I took lodgings that evening with some rough soldiers who kept guard
over the town gate, and slept as soundly by their watch-fire as though
my country clothes were purple, and a stony bench in an angle of the
walls were a princely couch. But when the morning came I determined to
better my condition.
With this object in view one of the smallest of my rings was selected,
and, with this conveniently hidden, I went down into the town to search
for a jeweler’s. A strange town indeed it struck me as being. Narrow
and many were the streets, and paved with stones; timber and plaster
jutting out overhead so as to lessen the fair, free sky to a narrow
strip, and greatly to compress my country spirit. At every lattice
window, so amply provided with glass as I had never known before, they
were hanging out linen at that early hour to air; and the ’prentice
lads came yawning and stretching to their masters’ shutter booths, and
every now and then down the quaint streets of that curious city which
had sprung--peopled with a new race--from the earth during the long
night of my sleep, there rumbled a country tumbril loaded with rustic
things, whereat the women came out to chaffer and buy of the smocked
cartsmen who spoke the glib English so novel to my ear and laughed
and gossiped with them. The early ware I noticed in his cart was still
damp and sparkling with the morning dew, so close upon the dawn had he
come in, and there in the town where the deep street shadows still lay
undisturbed, now and then a Jew, still ashamed, it seemed, to meet any
of those sleepy Christian eyes, would steal by to an early bargain,
wrapped to his chin in his gabardine--I knew that garment a thousand
years ago--and fearfully slinking, in that intolerant time, from house
to house and shadow to shadow.
Now and then as I sauntered along in a city of novelties, a couple
of revelers in extraordinary various clothes, their toes longer than
their sleeves, their velvet caps quaintly peaked, and slashed doublets
showing gay vests below, came reeling and singing up the back ways,
making the half-waked dogs dozing in the gutters snarl and snap at
them, and disturbing the morning meal of the crows rooting in the
litter-heaps.
As the sun came up, and the fresh, white light of that fair Plantagenet
morning crept down the faces of the eastward walls, the city woke
to its daily business. A page came tripping over the cobbles with a
message in his belt, the good wives were astir in the houses, and the
’prentices fell to work manfully on booth and bars as merchant and
mendicant, early gallant and basketed maid, began the day in earnest.
All these things I saw from under the broad rim of my rustic hat--my
ragged, sorrel-green cloak thrown over my shoulder and across my face,
and, so disguised, silent, observant--now recognizing something of that
yesterday that was so long ago, and anon sad and dubious, I went on
until I found what I sought for, and came into a smooth, broad street,
where the jewelers had their stalls. I chose one of those who seemed in
a fair way of business, and entered.
“Are you the master here?” I asked of a gray-bearded merchant who was
searching for the spectacles he had put away overnight.
“My neighbors say so,” he answered gruffly.
“Then I would trade with you.”
Whereon--having found and adjusted his great hornglasses--he eyed me
superciliously from head to foot; then said, in a tone of derision:
“As you wish, friend countryman. But will you trade in pearl and
sapphire, or diamond pins and brooches, perhaps--or is it only for
broken victuals of my last night’s supper?”
“Keep thy victuals for thy lean and hungry lads! I will trade with
you in pearl and sapphire.” And thereon, from under my moldy rags, I
brought a lordly ring that danced and sparkled in the clear sunlight
stealing through the mullioned windows of his booth, and threw
quivering rainbow hues upon the white walls of the little den, dazzling
the blinking, delighted old man in front of me. “How much for that?” I
asked, throwing it down in front of him.
It was a better gem than he had seen for many a day, and, having turned
it over loving and wistful, he whispered to me (for he thought I had
surely stolen it) one-sixteenth of its value! Thereon I laughed at him,
and threw down my cap, and took the ring, and gave him such a lecture
on gems and jewels--all out of my old Phrygian merchant knowledge--so
praised and belauded the shine and water of each single shining point
in that golden circlet, that presently I had sold it to him for near
its value!
Then I bought a leather wallet and put the money in, and traded again
lower down the street with another ring. And then again at good
prices--for competition was close among these goldsmiths, and none
liked me to sell the beautiful things I showed them one by one to their
rivals--I sold two more.
“Surely! surely! good youth,” questioned one merchant to me, “these
trinkets were made for some master Abbot’s thumb, or some blessed
saint.”
“And surely again, my friend,” I answered, “you have just seen them
drawn from a layman’s finger.”
“Well, well,” he said, “I will give you your price,” and then, as he
turned away to pack them, he muttered to himself, “A stout cudgel seems
a good profession nowadays! If it were not through fear yon Flemish
rascal over the road might take the gem, I at least would never deal
with such an obvious footpad.”
