It was one day in the height of summer that two horsemen rode slowly,
and conversing with each other in friendly wise, notwithstanding an
evident difference of rank and of nation, through the lovely country
which formed the Marches of Wales. The younger of these men was
unmistakably a Norman; his cap only partially covered the head, which
was shaven from the crown to the nape of the neck [152], while in
front the hair, closely cropped, curled short and thick round a
haughty but intelligent brow. His dress fitted close to his shape,
and was worn without mantle; his leggings were curiously crossed in
the fashion of a tartan, and on his heels were spurs of gold. He was
wholly unarmed; but behind him and his companion, at a little
distance, his war-horse, completely caparisoned, was led by a single
squire, mounted on a good Norman steed; while six Saxon theowes,
themselves on foot, conducted three sumpter-mules, somewhat heavily
laden, not only with the armour of the Norman knight, but panniers
containing rich robes, wines, and provender. At a few paces farther
behind, marched a troop, light-armed, in tough hides, curiously
tanned, with axes swung over their shoulders, and bows in their hands.
The companion of the knight was as evidently a Saxon, as the knight
was unequivocally a Norman. His square short features, contrasting
the oval visage and aquiline profile of his close-shaven comrade, were
half concealed beneath a bushy beard and immense moustache. His
tunic, also, was of hide, and, tightened at the waist, fell loose to
his knee; while a kind of cloak, fastened to the right shoulder by a
large round button or brooch, flowed behind and in front, but left
both arms free. His cap differed in shape from the Norman's, being
round and full at the sides, somewhat in shape like a turban. His
bare, brawny throat was curiously punctured with sundry devices, and a
verse from the Psalms.
His countenance, though without the high and haughty brow, and the
acute, observant eye of his comrade, had a pride and intelligence of
its own--a pride somewhat sullen, and an intelligence somewhat slow.
"My good friend, Sexwolf," quoth the Norman in very tolerable Saxon,
"I pray you not so to misesteem us. After all, we Normans are of your
own race: our fathers spoke the same language as yours."
"That may be," said the Saxon, bluntly, "and so did the Danes, with
little difference, when they burned our houses and cut our throats."
"Old tales, those," replied the knight, "and I thank thee for the
comparison; for the Danes, thou seest, are now settled amongst ye,
peaceful subjects and quiet men, and in a few generations it will be
hard to guess who comes from Saxon, who from Dane."
"We waste time, talking such matters," returned the Saxon, feeling
himself instinctively no match in argument for his lettered companion;
and seeing, with his native strong sense; that some ulterior object,
though he guessed not what, lay hid in the conciliatory language of
his companion; "nor do I believe, Master Mallet or Gravel--forgive me
if I miss of the right forms to address you--that Norman will ever
love Saxon, or Saxon Norman; so let us cut our words short. There
stands the convent, at which you would like to rest and refresh
yourself."
The Saxon pointed to a low, clumsy building of timber, forlorn and
decayed, close by a rank marsh, over which swarmed gnats, and all foul
animalcules.
Mallet de Graville, for it was he, shrugged his shoulders, and said,
with an air of pity and contempt:
"I would, friend Sexwolf, that thou couldst but see the houses we
build to God and his saints in our Normandy; fabrics of stately stone,
on the fairest sites. Our Countess Matilda hath a notable taste for
the masonry; and our workmen are the brethren of Lombardy, who know
all the mysteries thereof."
"I pray thee, Dan-Norman," cried the Saxon, "not to put such ideas
into the soft head of King Edward. We pay enow for the Church, though
built but of timber; saints help us indeed, if it were builded of
stone!"
The Norman crossed himself, as if he had heard some signal impiety,
and then said:
"Thou lovest not Mother Church, worthy Sexwolf?"
"I was brought up," replied the sturdy Saxon, "to work and sweat hard,
and I love not the lazy who devour my substance, and say, 'the saints
gave it them.' Knowest thou not, Master Mallet, that one-third of all
the lands of England is in the hands of the priests?"
