The watcher on the walls of Walderne Castle sees the sun sink beneath
the distant downs, flooding Mount Caburn and his kindred giants with
crimson light. In the great hall supper is preparing. See them all
trooping in—retainers, fighting men, serving men, all taking their
places at the boards placed at right angles to the high table, where
the seats of Sir Nicholas de Harengod and his lady are to be seen.
He enters: a bluff stern warrior, in his undress, that is, without his
panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his
Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had
superseded the _gunna_ or gown, and the _couvrechef_ (whence our word
kerchief) on the head.
The chaplain, who served the little chapel within the castle, says
grace, and the company fall upon the food with little ceremony. We have
so often described their manners, or rather absence of manners, that we
will not repeat how the joints were carved in the absence of forks, nor
how necessary the finger glasses were after meals, although they only
graced the higher board.
Wine, hippocras, mead, ale—there was plenty to eat and drink, and when
the hunger was satisfied a palmer or pilgrim, who had but recently
arrived from the Holy Land, sang a touching ballad about his adventures
and sufferings in that Holy Land:
Trodden by those blessed feet
Which for our salvation were
Nailed unto the holy rood.
He sang of the captivity of Jerusalem under her Saracen rulers; of the
Holy Places, nay, of the Sepulchre itself, in the hands of the heathen.
That song, and kindred songs, had already caused rivers of blood to be
shed; men were now getting hardened to the tale, albeit the Lady Sybil
shed tears.
For she thought of her brother Roger, who had taken the Cross at that
gathering at Cross-in-Hand when labouring under his sire’s dire
displeasure, and who had fallen yet more deeply under the ban, owing to
events with which our readers are but partially acquainted.
And now, where Roger sat, she saw her own husband—well beloved—yet had
he not effaced the memory of her brother. And she longed to see that
brother’s son, of whom she had heard, recognised as the heir of
Walderne.
The palmer sang, and his song told of one, a father stern, who bade his
son wash off the guilt of some grievous sin in the blood of the
unbeliever—how that son went forth, full of zeal—but went forth to find
his efforts blasted by a haunting, malignant fiend he had himself armed
with power to blast; how at length, conquering all opposition, he had
reached the holy shore, and embarked on every desperate enterprise,
until he was laid out for dead, when—
At this moment the chapel bell rang for the evening prayers, which were
never later than curfew, for as men then rose with the sun it was well
to go to bed with him, so they all flocked to the chapel. The office
commonly called Compline was said, and the little sanctuary was left
again vacant and dark save where the solitary lamp twinkled before the
altar.
But the Lady Sybil did not seek her couch. She remained kneeling in
devotion before the altar, which her wealth and piety had founded. Nor
was she alone. The palmer yet knelt on the floor of the sanctuary.
When they had been left alone together for some minutes, and all was
still save the wind which howled without she rose and said:
“Tell me who thou art, O mysterious man: thy voice reminds me of one
long dead.”
“Dead to the world, yet living in the flesh. Sybil, I am thy brother
Roger, at least what remains of him; thou hast not forgotten me.”
“But why hast thou been silent so long? Thy brother in arms, the great
Earl of Leicester, himself said he saw thee fall fighting gloriously
against the fell Paynim.”
“And he spake sooth, but he did not see me rise again. I was carried
off the field for interment by the good brethren of Saint John, when,
just as they were about to lower me with the dead warriors into one
common grave, they perceived that there was life in me. They raised me,
and restored the spirit which had all but fled, and when at last it
returned, reason did not return with it. For a full year I was bereft
of my senses. They kept me in the hospital at Acre, but they knew
nought, and could learn nought of my kindred, until at length I
recovered my reason. Then I told them I was dead to the world, and
besought them to keep me, but they bade me wander, and stir up others
to the rescue of the Holy Land ere I took my rest. And then, too, there
was my son—”
“Thy SON?”
“Yes. I see I had better unfold all to thee in detail, from the
beginning of my wanderings. After I had fled from my father’s wrath, I
first went to sunny Provence, where I found friends in the great family
of the Montforts, and won the friendship of a man who has since become
famous, the Earl of Leicester. A distant kinswoman of theirs, a cousin
many times removed, effaced from my heart the fickle damsel who had
been the cause of my disgrace in England. Poor Eveline! Never was there
sweeter face or sunnier disposition! Had she lived all had been well. I
had not then gone forth, abandoned to my own sinful self. But she died
in giving birth to my Hubert.”
“Thy son, doth he yet live?”
“I left him in the care of Simon de Montfort, and went forward to the
rendezvous of the crusaders, the Isle of Malta, where, being grievously
insulted by a Frenchman—during a truce of God, which had been
proclaimed to the whole army—forgot all but my hot blood, struck him,
thereby provoked a combat, and slew him, for which I was expelled the
host, and forbidden to share in the holy war.
“So I sailed thence to Sicily—in deep dejection, repenting, all too
late, my ungovernable spirit.
“It was in the Isle of Sicily that an awful judgment befell me, which
has pursued me ever since, until it has blanched my locks with gray,
and hollowed out these wrinkles on my brow.
“I had taken up my quarters at an inn, and was striving in vain to
drown my remorse in utter recklessness, in wine and mirth, when one
night, as I lay half unconscious in bed, I heard the door open. I
started up and laid my hand on my sword, but melted into a sweat of
fear as I saw the ghost of him I had slain, standing as if in life, his
hand upon the wound my blade had made.
“‘Nay,’ said he, ‘mortal weapons harm me not now, but see that thou
fulfil for me the vow I have made. Carry my sword in person or by proxy
to Jerusalem, and lay it on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre. Then I
forgive thee my death.’