By this time I was rich, and my wallet purse hung low and heavy at
my girdle, so away I went to where some tailors lived, and accosted
the best of them. Here the cross-legged sewers who sat on the sill
among shreds of hundred-colored stuffs and the bent, white-fingered
embroiderers stopped their work and gaped to hear the ragged, wayworn
loafer, whose broad shadow darkened their doorway, ask for silks and
satins, yepres and velvet. One youthful churl, under the master’s
eyes, unbonneted, and in mock civility asked me whether I would
have my surtout of crimson or silver--whether my jupons should be
strung with seedling pearls, or just plain sewn with golden thread
and lace. He said, that harmless scoffer, he knew a fine pattern a
noble lord had lately worn, of minever and silver, which would very
neatly suit me--but I, disdainful, not putting my hand to my loaded
pouch as another might have done, only let the ragged homespun fall
from across my face, and, taking the cap from my raven hair and grim,
weather-beaten face, turned upon them.
The laughter died away in that little den as I did so, the
embroiderer’s needle stuck halfway through its golden fabric, the
workers stared upon me open-mouthed. The cutter’s shears shut with a
snap upon the rustling webs, and then forgot to open, while ’prentice
lads stood, all with yardwands in their hand, most strangely spellbound
by my presence. The conquest was complete without a word, and no one
moved, until presently down shuffled the master tailor from his dusky
corner, and, waving back his foolish boys, bowed low with sudden
reverence as he asked with many epithets of respect in how he might
serve me.
“Thanks,” I said, “my friend. What I need is only this--that you should
express upon me some of these tardy but courteous commendations.
Translate me from these rags to the livery of gentility. Express in
good stuffs upon me some of that ‘nobility’ your quick perception has
now discovered--in brief, suit me at once as a not too fantastic knight
of your time is clad; and have no doubt about my paying.” Whereon I
quickened his willingness by a sight of my broad pieces.
Well, they had just such vests and tunics and hose as I needed, and
these, according to the fashion, being laced behind and drawn in at
the middle by a loose sword-belt, fitted me without special making. My
vest was of the finest doeskin, scalloped round the edge, bound with
golden tissue, and worked all up the front with the same in leaves
and flowers. My hose were as green as rushes, and my shoes pointed
and upturned halfway to my knees. On my shoulders hung a loose cloak
of green velvet of the same hue as my hose, lined and puffed with the
finest grass-green satin that ever came in merchant bales from over
seas. Over my right arm it was held by a gold-and-emerald brooch--a
“morse” that worthy clothier termed it--bigger than my palm, and this
tunic hung to my small-laced middle. My maunch-sleeves were lined by
ermine, and hung to my ankles a yard and more in length. On my head,
my cap, again, was all of ermine and velvet, bound with strings of
seed-pearls. That same kindly hosier got me a pretty playtime dagger
of gold and sapphire for my hip, and green-satin gloves, sewn thick
upon the back with golden threads. This, he said, was a fair and
knightly vestment, such as became a goodly soldier when he did not wear
his harness, but with naught about it of the courtly sumptuousness
which so hard and warlike-seeming a lord as I no doubt despised.
From hence I went by many a cobble pavement to where the noisy sound
of hammers and anvils filled the narrow streets. And mighty busy I
discovered the armor-smiths. There was such a riveting and hammering,
such a fitting and filing and brazing going on, that it seemed as
though every man in the town were about to don steel and leather. There
were long-legged pages in garb of rainbow hue hurrying about with
orders to the armorers or carrying home their masters’ finished helms
or warlike gear; there were squires and men-at-arms idly watching at
the forge doors the pulsing hammers weld rivets and chains; and ever
and anon a man-at-arms would come pushing through these groups with
sheaves of broken arrows to be ground, or an armful of pikes to be
rehandled, casting them down upon the cumbered floor; or perhaps it
was a squire came along the way leading over the cobbles a stately
war-horse to the shoeing.
In truth, it was a sight to please a soldier’s eyes, and right pleasant
was it to me to hear the proud neighing of the chargers, the laughing
and the talk, the busy whirr of grindstone on sword and axes, the
clangor of the hammers as the hot white spearheads went to the noisy
anvil, while forges beat in unison to the singing of the smiths! Ah!
and I walked slowly down those streets, wondering and watching with
vast pleasure in the busy scene, though every now and then it came over
me how solitary I was--I, the one impassive in this turmoil, to whom
the very stake they prepared to fight for was unknown!
