak out, man, if thou wouldst have me aid thee."
"Thou dost not seem overly glad to see me, brother."
"How should I be glad? When did thy presence ever bring joy, or aught
else than disaster and disgrace? But speak, what brings thee hither?
How hast thou escaped? Art thou pursued? What dost thou require?"
"Last asked, first answered. Rest, refuge, clothing, food, asylum.
Last Monday is a week, I _was_ pursued; pursuit has ceased, but I
misdoubt me I am tracked. By strong hand I escaped, and fleet foot----"
"By red hand?" asked Kenric.
"Ay! red, with the blood of deer!"
"And of man, Eadwulf? Nay! man, lie not to me. Dark as it is, I read
it in thy black brow and sullen eye."
"Well, then, man's blood, if you will. And now, will you yield your
own brother's life a forfeit to the man-hunter, or the hunter of
blood?"
"No," answered Kenric, sadly; "that must not be. For you _are_ my
brother. But I must know _all_, or I will do nothing. You can tell
me as we go; my home is in the valley yonder. There you can rest
to-night; to-morrow you must away to the wilderness, there to be safe,
if you may, without bringing ruin upon those who, doing all for you,
look for nothing from you but wrong and ingratitude."
"To-morrow! True brotherly affection! Right Saxon hospitality. Our
fathers would have called this _nidering_!"
"Never heed thou that. Tell me all that has passed, or thou goest not
to my house, even for this night only. For myself, I care nothing, and
fear nothing. My wife, and my mother--these, thy blind selfishness and
brute instincts, at least, shall not ruin."
And thereupon, finding farther evasion useless, as they went homeward
by a circuitous path among the rocks and dingles, he revealed all that
the reader knows already, and this farther, which it is probable he
has suspected, that Eadwulf, lying concealed in the forest in
pursuance of some petty depredation, had been a witness of the
dastardly murder of Sir Philip de Morville by the hands of Sir Foulke
d'Oilly and his train, among whom most active was the black seneschal,
who had perished so fearfully in the quicksands.
"Terrible, terrible indeed!" said Kenric, as he ended his tale,
doggedly told, with many sullen interruptions. "Terrible his deed, and
terrible thy deeds, Eadwulf; and, of all, most terrible the deeds of
Him who worked out his will by storm, and darkness, and the terror of
the mighty waters. And of a surety, terrible will be the vengeance of
Foulke d'Oilly. He is not the man to forget, nor are thy deeds, deeds
to be forgotten. But what shall I say to thee, obstinate, obdurate,
ill-doer, senseless, rash, ungrateful, selfish? Already, in this
little time, had Edith and I laid by, out of our humble gains, enough
to purchase two thirds of thy freedom. Ere Yule-tide, thou hadst been
as free a man as stands on English earth, and now thou art an outlaw,
under ban forever, and blood-guiltiness not to be pardoned; and upon
us--us, who would have coined our hearts' blood into gold, to win thy
liberty--thou hast brought the odor, and the burden, and, I scarce
doubt it, the punishment, of thy wicked wilfullness. It were better
thou hadst perished fifty-fold in the accursed sands of Lancaster, or
ere thou hadst done this thing. It were better a hundred-fold that
thou hadst never been born."
"Why dost not add, 'better a thousand-fold thou wert delivered up to
the avenger of blood,' and then go deliver me?"
"Words are lost upon thee," replied his brother, shaking his head
mournfully, "as are actions likewise. Follow me; thou must have
'tendance and rest above all things, and to-morrow must bring forth
the things of to-morrow."
Nothing more passed between them until they reached the threshold of
Kenric's humble dwelling, where, in silence and darkness, with the
door ajar, listening to every distant sound of the fitful breeze or
passing water, the fair young wife sat awaiting them.