"Hem!" said the acute Norman, who, with all his devotion, could stoop
to wring worldly advantage from each admission of his comrade; "then
in this merrie England of thine thou hast still thy grievances and
cause of complaint?"
"Yea indeed, and I trow it," quoth the Saxon, even in that day a
grumbler; "but I take it, the main difference between thee and me is,
that I can say what mislikes me out like a man; and it would fare ill
with thy limbs or thy life if thou wert as frank in the grim land of
thy heretogh."
"Now, Notre Dame stop thy prating," said the Norman, in high disdain,
while his brow frowned and his eye sparkled. "Strong judge and great
captain as is William the Norman, his barons and knights hold their
heads high in his presence, and not a grievance weighs on the heart
that we give not out with the lip."
"So have I heard," said the Saxon, chuckling; "I have heard, indeed,
that ye thegns, or great men, are free enow, and plainspoken. But
what of the commons--the sixhaendmen and the ceorls, master Norman?
Dare they speak as we speak of king and of law, of thegn and of
captain?"
The Norman wisely curbed the scornful "No, indeed," that rushed to his
lips, and said, all sweet and debonnair: "Each land hath its customs,
dear Sexwolf: and if the Norman were king of England, he would take
the laws as he finds them, and the ceorls would be as safe with
William as Edward."
"The Norman king of England!" cried the Saxon, reddening to the tips
of his great ears, "what dost thou babble of, stranger? The Norman!--
How could that ever be?"
"Nay, I did but suggest--but suppose such a case," replied the knight,
still smothering his wrath. "And why thinkest thou the conceit so
outrageous? Thy King is childless; William is his next of kin, and
dear to him as a brother; and if Edward did leave him the throne--"
"The throne is for no man to leave," almost roared the Saxon.
"Thinkest thou the people of England are like cattle and sheep, and
chattels and theowes, to be left by will, as man fancies? The King's
wish has its weight, no doubt, but the Witan hath its yea or its nay,
and the Witan and Commons are seldom at issue thereon. Thy duke King
of England! Marry! Ha! ha!"
"Brute!" muttered the knight to himself; then adding aloud, with his
old tone of irony (now much habitually subdued by years and
discretion), "Why takest thou so the part of the ceorls? thou a
captain, and well-nigh a thegn!"
"I was born a ceorl, and my father before me," returned Sexwolf, "and
I feel with my class; though my grandson may rank with the thegns,
and, for aught I know, with the earls."
The Sire de Graville involuntarily drew off from the Saxon's side, as
if made suddenly aware that he had grossly demeaned himself in such
unwitting familiarity with a ceorl, and a ceorl's son; and he said,
with a much more careless accent and lofty port than before:
"Good man, thou wert a ceorl, and now thou leadest Earl Harold's men
to the war! How is this? I do not quite comprehend it."
"How shouldst thou, poor Norman?" replied the Saxon, compassionately.
"The tale is soon told. Know that when Harold our Earl was banished,
and his lands taken, we his ceorls helped with his sixhaendman, Clapa,
to purchase his land, nigh by London, and the house wherein thou didst
find me, of a stranger, thy countryman, to whom they were lawlessly
given. And we tilled the land, we tended the herds, and we kept the
house till the Earl came back."
"Ye had moneys then, moneys of your own, ye ceorls!" said the Norman,
avariciously.
"How else could we buy our freedom? Every ceorl hath some hours to
himself to employ to his profit, and can lay by for his own ends.
These savings we gave up for our Earl, and when the Earl came back, he
gave the sixhaendman hides of land enow to make him a thegn; and he
gave the ceorls who hade holpen Clapa, their freedom and broad shares
of his boc-land, and most of them now hold their own ploughs and feed
their own herds. But I loved the Earl (having no wife) better than
swine and glebe, and I prayed him to let me serve him in arms. And so
I have risen, as with us ceorls can rise."