A little way off were the booths where stores of Milan armor were
for sale. To them I went, and was shown piles and stacks of harness
such as never man saw before, all of steel and golden inlay, covering
every point of a warrior, and so rich and cumbersome that it was only
with great hesitation I submitted my free Phrygian limbs to such a
steel casementing. But I was a gentleman now, whereof to witness
came my gorgeous apparel, backing the grim authority of my face,
and the bargaining was easy enough. Skogula and Mista! but those
swart, olive-skinned, hook-nosed Jewish apprentices screwed me up and
braced me down into that suit of Milan steel until I could scarcely
breathe--their black-eyed master all the time belauding the sit and
comfort of it.
“Gads! Sir,” quoth he, “many’s a hauberk I have seen laced on knightly
shoulders, but by the mail from the back of the Gittite, who fell
in Shochoh, I never saw a coat of links sit closer or truer than
that!” and then again, “There’s a gorget for you, Sir! Why, if Ahab
had but possessed such a one, as I am a miserable poor merchant and
your Valor’s humble servant, even the blessed arrows of Israel would
have glanced off harmlessly from his ungodly body!” And the cunning,
sanctimonious old Jew went fawning and smiling round while his helpers
pent me up in my glittering hide until I was steel-and-gold inlay from
head to heel.
“By Abraham! noble Sir, those greaves become your legs!--Pull them in a
little more at the ankles, Isaac!--And here’s a tabard, Sir, of crimson
velvet and emblazoned borderings a prince might gladly wear!”
[Illustration: “By Abraham! noble Sir, those greaves become your
legs!”]
Then they put a helm upon me with a visor and beaver, through which
I frowned, as ill at ease as a young goshawk with his first hood,
and girded me with a broad belt chosen from many, and a good English
broadsword, the dagger “misericordia” at my other hip, and knightly
spurs (they gave me that rank without question) upon my heels, so that
I was completely armed at last, after the fantastic style of the time,
and fit to take my place again in the red ranks of my old profession.
I will not weary you with many details of the process whereby I adapted
myself to the times. From that armorer’s shop I went--leaving my mail
to be a little altered--to a hostelry in the center square of the
town, and there I fed and rested. There, too, I chose a long-legged
squire from among those who hung about every street corner, and he
turned out a most accomplished knave. I never knew a villain who
could lie so sweetly in his master’s service as that particolored,
curly-headed henchman. He fetched my armor back the next day, cheating
the armorer at one end of the errand and me at the other. He got me a
charger--filling the gray-stoned yard with capering palfreys that I
might make my choice--and over the price of my selection he cozened the
dealers and hoodwinked me. He was the most accomplished youth in his
station that ever thrust a vagrom leg into green-and-canary tights,
or put a cock’s feather into a borrowed cap. He would sit among the
wallflowers on the inn-yard wall and pipe French ditties till every
lattice window round had its idle sewing-maid. He would swear, out in
the market-place, when he lost at dice or skittles, until the bronzed
troopers looking on blushed under their tawny hides at his supreme
expurlatives. There was not such a lad within the town walls for strut,
for brag, or bully, yet when he came in to render the service due to
me he ministered like a soft, white-fingered damsel. He combed my long
black hair, anointing and washing it with wondrous scents, whereof
he sold me phials at usurious interest; he whispered into my sullen,
unnoticing ear a constant stream of limpid, sparkling scandal; he
cleaned my armor till it shone like a brook in May time, and stole my
golden lace and a dozen of the sterling links from my dagger chain. He
knew the wittiest, most delicately licentious songs that ever were writ
by a minstrel, and he could cook such dishes as might have made a dying
anchorite sit up and feast.
Strange, incomprehensible! that wayward youth went forth one day on his
own affairs, and met in the yard two sturdy loafers who spoke of me,
and calling me penniless, unknown, infamous--and French, perhaps--for
they doubted I was good English--whereon that gallant youth of mine
fell on them and fought them--there right under my window--and beat
them both, and flogged their dusty jackets all across the market-place
to the tune of their bellowings, and all this for his master’s honor!
Then, having done so much, he proceeded with his private errand, which
was to change, for his own advantage at a mean Fleming’s shop, those
pure golden spurs of mine, secreted in his bosom, into a pair of common
brass ones.
For five days I had lain in that town in magnificent idleness, and had
spent nearly all my rings and money, when, one day, as I sat moody
and alone by the porch of the inn drinking in the sun, my idle valor
rusting for service, and looking over the market square with its
weather-worn central fountain, its cobblestones mortared together with
green moss and quaint surroundings, there came cantering in and over
to my rest-house three goodly knights in complete armor with squires
behind them--their pennons fluttering in the wind, tall white feathers
streaming from their helms, and their swords and maces rattling at
the saddle bows to the merriest of tunes. They pulled up by the open
lattice, and, throwing their broad bridles to the ready squires, came
clattering up, dusty and thirsty, past where I lay, my inglorious
silken legs outstretched upon the window bench, and the sunlight all
ashine upon the gorgeous raiment that irked me so.
