We must once more use the privilege of an author, and transport our
readers from the distant forest to Aescendune, speedily as the
Genius of the Lamp transported the palace of Aladdin.
The November evening was setting in drearily, the fast-fading
gleams of daylight were disappearing amidst thickly-falling
snow--it was the hour when tired mortals shut doors and windows,
turn instinctively to the cheerful hearth, and while they hear the
wind roar without, thank God they are sheltered from its blasts;
and perhaps think with some pity of poor homeless wanderers, in
pathless forests, or on dismal moors.
Troop after troop, the wearied and dispirited Normans returned from
their fruitless chase, till all were safely housed, save one
unhappy band. First came the wicked old baron himself, with all his
twenty retainers, safe and sound, then Bernard de Torci, who had
won to himself an English wife and the manor of Wylmcotte; then
Gilbert D'Aubyn of Bearleigh. One after another the troops came in
from the outer darkness, white with snow, and shook their mantles
and jerkins in the guard chamber within the entrance archway, after
which their leaders repaired to the bathroom--for, in their way,
the Norman warriors were luxurious--and afterwards, perfumed and
anointed, donned the festal robes in which they hoped to dazzle the
eyes of the fair, if such were to be found in the Castle of
Aescendune.
The hour appointed for the banquet was the first hour of the
night--six in the evening we should now call it--and the Majordomo
sought his lord.
He found him risen from the bath and vested in flowing robes of
richest texture, with an ermine mantle around his shoulders.
"The banquet is ready, my lord, but the guests have not all
arrived."
"Has my son returned?"
"He has not come back yet, my lord. Shall I delay the banquet?"
"Are all the others in?"
"Sir Eustace de Senville has not yet come from the forest."
"Let it be delayed half an hour."
The old servant shook his head--the roast meats were done to a
turn, and he feared the reputation of the ten cooks, who had toiled
the long afternoon before the fires, might suffer.
The baron paced impatiently up and down his chamber.
There is some redeeming feature in the hearts of the worst of us:
even Lady Macbeth could not herself slay King Duncan, "he looked so
like her father," and the one weak point in the armour of proof--of
selfishness, we should say--which encrusted Hugo de Malville, was
his love for his son.
Etienne was to him as the apple of his eye; and little wonder--the
qualities which, we doubt not, nay, we trust, disfigure that
amiable youth in the minds of our gentle readers--his pride, his
carelessness for the bodily or mental sufferings of others--all
these things were nought to the Norman noble, he loved to see his
son stark and fierce, and smiled as he heard of deeds which better
men would have sternly refused to condone.
He almost longed for war--for some rebellion on the part of the
English--that Etienne might flesh his sword and win his spurs, and,
as we see, that wish, at least, was gratified.
But it was this very love for his own son which had made the old
baron so unloving a stepfather to Wilfred, in whom he could only
see the rival of his boy, and both mother and son were obstacles to
be removed--the old sinner did not sin for himself, it must be
confessed.
Half an hour passed. Sir Eustace, the last who arrived that night,
came in, and the baron, to the great relief of the cooks, descended
to the hall.
Still he was far too proud and jealous of his dignity to show his
anxiety in voice or mien. He descended calmly to the banquet, the
chaplain blessed the food, and the tired and hungry nobles fell to
at the high table, while their retainers feasted below.
It was a bright and dazzling scene: at the head of the hall sat the
Baron and his chief guests upon a platform. Above it hung trophies
of war or the chase--arms borne in many a conflict, swords, spears,
arrows--to each of which some legend was attached; the antlers of
the giant stag, the tusk of the wild boar, the head and bill of
some long-necked heron.
Below, at right angles to the high table, were three other tables,
not fixtures, but composed of boards spread over trestles, and
covered with coarse white cloths. At these sat the retainers, the
men whose rank did not entitle them to sit at the high table, to
the number of some three hundred--there was not an Englishman
amongst them.
All day long the cooks and their menials had groaned before the
huge fires, where they roasted deer, sheep, oxen, swine, and the
like, and now they bore the joints in procession around the tables,
and the guests cut off--with the knives which hung at their
girdles, and which, perchance, had been more than once stained by
the blood of their foes--such portion of the meat as they fancied,
transferred it to their trenchers, and ate it without the aid of
forks; nevertheless there were napkins whereon to wipe their hands
when they had done.
The leaders sat at the high table--the leaders of each of the
numerous bands which had scoured the forest; one, and only one, was
absent, and he was, as our readers know, Etienne, son of Hugo.
Naught was said until hunger and thirst were appeased--until basins
were brought round with scented water, in which our lords washed
their fingers, and after waving them gracefully in the air, dried
them with the delicate napkins with which they were girded: and
rich wines were poured into goblets of gold and silver; then Hugo
asked, from his seat upon the dais:
"What success has gladdened our arms today? Doubtless some of our
knights have news for us."
"I have seen no foe, save the wild boar and a stray wolf, although
I have tramped the forest from the rising to the setting sun," said
Sir Bernard.
"Nor I," "nor I," said one after the other around the table.
The old man, Eustace de Senville, was silent till all had spoken;
then, like Nestor of old, wise, and qualified by age to act as
counsellor, he let fall his weighty words, which fell from his lips
like the flakes of thick falling snow without.
"My lot hath been different," he said; "it fell to me to explore
the quarter of the forest next to that assigned to the son of our
host. We had already completed our task, and were on the point of
returning homewards, for the sun was already low, when we heard the
blast of a horn appealing to us for aid."
"From what quarter?" said the baron.
