The old man yielded his breath—
And the rose grew pale on the maiden’s cheek,
As she sank in the arms of Death.
* * * * *
THE SAXON’S BRIDAL.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” ETC.
There are times in England, when the merry month of May is not, as it
would now appear, merely a poet’s fiction; when the air is indeed mild
and balmy, and the more conspicuously so, that it succeeds the furious
gusts and driving hail-storms of the boisterous March, the fickle
sunshine and capricious rains of April. One of these singular epochs in
the history of weather it was, in which events occurred which remained
unforgotten for many a day in the green wilds of Charnwood Forest. It
was upon a soft, sweet morning, toward the latter end of the month, and
surely nothing more delicious could have been conceived by the fancy of
the poet. The low west wind was fanning itself among the tender leaves
of the new-budded trees, and stealing over the deep meadows, all
redolent with dewy wild flowers, waving them with a gentle motion, and
borrowing a thousand perfumes from their bosoms; the hedgerows were as
white with the dense blossoms of the hawthorn, as though they had been
powdered over by an untimely snow-storm, while everywhere along the
wooded banks, the saffron primrose and its sweet sister of the spring,
the violet, were sunning their unnumbered blossoms in the calm warmth of
the vernal sunshine. The heavens, of a pure transparent blue, were
laughing with a genial lustre, not flooded by the dazzling glare of
midsummer, but pouring over all beneath their influence a lovely, gentle
light, in perfect keeping with the style of the young scenery, and all
the air was literally vocal with the notes of innumerable birds, from
the proud lark, “rejoicing at heaven’s gate,” to the thrush and
blackbird, trilling their full, rich chants from every dingle, and the
poor linnet, piping on the spray. Nothing—no, nothing—can be imagined
that so delights the fancy with sweet visions, that so enthrals the
senses, shedding its influences even upon the secret heart, as a soft
old-fashioned May morning. Apart from the mere beauties of the scenery,
from the mere enjoyment of the bright skies, the dewy perfumes that
float on every breeze, the mild, unscorching warmth—apart from all
these, there is something of a deeper and a higher nature in the
thoughts called forth by the spirit of the time—a looking forward of
the soul to fairer things to come, an excitement of a quiet hope within,
not very definite perhaps, nor easily explained, but one which almost
every man has felt, and contrasted with the languid and pallid satiety
produced by the full heat of summer, and yet more with the sober and
reflective sadness that steals upon the mind as we survey the russet
hues and the sere leaves of autumn. It is as if the newness, the fresh
youth of the season, gave birth to a corresponding youth of the soul.
Such are the sentiments which many men feel now-a-days, besides the
painter and the poet and the soul-rapt enthusiast of nature; but those
were iron days of which we write, and men spared little time to thought
from action or from strife, nor often paused to note their own
sensations, much less to ponder on their origin or to investigate their
causes. The morning was such as we have described—the scene a spot of
singular beauty within the precincts of the then royal forest of
Charnwood, in Leicestershire. A deep, but narrow stream, wound in a
hundred graceful turns through the rich meadow-land that formed the
bottom of a small sloping vale, which had been partially reclaimed, even
at that day, from the waste, though many a willow bush fringing its
margin, and many a waving ash, fluttering its delicate tresses in the
air, betrayed the woodland origin of the soft meadow. A narrow road
swept down the hill, with a course little less serpentine than that of
the river below, and crossed it by a small one-arched stone bridge,
overshadowed by a gigantic oak tree, and scaled the opposite acclivity
in two or three sharp sandy zigzags. Both the hill sides were clothed
with forest, but still the nature of the soil or some accidental causes
had rendered the wood as different as possible, for on the further side
of the stream, the ground was everywhere visible covered by a short
mossy turf, softer and more elastic to the foot than the most exquisite
carpet that ever issued from the looms of Persia, and overshadowed by
huge and scattered oaks, growing so far apart that the eye could range
far between their shadowy vistas; while on the nearer slope—the
foreground, as it might be called, of the picture—all was a dense and
confused mass of tangled shrubbery and verdure. Thickets of old gnarled
thorn-bushes, completely overrun and matted with woodbines; coppices of
young ash, with hazel interspersed, and eglantine and dog-roses thick
set between; clumps of the prickly gorse and plume-like broom, all
starry with their golden flowrets, and fern so wildly luxuriant that in
many places it would have concealed the head of the tallest man, covered
the ground for many a mile through which the narrow road meandered.