"I am answered," said Mallet de Graville, thoughtfully, and still
somewhat perplexed. "But these theowes, (they are slaves,) never
rise. It cannot matter to them whether shaven Norman or bearded Saxon
sit on the throne?"
"Thou art right there," answered the Saxon; "it matters as little to
them as it doth to thy thieves and felons, for many of them are felons
and thieves, or the children of such; and most of those who are not,
it is said, are not Saxons, but the barbarous folks whom the Saxons
subdued. No, wretched things, and scarce men, they care nought for
the land. Howbeit, even they are not without hope, for the Church
takes their part; and that, at least, I for one think Church-worthy,"
added the Saxon with a softened eye. "And every abbot is bound to set
free three theowes on his lands, and few who own theowes die without
freeing some by their will; so that the sons of theowes may be thegns,
and thegns some of them are at this day."
"Marvels!" cried the Norman. "But surely they bear a stain and
stigma, and their fellow-thegns flout them?"
"Not a whit--why so? land is land, money money. Little, I trow, care
we what a man's father may have been, if the man himself hath his ten
hides or more of good boc-land."
"Ye value land and the moneys," said the Norman, "so do we, but we
value more name and birth."
"Ye are still in your leading-strings, Norman," replied the Saxon,
waxing good-humoured in his contempt. "We have an old saying and a
wise one, 'All come from Adam except Tib the ploughman: but when Tib
grows rich all call him "dear brother."'"
"With such pestilent notions," quoth the Sire de Graville, no longer
keeping temper, "I do not wonder that our fathers of Norway and
Daneland beat ye so easily. The love for things ancient--creed,
lineage, and name, is better steel against the stranger than your
smiths ever welded."
Therewith, and not waiting for Sexwolf's reply, he clapped spurs to
his palfrey, and soon entered the courtyard of the convent.
A monk of the order of St. Benedict, then most in favour [153],
ushered the noble visitor into the cell of the abbot; who, after
gazing at him a moment in wonder and delight, clasped him to his
breast and kissed him heartily on brow and cheek.
"Ah, Guillaume," he exclaimed in the Norman tongue, this is indeed a
grace for which to sing Jubilate. Thou canst not guess how welcome is
the face of a countryman in this horrible land of ill-cooking and
exile."
"Talking of grace, my dear father, and food," said De Graville,
loosening the cincture of the tight vest which gave him the shape of a
wasp--for even at that early period, small waists were in vogue with
the warlike fops of the French Continent--"talking of grace, the
sooner thou say'st it over some friendly refection, the more will the
Latin sound unctuous and musical. I have journeyed since daybreak,
and am now hungered and faint."
"Alack, alack!" cried the abbot, plaintively, "thou knowest little, my
son, what hardships we endure in these parts, how larded our larders,
and how nefarious our fare. The flesh of swine salted--"
"The flesh of Beelzebub," cried Mallet de Graville, aghast. "But
comfort thee, I have stores on my sumpter-mules--poulardes and fishes,
and other not despicable comestibles, and a few flasks of wine, not
pressed, laud the saints! from the vines of this country: wherefore,
wilt thou see to it, and instruct thy cooks how to season the cheer?"
"No cooks have I to trust to," replied the abbot; "of cooking know
they here as much as of Latin; nathless, I will go and do my best with
the stew-pans. Meanwhile, thou wilt at least have rest and the bath.
For the Saxons, even in their convents, are a clean race, and learned
the bath from the Dane."
"That I have noted," said the knight, "for even at the smallest house
at which I lodged in my way from London, the host hath courteously
offered me the bath, and the hostess linen curious and fragrant; and
to say truth, the poor people are hospitable and kind, despite their
uncouth hate of the foreigner; nor is their meat to be despised,
plentiful and succulent; but pardex, as thou sayest, little helped by
the art of dressing. Wherefore, my father, I will while the time till
the poulardes be roasted, and the fish broiled or stewed, by the
ablutions thou profferest me. I shall tarry with thee some hours, for
I have much to learn."