“The vision disappeared, but left me impressed with a sense that it was
real and no dream. Hence I dared to return to Malta, and telling my
story begged, but begged in vain, to be allowed to carry the sword of
the man I had slain through the campaign.
“I could not even obtain the sword. It had been sent back to hang by
the side of the rusty weapons his ancestors had once borne, in the hall
of their distant Chateau de Fievrault.
“I returned to Provence, revisited the tomb of my Eveline, saw my boy,
sought absolution, made many prayers, but could not shake off the
phantom. It was on a Friday I slew my foe, and on each Friday night he
appeared. The young Simon de Montfort was about to form another band of
crusaders, and he allowed me to accompany him, with the result I have
described. During my stay in the monastery at Acre the phantom troubled
me not, and as I have already said, I would fain have remained there,
but when they heard my tale they bade me return and fulfil my duties to
my kindred, and stir up others to come to the aid of the Holy Land,
since I was physically incapable of ever bearing arms again.
“But I shall even yet fulfil my vow, and the vow of the man I slew,
through my boy, when he has gained his spurs. My sinful steps are not
permitted to press that soil, once trodden by those blessed feet,
nailed for our salvation to the holy rood. Hubert will live and bear
the sword of the slain Sieur de Fievrault, _sans peur et sans
reproche_. Then I may lay me down in peace and take my rest.”
“Will thou not see my husband?”
“I cannot reveal myself here in this castle to any one but thee, and as
my tormentor pays his visits again, I will betake me to the Priory of
Lewes.”
“And must thou leave thy ancestral halls, and bury thyself again, my
brother?”
“I must. My task is done. I came but to feast my eyes with the sight of
thee, and to tell thee that thy nephew, the true heir of Walderne,
lives, satisfied that thou wilt not now allow him to be defrauded of
his rights.”
“Why not reveal thyself to my husband?”
“I cannot—at least not in this house; but in the morn, after I have
parted for Lewes, tell him all.”
“And what proofs shall I give if he ask them?”
“Let him seek me at Lewes or, better still, refer to Simon de Montfort,
who is the guardian of the boy, and has him in safe keeping at
Kenilworth.”
“Sybil,” cried a voice.
“It is my husband. I must go. Farewell, dearly loved, unhappy brother.”
And she departed, leaving him alone in the chapel.
Hours had passed by, the inmates of the castle at Walderne all slept,
still as the sleeping woods around, save only the watchman on the
walls, for in those days of nightly rapine and daily violence no castle
or house of any pretensions dispensed with such a guard.
Save only the watcher on the walls, and a lonelier watcher in the
chapel. For there, in the sanctuary his sister had erected, knelt the
returned prodigal, unknown to all save that sister. His heart was full
of deep emotion, as well it might be. And thus he mused:
“This chapel was not here in my father’s time. There were few lessons
to be learnt then, save those of strife and violence. What wonder that
when he set me the example, my young blood ran too hotly in my veins,
and that I finished my career of violence and riot by slaying the rival
who stood in my path? Yet was it done, not in cold blood but in fair
fight. Still, he was my cousin, a favourite of my sire, who never
forgave me, but drove me from home to make reparation in the holy wars.
Then on the way to the land of expiation I must needs again stain my
sword with Christian blood, and that on a day when it was sacrilege to
draw sword.
“But I repent, I repent. O Lord, let the Blood which flowed on that
very day down the Holy Rood blot out my sins, atone for my
transgressions.
“Nay, he appears, as oft before, and stands before me as when I
transfixed him on the quay at Malta.
“Avaunt, unquiet spirit. My feet have pressed the soil hallowed by the
Sacred Blood. Avaunt, for I appeal from thy malice to God. Was it not
thou who didst provoke, and wouldst fain have slain me? What was my act
but one of self defence, defence first of honour, then of life?”
Here he paused, as if listening.
“What dost thou say? I give thee rest. Let my son take the sword from
thy ancestral hall, and wield it in the holy war in thy name. Then thy
vow will be fulfilled, and thou wilt cumber earth no longer.
“Well, we shall see! But can I send him to that distant land? He may
suffer as I.
“No! no! Son of my love! It may not be.
“Ah, thou departest. It is well. Avaunt thee, poor ghost! Avaunt thee.”
So the night sped away, and when the gates of the castle opened at
sunrise, the palmer passed through them and took the road for Lewes.
We need hardly say that, in the course of the day after the ill-fated
Roger had departed for Lewes, to bury his sorrows and his sins within
the hallowed walls of the Priory of Saint Pancras, the Lady Sybil made
a full revelation of all the circumstances of his visit to her husband,
Sir Nicholas Harengod.
There was not a moment’s doubt in the mind of that worthy knight as to
the proper course to be pursued. Roger must be left to carry out his
own decision—as the most convenient to all parties concerned—and the
son must at once be brought home and acknowledged as the true heir of
Walderne, cum Icklesham, cum Dene, and I wot not what else. As for poor
Drogo, he must be content with the patrimony of Sir Nicholas—the manor
of Harengod.
So Sir Nicholas first sought an interview with his brother-in-law,
Roger, at the priory. He found him on the point of being admitted to
the novitiate, and then started post haste across the country—northward
for Kenilworth—where he arrived in due course, and was soon closeted
with the mighty earl, to whom he revealed the whole story of the
resurrection of Sir Roger of Walderne.
It was indeed a resurrection. At first the earl hardly credited its
possibility; but anon with joy received it, and gave his full consent
for Sir Nicholas to take Hubert away for a time, that he might make
acquaintance with the home of his ancestors, and seek his father at
Lewes.
Much more conversation passed between the knight and the earl, but we
shall have occasion to develop its results as our narrative proceeds.
So we shall leave our readers to picture the delight and wonder of
Hubert, the jealousy of Drogo, and much besides, while we go to Oxford
to see Martin.