A VIKING'S LOVE.
"Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the
grave."--Song of Solomon, viii. 6.
During the time that Oswald was recovering from the prostration
consequent upon the fever, he and Wulfhere drew carefully a plan for the
fortress already determined upon. Every detail was gone carefully over
and elaborated. In the meantime, also, messengers were despatched far
and near, and artificers and handicraftsmen rallied to the work.
Speedily the foundations were dug, and the outer walls encircling the
summit began to rise steadily and rapidly before the persistent and
energetic labours of the Saxon refugees. Each one wrought with a will,
knowing that life and freedom depended upon their ability to raise a
fortress strong enough to defy their enemies.
Ere the Normans were aware of what was going on, a rampart had been
erected, which was soon to develop into a stronghold, impregnable, and
secure against assault. This first line of defence having been raised,
vigorous attention was given to the interior. Wells were dug, stables
were built, habitations also sprang up as by magic. Women and children
hurried into it, bringing everything they had saved from the desolation
of the past. Cattle were driven into it at night, and emerged in the
morning to feed around its shoulders, pushing their way in sheer
audacity down into the green valleys, for there were always bands of
sturdy outlaws in the woods between them and danger--outlaws, who snared
game, which literally swarmed in the woods, or cut their timber for
their bows and arrows. For these men the Normans were no match in the
solitudes which were familiar to them, and they soon learnt to have a
semi-friendliness with them, and to court relationships with the
hill-men, all of which decidedly made for peace. But to a tacit
acknowledgment of these outlaws the Norman leaders were bitterly
opposed. De Montfort feared that this thing would grow until it became a
menace to his own position, though he remembered most vividly the words
used by Oswald on that memorable night when he confronted him in his own
house as though he had dropped from the clouds, when, in burning words,
the Saxon told him that they wished to be at peace, but would assert
their right to pasturage, and to freedom. De Montfort also feared the
effect this thing would have upon William, if once he learnt that his
subject was conniving at an incipient rebellion, which might ultimately
threaten the peace of the kingdom. So, what between the pleadings of his
daughter Alice for peace towards the harassed Saxons, and the sharp
lesson they had taught him once before, that they were an enemy not to
be trifled with on ground of their own choosing, the days and weeks sped
on in delays and hesitation as to how this defiance on the part of a
handful of desperate men, who defended themselves with such vigour when
attacked, should be met; seeing also that they were, upon the whole,
non-aggressive and peace-loving when left alone to the pursuit of
peaceful avocations.
The Saxons encamped were, nevertheless, a strange and motley company,
and nothing less than the sagacity, watchfulness, and marvellous
forbearance of Oswald, coupled with the matchless valour and firmness
which he displayed, would have served to restrain the undisciplined and
heterogeneous company over whom he ruled. There was a moiety of
desperate and blood-thirsty men who were almost incapable of restraint,
and who were so blinded by their hatred of the Normans that motives of
prudence or of policy were most hateful to them, and Oswald's efforts to
enforce self-restraint upon his own followers, and to cultivate friendly
relations with the enemy, were gall and wormwood.
Sigurd was the acknowledged leader of these, and they, by their dense
ignorance and superstitions, fittingly represented the dark heathenism,
and plunder, and bloodshed, characteristics of their Norse ancestors.
They were utterly unable to realise the fact, which Oswald saw most
distinctly, that all hope of wresting the kingdom from the Normans by
force of arms was an idle dream, unless the Normans should be involved
in a struggle with other foes. They clung to their heathenish religion,
encouraged by their grim old priest Olaf, who, periodically quitting his
cave in an adjacent valley, haunted the settlement like a hyena on the
scent of blood, and found little difficulty in stirring up the ferocious
passions of his followers, often to the verge of open revolt and mutiny.
Oswald surveyed the situation with the eye of a statesman; but the
reconciling of these turbulent factions to his ideal was a task which
required the utmost efforts of wisdom and valour too, and which
perpetually threatened the peace of the camp.
These desperate complications were further intensified into a private
and personal cause of enmity and hatred on Sigurd's part--as we shall
presently see--by reason of his strange and fierce love for the fair
Saxon, Ethel. Despite his passionate endeavours to cast out the deep
impression made upon him at his first interview with Ethel, we need
scarcely say such efforts were utterly vain and futile. She was a
beloved and familiar figure to every one in the little colony, and he
was necessarily brought frequently into intercourse with her; and day by
day he became more deeply involved. The love of the fierce Viking had
this quality in common with more ordinary mortals; it was like a
quagmire, in which, being once fairly entangled, the more he struggled
to get free of it the deeper he sank, until all hope of extrication
therefrom became perfectly impossible.
"Ethel, girl," said he, addressing her one day with the bluntness which
was a characteristic of his whole nature and disposition; and his
love-making was of a piece with his whole disposition, "I have no skill
in the art of making love, or, what is pretty much the same thing, a
make-believe of love, and I much fear me my rough manners and rough-hewn
limbs commend me not to fair maidens like thyself. But since I saw thee
first, feelings have been kindled in my breast which I thought were
dead, and utterly out of place in these times. But scorn me not, Ethel.
Thou art as surely of Viking extraction on thy father's side as I am;
and though I have no gentle manners, there is no honied falseness in my
nature, and perhaps through thy gentle influence I may come to love the
ways of peace."
This confession of love on the part of Sigurd was the very thing Ethel
had been dreading to hear; and her confusion and sickness of heart were
pitiably manifest.
"Alas! my lord," said she, "these are times when the funeral rites for
our dead are more opportune than the marriage rites. I could not think
of wedlock in times like these, when children born may well-nigh curse
the day when they first saw the light."
"But I will carry thee to the court of Malcolm of Scotland, where thou
shalt dwell in safety. My sword will receive a hearty welcome by him.
Then, if peace should come, we may return to our own land."
"My lord, you know not what you ask. These are not times for love. With
my country laid desolate, and my people scattered, I can indulge no
affection but for these."
"My love for my country is as great as thine, and wedlock between us two
need not diminish our love for our country."
"Say no more, my lord. You know not what you ask. 'Tis painful to me,
for I am not free to love."
Sigurd started as if stung by a serpent.
"Ah! what a dolt I must be, not to see it! How could a maiden come in
contact with _him_, and not love him. Well, Ethel, Sigurd would throw no
shadow across thy path. Happy be thy love, and its consummation timely!"
"My lord, I have no lover!" said Ethel, hastily leaving the room.
Sigurd slowly paced the room, in profound meditation. The memorable
occasion when he found Oswald and Wulfhere in the company of the two
Norman women passed in review before his mental vision, and its
significance laid hold upon his mind as it had never done before.
"Can it be," said he, "that _he_ should be insensible to such a
treasure, and should add to his culpable blindness the base treachery of
seeking an alliance with the Norman supplanter?"
The thought of this stirred his passions into fury, and he nervously
grasped the hilt of his sword, as though he meditated vengeance on some
foe. "I will watch this thing, and if it be as I fear I will no longer
ally myself with him; but woe be to him if my arm be stronger than his,
for so base a betrayal can only be washed out in blood!"
So saying, he sallied forth, pacing round the fortifications in quest of
Oswald, where he learnt that he and Wulfhere had betaken themselves
towards the valley. Away he sped him, intent on probing this matter to
the bottom; and instinctively his footsteps turned toward the spot where
once before his ire had been roused at the conduct of the two he sought.