The abbot then led the Sire de Graville by the hand to the cell of
honour and guestship, and having seen that the bath prepared was of
warmth sufficient, for both Norman and Saxon (hardy men as they seem
to us from afar) so shuddered at the touch of cold water, that a bath
of natural temperature (as well as a hard bed) was sometimes imposed
as a penance,--the good father went his way, to examine the sumpter-
mules, and admonish the much suffering and bewildered lay-brother who
officiated as cook,--and who, speaking neither Norman nor Latin,
scarce made out one word in ten of his superior's elaborate
exhortations.
Mallet's squire, with a change of raiment, and goodly coffers of
soaps, unguents, and odours, took his way to the knight, for a Norman
of birth was accustomed to much personal attendance, and had all
respect for the body; and it was nearly an hour before, in long gown
of fur, reshaven, dainty, and decked, the Sire de Graville bowed, and
sighed, and prayed before the refection set out in the abbot's cell.
The two Normans, despite the sharp appetite of the layman, ate with
great gravity and decorum, drawing forth the morsels served to them on
spits with silent examination; seldom more than tasting, with looks of
patient dissatisfaction, each of the comestibles; sipping rather than
drinking, nibbling rather than devouring, washing their fingers in
rose water with nice care at the close, and waving them afterwards
gracefully in the air, to allow the moisture somewhat to exhale before
they wiped off the lingering dews with their napkins. Then they
exchanged looks and sighed in concert, as if recalling the polished
manners of Normandy, still retained in that desolate exile. And their
temperate meal thus concluded, dishes, wines, and attendants vanished,
and their talk commenced.
"How camest thou in England?" asked the abbot abruptly.
"Sauf your reverence," answered De Graville, "not wholly for reason
different from those that bring thee hither. When, after the death of
that truculent and orgulous Godwin, King Edward entreated Harold to
let him have back some of his dear Norman favourites, thou, then
little pleased with the plain fare and sharp discipline of the convent
of Bec, didst pray Bishop William of London to accompany such train as
Harold, moved by his poor king's supplication, was pleased to permit.
The bishop consented, and thou wert enabled to change monk's cowl for
abbot's mitre. In a word, ambition brought thee to England, and
ambition brings me hither."
"Hem! and how? Mayst thou thrive better than I in this swine-sty!"
"You remember," renewed De Graville, "that Lanfranc, the Lombard, was
pleased to take interest in my fortunes, then not the most
flourishing, and after his return from Rome, with the Pope's
dispensation for Count William's marriage with his cousin, he became
William's most trusted adviser. Both William and Lanfranc were
desirous to set an example of learning to our Latinless nobles, and
therefore my scholarship found grace in their eyes. In brief since
then I have prospered and thriven. I have fair lands by the Seine,
free from clutch of merchant and Jew. I have founded a convent, and
slain some hundreds of Breton marauders. Need I say that I am in high
favour? Now it so chanced that a cousin of mine, Hugo de Magnaville,
a brave lance and franc-rider, chanced to murder his brother in a
little domestic affray, and, being of conscience tender and nice, the
deed preyed on him, and he gave his lands to Odo of Bayeux, and set
off to Jerusalem. There, having prayed at the tomb," (the knight
crossed himself,) "he felt at once miraculously cheered and relieved;
but, journeying back, mishaps befell him. He was made slave by some
infidel, to one of whose wives he sought to be gallant, par amours,
and only escaped at last by setting fire to paynim and prison. Now,
by the aid of the Virgin, he has got back to Rouen, and holds his own
land again in fief from proud Odo, as a knight of the bishop's. It so
happened that, passing homeward through Lycia, before these
misfortunes befell him, he made friends with a fellow-pilgrim who had
just returned, like himself, from the Sepulchre, but not lightened,
like him, of the load of his crime. This poor palmer lay broken-
hearted and dying in the hut of an eremite, where my cousin took
shelter; and, learning that Hugo was on his way to Normandy, he made
himself known as Sweyn, the once fair and proud Earl of England,
eldest son to old Godwin, and father to Haco, whom our Count still
holds as a hostage. He besought Hugo to intercede with the Count for
Haco's release and return, if King Edward assented thereto; and
charged my cousin, moreover, with a letter to Harold, his brother,
which Hugo undertook to send over. By good luck, it so chanced that,
through all his sore trials, cousin Hugo kept safe round his neck a
leaden effigy of the Virgin. The infidels disdained to rob him of
lead, little dreaming the worth which the sanctity gave to the metal.