There was one object more in view—one which spoke of man even in that
solitude, and man in his better aspect—it was the slated roof and
belfry, all overgrown with moss and stonecrop, of a small wayside
chapel, in the old Saxon architecture, peering out from the shadows of
the tall oaks which overhung it in the far distance. It was, as we have
said, very small, in the old Saxon architecture, consisting, in fact,
merely of a vaulted roof supported upon four squat massy columns, whence
sprung the four groined ribs which met in the centre of the arch. Three
sides alone of this primitive place of worship, which would have
contained with difficulty forty persons, were walled in, the front
presenting one wide open arch, richly and quaintly sculptured with the
indented wolf’s teeth of the first Saxon style. Small as it was,
however, the little chapel had its high altar, with the crucifix and
candle, its reading desk of old black oak, its font and pix and
chalices, and all the adjuncts of the Roman ritual. A little way to the
left might be discovered the low thatched eaves of a rustic cottage,
framed of the unbarked stems of forest trees, the abode, probably, of
the officiating priest, and close beside the walls of the little church
a consecrated well, protected from the sun by a stone vault, of
architecture corresponding to the chapel.
Upon the nearer slope, not far from the road-side, but entirely
concealed from passers by the nature of the ground and the dense
thickets, there were collected, at an early hour of the morning, five
men with as many horses, who seemed to be awaiting, in a sort of ambush,
some persons whom they would attack at unawares. The leader of the
party, as he might be considered, as much from his appearance as from
the deference shown to him by the others, was a tall, active, powerful
man, of thirty-eight or forty years, with a bold and expressive
countenance—expressive, however, of no good quality, unless it were the
fiery, reckless daring which blazed from his broad dark eye, and that
was almost obscured by the cloud of insufferable pride which lowered
upon his frowning brow, and by the deep scar-like lines of lust and
cruelty and scorn which ploughed his weather-beaten features. His dress
was a complete suit of linked chain-mail, hauberk and sleeves and hose,
with shoes of plaited steel and gauntlets wrought in scale, covering his
person from his neck downward in impenetrable armor. He had large gilded
spurs buckled upon his heels, and a long two-edged dagger, with a rich
hilt and scabbard, in his belt; but neither sword nor lance, nor any
other weapon of offence except a huge steel mace, heavy enough to fell
an ox at a single blow, which he grasped in his right hand, while from
his left hung the bridle of a tall coal-black Norman charger, which was
cropping the grass quietly beside him. His head was covered by a conical
steel cap, with neither crest nor plume nor visor, and mail hood falling
down from it to protect the neck and shoulders of the wearer. The other
four were men-at-arms, clad all in suits of armor, but less completely
than their lord; thus they had steel shirts only, with stout buff
breeches and heavy boots to guard their lower limbs, and iron scull caps
only, without the hood, upon their heads, and leather gauntlets upon
their hands; but, as if to make up for this deficiency, they were
positively loaded with offensive weapons—they had the long two-handed
sword of the period belted across their persons, three or four knives
and daggers of various size and strength at their girdles, great
battle-axes in their hands, and maces hanging at their saddle-bows. They
had been tarrying there already several hours, their leader raising his
eyes occasionally to mark the progress of the sun as he climbed up the
azure vault, and muttering a brief and bitter curse as hour passed after
hour, and those came not whom he expected.
“Danian,” he said at length, turning to the principal of his followers,
who stood nearer to his person and a little way apart from the
others—“Danian, art sure this was the place and day? How the dog Saxons
tarry—can they have learnt our purpose?”
“Surely not—surely not, fair sir,” returned the squire, “seeing that I
have mentioned it to no one, not even to Raoul, or Americ, or Guy, who
know no more than their own battle-axes the object of their ambush. And
it was pitch dark when we left the castle, and not a soul has seen us
here; so it is quite impossible they should suspect—and hark! there
goes the bell; and see, sir, see—there they come trooping through the
oak trees down the hill!”
