While King Edward was narrating to the Norman Duke all that he knew,
and all that he knew not, of Hilda's history and secret arts, the road
wound through lands as wild and wold-like as if the metropolis of
England lay a hundred miles distant. Even to this day patches of such
land, in the neighbourhood of Norwood, may betray what the country was
in the old time:--when a mighty forest, "abounding with wild beasts"--
"the bull and the boar"--skirted the suburbs of London, and afforded
pastime to king and thegn. For the Norman kings have been maligned by
the popular notion that assigns to them all the odium of the forest
laws. Harsh and severe were those laws in the reign of the Anglo-
Saxon; as harsh and severe, perhaps, against the ceorl and the poor
man, as in the days of Rufus, though more mild unquestionably to the
nobles. To all beneath the rank of abbot and thegn, the king's woods
were made, even by the mild Confessor, as sacred as the groves of the
Druids: and no less penalty than that of life was incurred by the
lowborn huntsman who violated their recesses. [24]
Edward's only mundane passion was the chase; and a day rarely passed,
but what after mass he went forth with hawk or hound. So that, though
the regular season for hawking did not commence till October, he had
ever on his wrist some young falcon to essay, or some old favourite to
exercise. And now, just as William was beginning to grow weary of his
good cousin's prolix recitals, the hounds suddenly gave tongue, and
from a sedge-grown pool by the way-side, with solemn wing and harsh
boom, rose a bittern.
"Holy St. Peter!" exclaimed the Saint-king, spurring his palfrey, and
loosing his famous Peregrine falcon [25]. William was not slow in
following that animated example, and the whole company rode at half
speed across the rough forest-land, straining their eyes upon the
soaring quarry, and the large wheels of the falcons. Riding thus,
with his eyes in the air, Edward was nearly pitched over his palfrey's
head, as the animal stopped suddenly, checked by a high gate, set deep
in a half embattled wall of brick and rubble. Upon this gate sate,
quite unmoved and apathetic, a tall ceorl, or labourer, while behind
it was a gazing curious group of men of the same rank, clad in those
blue tunics of which our peasant's smock is the successor, and leaning
on scythes and flails. Sour and ominous were the looks they bent upon
that Norman cavalcade. The men were at least as well clad as those of
the same condition are now; and their robust limbs and ruddy cheeks
showed no lack of the fare that supports labour. Indeed, the working
man of that day, if not one of the absolute theowes or slaves, was,
physically speaking, better off, perhaps, than he has ever since been
in England, more especially if he appertained to some wealthy thegn of
pure Saxon lineage, whose very title of lord came to him in his
quality of dispenser of bread [26]; and these men had been ceorls
under Harold, son of Godwin, now banished from the land.
"Open the gate, open quick, my merry men," said the gentle Edward
(speaking in Saxon, though with a strong foreign accent), after he had
recovered his seat, murmured a benediction, and crossed himself three
times. The men stirred not.
"No horse tramps the seeds we have sown for Harold the Earl to reap;"
said the ceorl, doggedly, still seated on the gate. And the group
behind him gave a shout of applause.
Moved more than ever he had been known to be before, Edward spurred
his steed up to the boor, and lifted his hand. At that signal twenty
swords flashed in the air behind, as the Norman nobles spurred to the
place. Putting back with one hand his fierce attendants, Edward shook
the other at the Saxon. "Knave, knave," he cried, "I would hurt you,
if I could!"
There was something in these words, fated to drift down into history,
at once ludicrous and touching. The Normans saw them only in the
former light, and turned aside to conceal their laughter; the Saxon
felt them in the latter and truer sense, and stood rebuked. That
great king, whom he now recognised, with all those drawn swords at his
back, could not do him hurt; that king had not the heart to hurt him.
The ceorl sprang from the gate, and opened it, bending low.
"Ride first, Count William, my cousin," said the King, calmly.
The Saxon ceorl's eyes glared as he heard the Norman's name uttered in
the Norman tongue, but he kept open the gate, and the train passed
through, Edward lingering last. Then said the King, in a low voice,--
"Bold man, thou spokest of Harold the Earl and his harvests; knowest
thou not that his lands have passed from him, and that he is outlawed,
and that his harvests are not for the scythes of his ceorls to reap?"
"May it please you, dread Lord and King," replied the Saxon simply,
"these lands that were Harold the Earl's, are now Clapa's, the
sixhaendman's."
"How is that?" quoth Edward, hastily; "we gave them neither to
sixhaendman nor to Saxon. All the lands of Harold hereabout were
divided amongst sacred abbots and noble chevaliers--Normans all."
"Fulke the Norman had these fair fields, yon orchards and tynen; Fulke
sold them to Clapa, the Earl's sixhaendman, and what in mancusses and
pence Clapa lacked of the price, we, the ceorls of the Earl, made up
from our own earnings in the Earl's noble service. And this very day,
in token thereof, have we quaffed the bedden-ale [27]. Wherefore,
please God and our Lady, we hold these lands part and parcel with
Clapa; and when Earl Harold comes again, as come he will, here at
least he will have his own."
Edward, who, despite a singular simplicity of character, which at
times seemed to border on imbecility, was by no means wanting in
penetration when his attention was fairly roused, changed countenance
at this proof of rough and homely affection on the part of these men
to his banished earl and brother-in-law. He mused a little while in
grave thought, and then said, kindly--
"Well, man, I think not the worse of you for loyal love to your thegn,
but there are those who would do so, and I advise you, brotherlike,
that ears and nose are in peril if thou talkest thus indiscreetly."
"Steel to steel, and hand to hand," said the Saxon, bluntly, touching
the long knife in his leathern belt, "and he who sets gripe on Sexwolf
son of Elfhelm, shall pay his weregeld twice over."
"Forewarned, foolish man, thou are forewarned. Peace," said the King;
and, shaking his head, he rode on to join the Normans, who now, in a
broad field, where the corn sprang green, and which they seemed to
delight in wantonly trampling, as they curvetted their steeds to and
fro, watched the movements of the bittern and the pursuit of the two
falcons.
"A wager, Lord King!" said a prelate, whose strong family likeness to
William proclaimed him to be the Duke's bold and haughty brother, Odo
[28], Bishop of Bayeux;--"a wager. My steed to your palfrey that the
Duke's falcon first fixes the bittern."
"Holy father," answered Edward, in that slight change of voice which
alone showed his displeasure, "these wagers all savour of heathenesse,
and our canons forbid them to mone [29] and priest. Go to, it is
naught."
The bishop, who brooked no rebuke, even from his terrible brother,
knit his brows, and was about to make no gentle rejoinder, when
William, whose profound craft or sagacity was always at watch, lest
his followers should displease the King, interposed, and taking the
word out of the prelate's mouth, said:
"Thou reprovest us well, Sir and King; we Normans are too inclined to
such levities. And see, your falcon is first in pride of place. By
the bones of St. Valery, how nobly he towers! See him cover the
bittern!--see him rest on the wing!--Down he swoops! Gallant bird!"
"With his heart split in two on the bittern's bill," said the bishop;
and down, rolling one over the other, fell bittern and hawk, while
William's Norway falcon, smaller of size than the King's, descended
rapidly, and hovered over the two. Both were dead.
"I accept the omen," muttered the gazing Duke; "let the natives
destroy each other!" He placed his whistle to his lips, and his
falcon flew back to his wrist.
"Now home," said King Edward.