To the back of the image Hugo fastened the letter, and so, though
somewhat tattered and damaged, he had it still with him on arriving in
Rouen."
"Knowing, then, my grace with the Count, and not, despite absolution
and pilgrimage, much wishing to trust himself in the presence of
William, who thinks gravely of fratricide, he prayed me to deliver the
message, and ask leave to send to England the letter."
"It is a long tale," quoth the abbot.
"Patience, my father! I am nearly at the end. Nothing more in season
could chance for my fortunes. Know that William has been long moody
and anxious as to matters in England. The secret accounts he receives
from the Bishop of London make him see that Edward's heart is much
alienated from him, especially since the Count has had daughters and
sons; for, as thou knowest, William and Edward both took vows of
chastity in youth [154], and William got absolved from his, while
Edward hath kept firm to the plight. Not long ere my cousin came
back, William had heard that Edward had acknowledged his kinsman as
natural heir to his throne. Grieved and troubled at this, William had
said in my hearing, 'Would that amidst yon statues of steel, there
were some cool head and wise tongue I could trust with my interests in
England! and would that I could devise fitting plea and excuse for an
envoy to Harold the Earl!' Much had I mused over these words, and a
light-hearted man was Mallet de Graville when, with Sweyn's letter in
hand, he went to Lanfranc the abbot and said, 'Patron and father! thou
knowest that I, almost alone of the Norman knights, have studied the
Saxon language. And if the Duke wants messenger and plea, here stands
the messenger, and in his hand is the plea. Then I told my tale.
Lanfranc went at once to Duke William. By this time, news of the
Atheling's death had arrived, and things looked more bright to my
liege. Duke William was pleased to summon me straightway, and give me
his instructions. So over the sea I came alone, save a single squire,
reached London, learned the King and his court were at Winchester (but
with them I had little to do), and that Harold the Earl was at the
head of his forces in Wales against Gryffyth the Lion King. The Earl
had sent in haste for a picked and chosen band of his own retainers,
on his demesnes near the city. These I joined, and learning thy name
at the monastery at Gloucester, I stopped here to tell thee my news
and hear thine."
"Dear brother," said the abbot, looking enviously on the knight,
"would that, like thee, instead of entering the Church, I had taken up
arms! Alike once was our lot, well born and penniless. Ah me!--Thou
art now as the swan on the river, and I as the shell on the rock."
"But," quoth the knight, "though the canons, it is true, forbid monks
to knock people on the head, except in self-preservation, thou knowest
well that, even in Normandy, (which, I take it, is the sacred college
of all priestly lore, on this side the Alps,) those canons are deemed
too rigorous for practice: and, at all events, it is not forbidden
thee to look on the pastime with sword or mace by thy side in case of
need. Wherefore, remembering thee in times past, I little counted on
finding thee--like a slug in thy cell! No; but with mail on thy back,
the canons clean forgotten, and helping stout Harold to sliver and
brain these turbulent Welchmen."
"Ah me! ah me! No such good fortune!" sighed the tall abbot.
"Little, despite thy former sojourn in London, and thy lore of their
tongue, knowest thou of these unmannerly Saxons. Rarely indeed do
abbot and prelate ride to the battle [155]; and were it not for a huge
Danish monk, who took refuge here to escape mutilation for robbery,
and who mistakes the Virgin for a Valkyr, and St. Peter for Thor,--
were it not, I say, that we now and then have a bout at sword-play
together, my arm would be quite out of practice."