And indeed, as he spoke, the single bell of the small chapel began to
chime with the merry notes that proclaim a bridal, and a gay train of
harmless, happy villagers might be seen, as they flocked along,
following the footsteps of the gray-headed Saxon monk, who, in his frock
and cowl, with corded waist and sandalled feet, led the procession. Six
young girls followed close behind him, dressed in blue skirts and russet
jerkins, but crowned with garlands of white May flowers, and May wreaths
wound like scarfs across their swelling bosoms, and hawthorn branches in
their hands, singing the bridal carol in the old Saxon tongue, in honor
of the pride of the village, the young and lovely Marian. She was indeed
the very personification of all the poet’s dreams of youthful beauty;
tall and slender in her figure, yet exquisitely, voluptuously rounded in
every perfect outline, with a waist of a span’s circumference, wide
sloping shoulders, and a bust that, for its matchless swell, as it
struggled and throbbed with a thousand soft emotions, threatening to
burst from the confinement of her tight-fitting jacket, would have put
to shame the bosom of the Medicean Venus. Her complexion, wherever the
sun had not too warmly kissed her beauties, was pure as the driven snow,
while her large, bright blue eyes, red laughing lip, and the luxuriant
flood of sunny golden hair, which streamed down in wild, artless
ringlets to her waist, made her a creature for a prince’s, or more, a
poet’s adoration. But neither prince nor poet was the god of that fair
girl’s idolatry; but one of her own class, a Saxon youth, a
peasant—nay, a serf—from his very cradle upward the born thrall of
Hugh de Mortemar, lord of the castle and the hamlet at its foot, named,
from its situation in the depths of Charnwood, Ashby in the Forest. But
there was now no graven collar about the sturdy neck of the young Saxon,
telling of a suffering servitude; no dark shade of gloom in his full
glancing eye; no sullen doggedness upon his lip, for he was that day,
that glad day, a freeman—a slave no longer—but free, free, by the gift
of his noble master—free as the wild bird that sung so loudly in the
forest—free as the liberal air that bore the carol to his ears. His
frock of forest green and buskins of the untanned deer-hide set off his
muscular, symmetrical proportions, and his close-curled short auburn
hair showed a well turned and shapely head. Behind this gay and happy
pair came several maids and young men, two and two, and after these an
old gray-headed man, the father of the bride, and leaning on his arm an
aged matron, the widowed mother of the enfranchised bridegroom.
Merrily rung the gay, glad bells, and blithely swelled up the bridal
chorus as they collected on the little green before the ancient arch,
and slowly filed into the precincts of the forest shrine; but very
speedily their merriment was changed into dismay and terror and despair,
for scarcely had they passed into the sacred building, before the
knight, with his dark followers, leaped into their saddles, and
thundering down the hill at a tremendous gallop, surrounded the chapel
before the inmates had even time to think of any danger. It was a
strange, wild contrast, the venerable priest within pronouncing even
then the nuptial blessing, and proclaiming over the bright young pair
the union made by God, which thenceforth no man should dissever—the
tearful happiness of the blushing bride, the serious gladness of the
stalwart husband, the kneeling peasantry, the wreaths of innocent
flowers; and at the gate the stern, dark men-at-arms, with their scarred
savage features, and their gold-gleaming harness and raised weapons. A
loud shriek burst from the lips of the sweet girl, as, lifting her eyes
to the sudden clang and clatter that harbingered those dread intruders,
she saw and recognized upon the instant the fiercest of the Norman
tyrants—dreaded by all his neighbors far and near, but most by the most
virtuous and young and lovely—the bold, bad Baron of Maltravers. He
bounded to the earth as he reached the door, and three of his followers
leaped from their horses likewise, one sitting motionless in his
war-saddle, and holding the four chargers. “Hold, priest!” he shouted,
as he entered, “forbear this mummery; and thou, dog Saxon, think not
that charms like these are destined to be clasped in rapture by any arms
of thy low slavish race!” and with these words he strode up to the
altar, seemingly fearless of the least resistance, while his men kept
the door with brandished weapons. Mute terror seized on all, paralyzed
utterly by the dread interruption—on all but the bold priest and the
stout bridegroom.
“Nay, rather forbear thou, Alberic de Maltravers! These two are one
forever—wo be to those who part them!”
“Tush, priest—tush, fool!” sneered the fierce Baron, as he seized him
by the arm, and swinging him back rudely, advanced upon the terrified
and weeping girl, who was now clinging to the very rails of the high
altar, trusting, poor wretch, that some respect for that sanctity of
place which in old times had awed even heathens, might now prevail with
one whom no respect for anything divine or human had ever yet deterred
from doing his unholy will.
