_By Miss Roberts._
"King Stephen was a worthy peer."
The hall was lofty, sculptured round with armorial devices, and hung with
gaily-embroidered banners, which waved in the wind streaming from the
crannies in windows which had suffered some dilapidation from the hand of
time. Minstrel harps rang throughout the wide apartment, and at a board
well covered with smoking viands--haunches of the red deer, bustards,
cranes, quarters of mutton, pasties, the grinning heads of wild boars,--and
flanked with flagons of wine, and tankards of foaming ale, sat King
Stephen, surrounded by the flower of the Norman nobles, whose voices had
placed him on the English throne. In the midst of the feast, the jovial
glee of the wassailers was interrupted by the entrance of a page, who,
forcing his way through the yeomen and lacqueys crowding at the door, flew
with breathless haste to the feet of the king, and falling down on his
knees, in faltering accents delivered the message with which he had been
intrusted. "Up, gallants," exclaimed the martial monarch, "don your
harness, and ride as lightly as you may to the relief of the Countess of
Clare, she lies in peril of her life and honour, beleaguered by a rabble of
unnurtured Welsh savages, who, lacking respect for beauty, have directed
their arms against a woman. Swollen with vain pride at their late victory,
(the fiend hang the coward loons who fled before them,) they have sworn to
make this noble lady serve them barefoot in their camp. By St. Dennis and
my good sword, were I not hampered by this pestilent invasion of the Scots,
I would desire no better pastime than to drive the ill-conditioned serfs
howling from the walls. Say, who amongst you will undertake the
enterprise?--What, all silent? are ye knights? are ye men? do I reign over
christian warriors, valiant captains who have been sworn to protect beauty
in distress; or are ye like the graceless dogs of Mahomed, insensible to
female honour?" "My ranks are wonderous scant," returned Milo Fitzwalter,
"I may not reckon twenty men at arms in the whole train, and varlets have I
none; but it boots not to number spears when danger presses; so to horse
and away. Beshrew me, were it the termagant Queen Maude herself, I'd do my
best to rescue her in this extremity."--"Thou art a true knight,
Fitzwalter," replied the king, "and wilt prosper: the Saint's benizon be
with thee, for thou must speed on this errand with such tall men as thou
canst muster of thine own proper followers: the Scots, whom the devil
confound, leave me too much work, to spare a single lance from mine own
array. We will drink to thy success, and to the health of the fair
countess, in a flask of the right Bourdeaux: and tell the lady that thy
monarch grudges thee this glorious deed; for by my Halidom, an thou winnest
her unscathed from the hands of these Welsh churls, thou wilt merit a niche
beside the most renowned of Charlemagne's paladins." Fitzwalter made no
answer, but he armed in haste, and, leaping into his saddle, gave the spur
to his gallant steed, and followed by his esquires and men at arms, rested
not either night or day, until he reached the marches of Wales. The lions
of England still proudly flying over the castle walls, assured him that the
countess had been enabled to hold out against the savage horde, who
surrounded it on all sides. The besiegers set up a furious yell as the
knight and his party approached their encampment. Half naked, their eyes
glaring wildly from beneath a mass of yellow hair, and scantily armed with
the rudest species of offensive and defensive weapons, their numbers alone
made them terrible; and had the castle been manned and victualled, it might
have long defied their utmost strength. Drawing their falchions, the knight
and his party keeping closely together, and thus forming an impenetrable
wedge, cut their desperate path through the fierce swarm of opposing foes,
who, like incarnate demons, rushed to the onslaught, and fell in heaps
before the biting steel of these experienced soldiers. Pressing forward
with unyielding bravery, Fitzwalter won the castle walls; whence, with the
assistance of such frail aid as the living spectres on the battlements
could give, he beat back the Welsh host, and in another quarter of an hour,
having dispersed the enemy with frightful loss, gained free entrance to the
castle. Feeble was the shout of triumph which welcomed Fitzwalter and his
brave companions; the corpses of the unburied dead lay strewed upon the
pavement; the heroic countess, and her attendant damsels, clad in the
armour of the slain, weakened by famine, and hopeless of succour, yet still
striving to deceive the besiegers by the display of living warriors, by
this stratagem retarded the assault which they could not repel. Fitzwalter
took advantage of the darkness of the night, and the panic of the
Welshmen, to withdraw from a fortress which was destitute of all the
implements of war; and with the rescued ladies mounted behind them, the
brave band returned to the court of King Stephen; and the charms of the
fair one, and the valour of her chivalric defender, formed the theme of the
minstrel in every knightly hall and lady's bower throughout Christendom.
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