OLIVER’S DREAM
In spite of the truce agreed to by Louis and Pembroke, both of whom
expected to profit by the delay, much fighting went on in Sussex in the
early spring of 1217, during the absence of the French prince from
England, and while the Lord de Coucy was acting as his lieutenant.
Philip de Albini and John Marshal, Pembroke’s nephew, having undertaken
of their own free will to guard the coasts in the neighbourhood of the
Cinque Ports to prevent any more of the French from landing, allured
many English yeomen to their standard, and were ever on the alert with a
body of armed men under their command. William de Collingham, instead of
relaxing his efforts, became more and more determined in his hostility
to the invaders; and Oliver Icingla, whom, on account of his dress the
French called “White Jacket,” made such unlooked-for sallies, and
presented himself to the foreigners under circumstances so unexpected,
that his name inspired something resembling terror even in the bold
heart of Eveille-chiens, who began seriously to wish himself safe back
on continental soil and under his native sky.
Nor was Oliver satisfied with displaying his courage against the enemy
in the fierce skirmishes that almost daily took place in the vicinity of
the camp of refuge. Nothing less, indeed, than taking the town and
castle of Lewes from the French garrison would content him, and
sometimes, accompanied by bands of ten or twenty, sometimes only by
Canmore, the bloodhound, he roamed the country on foot to watch his
opportunity and gain intelligence likely to aid him in his project.
Nobody, however, sympathised very particularly with his aspiration, and
Collingham especially, it was clear, thought that the wood and the
morass and the intrenched camp were fitter strongholds for people in
their circumstances than the walled town, and the fortified castle.
Oliver, however, very slow to embrace this conviction, in spite of
remonstrances, pursued his enterprise with ardour and zeal, and, in the
course of his adventures, found himself in a situation of such peril
that he well-nigh gave himself up for lost.
One spring evening, after having been for hours prowling within sight of
Lewes, unattended save by the bloodhound, he retreated to the
surrounding forest, and, feeling much more fatigued with the exertions
of the day than was his wont, he was fain to seek rest under a giant
tree which spread its branches over a wide space of ground. Within a few
paces the sward was smeared with blood, and at first Oliver supposed
that some fray had just taken place there between the French and a party
of his comrades. A closer examination, however, convinced him that one
or more of the wild bulls which in that age ran free in the oaken
forests of England had that day been slaughtered on the spot, possibly
to supply food to the garrison, who, being in a hostile country and in a
district which they had early exhausted by their rapacity, were known to
be pressed for provisions. Not deeming the matter worthy of prolonged
consideration, the boy-warrior returned to the root of the tree and laid
down his axe with the expectation of enjoying some repose undisturbed.
Resting himself on the lowest bough, and settling himself securely with
his feet on the grass and the faithful hound by his side, Oliver Icingla
endeavoured to snatch a brief sleep in the twilight. But sleep would not
come, and, as twilight faded into darkness and evening deepened into
night, and the moon rose and shone through the trees on the grass, he
thought of Beatrix de Moreville and of Oakmede and Dame Isabel, and from
his home and his mother Oliver’s thoughts wandered to the Icinglas and
the days when they had been great in England and marched to battle under
a gonfalon as stately as a king’s.
But no matter what subject presented itself, all his reflections were
tinged with gloom, and several times he rose to his feet and walked
about with the uneasy feeling of one who has, he knows not why, a
presentiment of coming woe. At length, worn out with bodily fatigue and
melancholy musing, he fell into a feverish sleep, and dreamt dreams
which made his breath come by gasps, and caused his brow to darken, and
his teeth to clench, and his frame to quiver.
It seemed to him at first that a sweet voice was singing the popular
ballad, “I go to the verdure, for love invites me;” that he was, in
fact, in the woodlands around Oakmede, walking hand in hand with De
Moreville’s daughter, and that suddenly as they moved through the
greenwood and reached a spot familiar to him from childhood, they came
upon his mother stretched lifeless and rigid under a leafless tree
growing on a hillock where there still remained a circle of rough
stones, which seemed to indicate that the place had in ancient days been
dedicated to the rites of the Druids. Oliver started in great horror,
and rapidly his imagination associated the death of his mother with the
enmity which had been shown towards himself by Hugh de Moreville. But he
did not awake. Suddenly, as if by magic, other figures appeared on the
scene, and before him, as he imagined, were all the departed chiefs of
the house of Icingla urging him to execute a terrible vengeance, while
one of them, arrayed in the long cloak and wearing the long beard in
vogue among the Anglo-Saxons up to the time of the Conquest, raised his
hand and exclaimed--
“Dally not with the Norman’s daughter, O heir of the Icinglas! nor deem
that aught but evil can come of her love. Beware of her wiles, and avoid
her presence, and wed her not, for harder thou wouldst find the couch of
the foreign woman than the bare ground on which thou sleepest while
keeping faith with thy country and thy race.”
And then Oliver dreamt that, as he uttered something like a defiance of
this warning, which, awake or asleep, could be little to his liking, the
scene changed, and the Anglo-Saxon chiefs, after frowning menacingly on
their heir, suddenly became horned cattle, and they rushed upon him
bellowing furiously, as if bent on his instant destruction. Fortunately
awaking at that moment, in great terror Oliver sprang to his feet,
agitated and trembling, and as he did so the sight which met his eyes
was not such as to allay his trepidation. Before him, close upon him,
bellowing savagely, he beheld a herd of forest bulls tearing up the
ground at the spot where he had observed the traces of slaughter, their
milk-white skins, and curling manes, and black muzzles, horns, and hoofs
distinct in the pale moonlight. Attracted by the barking of the
bloodhound, several were advancing furiously on Oliver, nothing, indeed,
intervening between him and their black, sharp horns but the faithful
dog, which, with a sullen growl, was springing desperately on the
foremost of the herd in a brave endeavour to save its master from the
terrible peril with which he was threatened. Oliver Icingla, with his
hair standing on end, gazed in consternation on the spectacle before
him, and involuntarily uttering an exclamation of horror, grasped his
battle axe with some vague intention of defending himself against the
ferocious herd by which he was assailed.