“Ha! dog!” cried he, in fiercer tones, that filled the chapel as it were
a trumpet, seeing the Saxon bridegroom lift up a heavy quarter-staff
which lay beside him, and step in quietly but very resolutely in defence
of his lovely wife—“Ha! dog and slave, dare you resist a Norman and a
noble?—back, serf, or die the death!” and he raised his huge mace to
strike him.
“No serf, sir, nor slave either,” returned the Saxon, firmly, “but a
freeman, by my good master’s gift, and a landholder.”
“Well, master freeman and landholder,” replied the other, with a bitter
sneer, “if such names please you better, stand back—for Marian lies on
no bed but mine this night—stand back, before worse come of it!”
“I will die rather”—was the answer—“Then die! fool! die!” shouted the
furious Norman, and with the words he struck full at the bare brow of
the dauntless Saxon with his tremendous mace—it fell, and with dint
that would have crushed the strongest helmet into a thousand
splinters—it fell, but by a dexterous sleight the yeoman swung his
quarter-staff across the blow, and parried its direction, although the
tough ash pole burst into fifty shivers—it fell upon the carved rails
of the altar and smashed them into atoms; but while the knight who had
been somewhat staggered by the impetus of his own misdirected blow, was
striving to recover himself, the young man sprang upon him, and
grappling him by the throat, gained a short-lived advantage. Short-lived
it was indeed, and perilous to him that gained—for although there were
men enough in the chapel, all armed with quarter-staves, and one or two
with the genuine brown bill, to have overpowered the four Normans,
despite their war array—yet so completely were they overcome by
consternation, that not one moved a step to aid him; the priest, who had
alone showed any spark of courage, being impeded by the shrieking women,
who, clinging to the hem of his vestments, implored him for the love of
God to save them.
In an instant that fierce grapple was at an end, for in the twinkling of
an eye, two of the men-at-arms had rushed upon him and dragged him off
their lord.
“Now by the splendor of God’s brow,” shouted the enraged knight, “thou
art a sweet dog thus to brave thy masters. Nay! harm him not.
Raoul,”—he went on—“harm not the poor dog,”—as his follower had
raised his battle axe to brain him,—“harm him not, else we should raise
the ire of that fool, Mortemar! Drag him out—tie him to the nearest
tree, and this good priest beside him—before his eyes we will console
this fair one.” And with these words he seized the trembling girl,
forcing her from the altar, and encircling her slender waist in the foul
clasp of his licentious arms. “And ye,” he went on, lashing himself into
fury as he continued,—“and ye churl Saxons, hence!—hence dogs and
harlots to your kennels!”
No further words were needed, for his orders were obeyed by his own men
with the speed of light, and the Saxons overjoyed to escape on any
terms, rushed in a confused mass out of the desecrated shrine, and fled
in all directions, fearful of further outrage.—Meanwhile, despite the
struggles of the youth, and the excommunicating anathemas which the
priest showered upon their heads, the men-at-arms bound them securely to
the oak trees, and then mounting their horses, sat laughing at their
impotent resistance, while with a refinement of brutality worthy of
actual fiends, Alberic de Maltravers bore the sweet wife clasped to his
iron breast, up to the very face of her outraged, helpless husband, and
tearing open all her jerkin, displayed to the broad light the whole of
her white, panting bosom, and poured from his foul, fiery lips a flood
of lustful kisses on her mouth, neck, and bosom, under the very eyes of
his tortured victim. To what new outrage he might have next proceeded,
must remain ever doubtful, for at this very instant the long and mellow
blast of a clearly winded bugle came swelling through the forest
succeeded by the bay of several bloodhounds, and the loud, ringing
gallop of many fast approaching.
“Ha!” shouted he, “ten thousand curses on him; here comes de Mortemar.
Quick—quick—away! Here, Raoul, take the girl, buckle her tight to your
back with the sword-belt, and give me your two-handed blade; I lost my
mace in the chapel!—That’s right! quick! man—that’s right—now, then,
be off—ride for your life—straight to the castle; we will stop all
pursuit. Fare thee well, sweet one, for a while—we will conclude
hereafter what we have now commenced so fairly!”