She arose, as they entered. "Ah! it is thou, Eadwulf; I thought so,
from the first. Enter, and sit. Wilt eat or bathe first? thou art worn
and weary, brother, as I can see by this gloaming light. There is a
good bed ready for thee, under the rafters, and in the morning thou
wilt awake, refreshed and strong----"
"Thou thoughtst so from the first. I warrant me thou didst--mayhap thy
husband told thee so. Brother, too! _he_ hath not greeted me as
brother. Eat, bathe, sleep? neither of the three, girl. I'll drink
first of all; and, if that please thee, then eat, then sleep; and
bathe when I may, perhaps not at all."
"Bring him the mead-pitcher, Edith, and the big horn, and then avoid
ye. There is blood on his hand, and worse than blood on his soul.
Leave the meat on the board. I'll see to him."
And when his wishes were fulfilled, they were left alone, and a long,
gloomy conversation followed; and, if the dark, sullen, and unthankful
heart of the younger brother was in no sort touched, or his better
feelings--if he had any--awakened, at least his fears were aroused,
and, casting aside all his moroseness, he became a humble, I had
almost said a craven, suppliant for protection.
"Protection!" said Kenric, "I have it not to give, nor can I ask those
who could. I know not, in truth, whether in sheltering you, even now,
I do not risk the safety of all that is dear to me. What I can do, I
will. This night, and all the day to-morrow, I will conceal thee here,
come of it what come may; and, at the dead of the next night, will
guide thee, through the passes, to the upper hill country, where thou
wilt soon find men, like thyself, of desperate lives and fortunes.
Money, so much as I have, I will give thee, and food for thy present
need; but arms, save thy wood-knife, thou shalt take none hence. I
will not break faith nor betray duty to my lord, let what may come of
it; and, if I find thee trespassing on his chase, or hunting of his
deer, I will deal with thee as a stranger, not as a kinsman. No
thanks, Eadwulf; nor no promises. I have no faith in thee, nor any
hope, save that we two may never meet again. And so, good-night."
And with the word, he led him to a low room under the rafters,
furnished with a tolerable bed, but remote from all observation, where
he was tended all the following day, and watched by Edith, or by
himself in person, until the next night settled dark and moonless over
wild fell and mountain tarn; when he conducted him up the tremendous
passes which lead to the desolate but magnificent wilderness,
stretching, in those days, untrodden save by the deer, the roebuck,
the tusky boar, the gray wolf, or the grizzly outlaw, for countless
leagues around the mighty masses of Helvellyn, Saddleback, and
Skiddaw, the misty mountain refuge of all conquered races--of the grim
Celts from the polished Romans, of the effete Britons from the sturdy
Saxons, of the vanquished Anglo-Saxons, from the last victorious
Normans.
They parted, with oaths of fidelity and vows of gratitude never to be
fulfilled on the part of Eadwulf, with scarce concealed distrust on
the part of Kenric.
It was broad day when the latter returned to his happy home by
Kentmere; and the first object he beheld was his wife, gazing
despondingly on his own crossbow and bolts, each branded with his
name--"Kenric, born thrall of Philip de Morville," of which,
unwittingly he had disarmed his brother on the night of his arrival.
His heart fell as he looked upon the well-known weapons; and thought
that probably it was one of those marked and easily-recognized bolts
which had quivered in the heart of the bailiff of Waltheofstow; but
his wife knew not the dark tale, and he was not the man to disturb her
peace of mind, however his own might be distracted, by any dubious or
uncertain fear.
"It is my old arbalast," he said, "which Eadwulf brought with him from
our ancient home. Lay it aside. I will never use it more; but it will
be as a memento of what we once were, but, thanks to God and our good
lords, are no longer. And now give me my breakfast, Edith; I must be
at the castle, to speak of all this with Sir Yvo, ere noon; I will be
back to-night, girl; but not, I trow, until the northern bear has sunk
behind the hills. Till then, may He keep thee!"
And he was grave and abstracted during all the morning meal, and only
kissed her in silence, and blessed her inwardly, in his own true
heart, as he departed.