"That assigned to your son. We at once hastened to render help,
and, after some fruitless search, heard the horn once more, and,
guided by its sound, reached a spot where the groans of one in pain
fell upon our ear, amidst the increasing darkness of the forest. We
found the victim, his horn by his side, dead--pierced through by an
arrow. The life had been ebbing when, hearing our signals, he had
striven with his last breath to summon us that he might not die
alone, and, indeed, his face looked as one who had died in awful
fear with some gruesome sight before his eyes."
"To what party did he belong?"
"He wore the badge of Aescendune, he was short of stature, one
shoulder somewhat higher than the other, and he wore this belt,
which we have brought home in hopes he may be known thereby."
The baron took the belt, with hands which shook in spite of all his
efforts at composure, and knew it to belong to one Torquelle, who
had been in attendance on his son.
"Etienne hath found foes," he said in a voice which he strove to
render calm.
"A light snow had begun to fall," continued the speaker, "the sun
was already very low, and it was dusk in the woods, when our dogs
began to growl. Dimly in the shade we saw three or four beings
creeping forward, as if studying the ground carefully. We watched
them with fear, doubting if they were of this world."
"Why?"
"They had horns, and tails, and huge ears."
"They say the wood is haunted by wood demons."
"Then thou wert afraid to follow?"
"We dare fight men, we fear none who breathe; but we shrink from
Satan and his hosts. Still we sent a flight of arrows, and they
vanished."
"Was the distance near enough to do execution?"
"Scarcely, had they been men; it mattered not if they were what
they appeared to be."
Strange to say, the idea that the foe had been masquerading for the
purpose of frightening them, never struck our Normans.
"When they had gone, we approached the spot," continued the aged
knight of Senville, "and found foot marks in the snow, which, from
the previous fall, lay lightly on the ground, for the storm of
tonight had hardly set in. There were marks of one of our parties,
and we saw by torchlight strange footprints, as if they had been
tracked by two or three daring foes--we thought we distinguished
hoof marks."
A terrible silence fell upon the whole assembly, as the idea that
they had been contending with demons, and not with mortals, fell
upon them, and perhaps the bravest would have hesitated to enter
the forest that night, however dire the need.
The baron knew this; yet when supper was over, when the hour of
retiring to rest had arrived, and still there were no signs of his
son, he selected a band of trusty warriors, who, in spite of the
story of the demons, which Eustace's men had made known throughout
the castle, would not be untrue to their lord.
And with these men, while all the rest slept, he penetrated the
forest, and with torches and horns made night hideous, until cold
and fatigue drove him home, his heart heavier than before, his
desire unaccomplished.
He threw himself upon his couch, only to be haunted by dreadful
dreams, in which he saw his son surrounded by the demons of Sir
Eustace's tale, and in every other variety of danger or distress,
like the constantly shifting scenes of a modern theatre.
And in all these dreams the "Dismal Swamp" played a prominent part.
Day broke at last, cold but bright; the first beams of the sun
gladdened the castle, reflected keenly from the white ground, the
trees hung with frozen snow, which had broken many branches to the
ground--the winter seemed to have come in good earnest.
Early in the day, a hundred men, well armed and mounted, led by the
baron, again entered the forest. They reached, in due course, the
part of the wood assigned to Etienne on the previous day.
The snow had effaced all tracks, but Sir Eustace speedily found the
spot where he had left the dead man, and there was the corpse,
stiff and frozen, but it was evident that the knight's description
given the previous evening was all too correct. The man had died in
great horror and anguish; the arrow yet remained in his body. It
was, as in the earlier cases, one of English make--a clumsy shaft,
unlike the polished Norman workmanship.
"We must search the whole district," said the baron; "but we had
better keep together."
Every one shared this opinion.
It was the unknown danger that troubled them, the thought that
supernatural powers were arrayed against them, that the English had
called the fiends to their aid, which terrified these hardened
warriors.
If the English had, indeed, sought by ghostly disguise to affright
their foes, they had well succeeded.
It was late in the morning before the glade was reached where our
party had rested, and the body of the man first slain was
discovered, and the whole band gathered around it.
Like the others, he had fallen by an English arrow.
The fear that all their friends had thus fallen became general, and
expressed itself in their countenances. The baron was livid.
There was no possibility of tracing the party, the snow had covered
the footsteps; but evidence was soon found in the fragments of
food--the remains of the carcase of the wild boar--to show that
this had been the midday rest, and that here the very beginning of
hostilities had taken place.
They returned thence to the spot where Torquelle was slain. Fear
and trembling seized many of the baron's warriors as they gazed
upon those distorted features--fear, mingled with dread--so
mysterious were the circumstances. They buried the body as decently
as time permitted, and continued their course until they came upon
another corpse slain in like manner.
Horror increased: at every stage the baron feared to find the dead
body of his son. They still pursued the same line: it led to the
edge of the Dismal Swamp, and there it ended.
They stood gazing upon that desolate wilderness.
"No human being could penetrate there," said Sir Bernard.
"Try."
Hugo advanced, dismounting for the purpose, but sank almost
directly in a quagmire covered with snow, and was drawn out with
difficulty.
"No, the place is enchanted."
"Guarded by fiends."
"Listen."
Cries as of men and dogs came across the waste.
"They are the demons of the pit, who would lead us into the
quagmires."
"They sound like human voices."
"Come what will, if hard frost will but freeze the ground, we will
search the place," said the baron. "Come, my men, we can do no
more; let us return--it is near nightfall."
This welcome order was obeyed by all the Normans with the greatest
alacrity, for they dreaded the approach of night, and the terrors
of the forest, which had already proved so fatal to their
companions.
No further mishap befell them; weary and footsore they reached the
castle, but the heaviest heart amongst them was that of Hugo.