"Cheer thee, old friend," said the knight, pityingly, "better times
may come yet. Meanwhile, now to affairs. For all I hear strengthens
all William has heard, that Harold the Earl is the first man in
England. Is it not so?"
"Truly, and without dispute."
"Is he married, or celibate? For that is a question which even his
own men seem to answer equivocally."
"Why, all the wandering minstrels have songs, I am told by those who
comprehend this poor barbarous tongue, of the beauty of Editha
pulchra, to whom it is said the Earl is betrothed, or it may be worse.
But he is certainly not married, for the dame is akin to him within
the degrees of the Church."
"Hem, not married! that is well; and this Algar, or Elgar, he is not
now with the Welch, I hear."
"No; sore ill at Chester with wounds and much chafing, for he hath
sense to see that his cause is lost. The Norwegian fleet have been
scattered over the seas by the Earl's ships, like birds in a storm.
The rebel Saxons who joined Gryffyth under Algar have been so beaten,
that those who survive have deserted their chief, and Gryffyth himself
is penned up in his last defiles, and cannot much longer resist the
stout foe, who, by valorous St. Michael, is truly a great captain. As
soon as Gryffyth is subdued, Algar will be crushed in his retreat,
like a bloated spider in his web; and then England will have rest,
unless our liege, as thou hintest, set her to work again."
The Norman knight mused a few moments, before he said:
"I understand, then, that there is no man in the land who is peer to
Harold:--not, I suppose, Tostig his brother?"
"Not Tostig, surely, whom nought but Harold's repute keeps a day in
his earldom. But of late--for he is brave and skilful in war--he hath
done much to command the respect, though he cannot win back the love,
of his fierce Northumbrians, for he hath holpen the Earl gallantly in
this invasion of Wales, both by sea and by land. But Tostig shines
only from his brother's light; and if Gurth were more ambitious, Gurth
alone could be Harold's rival."
The Norman, much satisfied with the information thus gleaned from the
abbot, who, despite his ignorance of the Saxon tongue, was, like all
his countrymen, acute and curious, now rose to depart. The abbot,
detaining him a few moments, and looking at him wistfully, said, in a
low voice:
"What thinkest thou are Count William's chances of England?"
"Good, if he have recourse to stratagem; sure, if he can win Harold."
"Yet, take my word, the English love not the Normans, and will fight
stiffly."
"That I believe. But if fighting must be, I see that it will be the
fight of a single battle, for there is neither fortress nor mountain
to admit of long warfare. And look you, my friend, everything here is
worn out! The royal line is extinct with Edward, save in a child,
whom I hear no man name as a successor; the old nobility are gone,
there is no reverence for old names; the Church is as decrepit in the
spirit as thy lath monastery is decayed in its timbers; the martial
spirit of the Saxon is half rotted away in the subjugation to a
clergy, not brave and learned, but timid and ignorant; the desire for
money eats up all manhood; the people have been accustomed to foreign
monarchs under the Danes; and William, once victor, would have but to
promise to retain the old laws and liberties, to establish himself as
firmly as Canute. The Anglo-Danes might trouble him somewhat, but
rebellion would become a weapon in the hands of a schemer like
William. He would bristle all the land with castles and forts, and
hold it as a camp. My poor friend, we shall live yet to exchange
gratulations,--thou prelate of some fair English see, and I baron of
broad English lands."
"I think thou art right," said the tall abbot, cheerily, and marry,
when the day comes, I will at least fight for the Duke. Yea--thou art
right," he continued, looking round the dilapidated walls of the cell;
"all here is worn out, and naught can restore the realm, save the
Norman William, or----"
"Or who?"
"Or the Saxon Harold. But thou goest to see him--judge for thyself."
"I will do so, and heedfully," said the Sire de Graville; and
embracing his friend he renewed his journey.