And as he spoke, he also mounted his strong charger, and while the man,
Raoul, dashed his spurs rowel-deep into his horse’s flanks, and went off
at a thundering gallop, the other four followed him at a slower pace,
leaving the Saxons in redoubled anguish—redoubled by the near hope of
rescue.
But for once villany was not permitted to escape due retribution, for
ere the men-at-arms, who led the flight, had crossed the little bridge,
a gallant train came up at a light canter from the wood, twenty or
thirty archers, all with their long bows bent, and their arrows notched
and ready, with twice as many foresters on foot, with hounds of every
kind, in slips and leashes, and at their head a man of as noble presence
as ever graced a court or reined a charger. He was clad in a plain
hunting frock of forest green, with a black velvet bonnet and a heron’s
plume, and wore no other weapon but a light hunting sword—but close
behind him rode two pages, bearing his knightly lance with its long
pennon, his blazoned shield, and his two-handed broadsword. It was that
brave and noble Norman, Sir Hugh de Mortemar. His quick eye in an
instant took in the whole of the confused scene before him, and
understood it on the instant.
“Alberic de Maltravers!” he cried, in a voice clear and loud as the call
of a silver trumpet, “before God he shall rue it,” and with the words he
snatched his lance from the page, and dashing spurs into his splendid
Spanish charger, thundered his orders out with the rapid rush of a
winter’s torrent. “Bend your bows, archers,—draw home your arrows to
the head! stand, thou foul ravisher, dishonored Norman, false gentleman,
and recreant knight! Stand on the instant, or we shoot! Cut loose the
yeoman from the tree, ye varlets, and the good priest. Randal, cast
loose the bloodhounds down to the bridge across yon knoll, and lay them
on the track of that flying scoundrel. Ha! they will meet us.”
And so in truth they did, for seeing that he could not escape the deadly
archery, Alberic de Maltravers wheeled short on his pursuers, and
shouted his war-cry—“Saint Paul for Alberic!—false knight and liar in
your throat. Saint Paul! Saint Paul! charge home,”—and with the words
the steel-clad men-at-arms drove on, expecting by the weight of their
harness to ride down and scatter the light archery like chaff. Unarmed
although he was, De Mortemar paused not—not for a moment!—but galloped
in his green doublet as gallantly upon his foe as though he had been
sheathed in steel. He had but one advantage—but one hope!—to bear his
iron-clad opponent down at the lance point, without closing—on! they
came, on!—Maltravers swinging his two-handed sword aloft, and trusting
in his mail to turn the lance’s point—de Mortemar with his long spear
in rest—“Saint Paul! Saint Paul!”—they met! the dust surged up in a
dense cloud! the very earth appeared to shake beneath their feet!—but
not a moment was the conflict doubtful.—Deep! deep! through his linked
mail, and through his leathern jerkin, and through his writhing flesh,
the grinded spear head shove into his bosom, and came out at his back,
the ash staff breaking in the wound. Down he went, horse and man!—and
down, at one close volley of the grey goose shafts, down went his three
companions!—one shot clear through the brain by an unerring shaft—the
others stunned and bruised, their horses both slain under them. “Secure
them,” shouted Hugh, “bind them both hand and foot, and follow,”—and he
paused not to look upon his slain assailant, but galloped down the hill,
followed by half his train, the bloodhounds giving tongue fiercely, and
already gaining on the fugitive. It was a fearful race, but quickly
over!—for though the man-at-arms spurred desperately on, his heavy
Norman horse, oppressed, moreover, by his double load, had not a chance
in competing with the proud Andalusian of de Mortemar. Desperately he
spurred on—but now the savage hounds were up with him—they rushed full
at the horse’s throat and bore him to the earth—another moment, Raoul
was a bound captive, and Marian, rescued by her liege lord, and wrapt in
his own mantle, was clasped in the fond arms of her husband!
“How now, good priest,” exclaimed sir Hugh, “are these two now fast
wedded?”
“As fast, fair sire, as the holy rites may wed them.”
“Then ring me, thou knave, Ringan, a death peal! Thou, Gilbert, and
thou, Launcelot, make me three halters, quick—nay! four—the dead
knight shall swing, as his villainy well merits, beside the living
knaves!—Sing me a death chant, priest, for these are judged to death,
unhouselled and unshriven!”