They were as jolly fellows as one could wish to see, and they tossed up
their beavers and called for wine and poured it down their throats with
a pleasure pleasant enough to watch. Then--for they could not unlace
themselves--in came their lads and fell to upon them and unscrewed
and lifted off the great helms, and piece by piece all the glittering
armor, and piling it on the benches--the knights the while sighing with
relief as each plate and buckle was relaxed--and so they got them at
last down to their quilted vests, and then the gallants sat to table
and fell to laughing and talking until their dinner came.
From what I gathered, they were on their way to war, and war upon that
fair, fertile country yonder over the narrow seas. Jove! how they did
revile the Frenchman and drain their beakers to a merry meeting with
him, until ever as they chattered the feeling grew within me that here
was the chance I was waiting for--I would join them--and, since it was
the will of the Incomprehensible, draw my sword once more in the cause
of this fair, many-mastered island.
Nor was there long to wait for an excuse. They began talking of King
Edward’s forces presently, and how that every man who could spin a
sword or sit a war-horse was needed for the coming onset, and how more
especially leaders were wanting for the host gathering, so they said,
away by the coast. Whereon at once I arose and went over, sitting down
at their table, and told them that I had some knowledge of war, and
though just then I lacked a quarrel I would willingly espouse their
cause if they would put me in the way of it.
In my interest and sympathy I had forgot they had not known I was so
close, and now the effect which my sudden appearance always had on
strangers made them all stare at me as though I were a being of another
world--as, indeed, I was--of many other worlds. And yet the comely,
stalwart, raven-tressed, silk-swathed fellow who sat there before
them at the white-scrubbed board, marking their fearful wonder with
regretful indifference, was solid and real, and presently the eldest of
them swallowed his surprise and spoke out courteously for all, saying
they would be glad enough to help my wishes, and then--warming with
good fellowship as the first effect of my entry wore off--he added
they were that afternoon bound for the rendezvous (as he termed it) at
a near castle; “and if I could wear harness as fitly as I could wear
silk, and had a squire and a horse,” they would willingly take me along
with them. So it was settled, and in a great bumper they drank to me
and I to them, and thus informally was I admitted into the ranks of
English chivalry.
We ate and drank and laughed for an hour or two, and then settled with
our host and got into our armor. This to them was customary enough,
nor was it now so difficult a thing to me, for I had donned and doffed
my gorgeous steel casings, by way of practice, so often in seclusion
that, when it came to the actual test, assisted with the nimble fingers
of that varlet of mine, I was in panoply from head to heel, helmeted
and spurred, before the best of them. Ah! and I was not so old yet but
that I could delight in what, after all, was a noble vestment! And as I
looked round upon my knightly comrades draining the last drops of their
flagons while their squires braced down their shining plates, and girt
their steel hips with noble brands, the while I knew in my heart that
if they were strong and stalwart I was stronger and more stalwart--that
if they carried proud hearts and faces shining there, under their
nodding plumes, of gentle birth and handsome soldierliness--no less
did I: knowing all this, I say, and feeling peer to these comely peers,
I had a flush of pride and contentment again in my strangely varied
lot. Then the grooms brought round our gay-ribboned horses to the
cobbles in front, where, mounting, we presently set out, as goodly a
four as ever went clanking down a sunny market-place, while the maids
waved white handkerchiefs from the overhanging lattices and townsmen
and ’prentices uncapped them to our dancing pennons.
We rode some half-score miles through a fertile country toward the
west, now cantering over green undulations, and anon picking a way
through woodland coppices, where the checkered light played daintily
upon our polished furniture, and the spear-points rustling ever and
anon against the green boughs overhead.
“What of this good knight to whose keep we are going?” asked one of my
companions presently. “He is reputed rich, and, what is convenient in
these penurious times, blessed only with daughters.”
“Why!” responded the fellow at his elbow, who set no small store by
a head of curly chestnut hair and a handsome face below it, “if that
is so, in truth I am not at all sure but that I will respectfully
bespeak one of those fair maids. I am half convinced I was not born to
die on some scoundrel Frenchman’s rusty toasting-iron. ’Tis a cursed
perilous expedition this of ours, and I never thought so highly of
the advantages of a peaceful and Christian life as I have this last
day or two. Now, which of these admirable maids dost thou think most
accessible, good Delafosse?” he asked, turning to the horseman who
acted as our guide by right of previous knowledge here.
“Well,” quoth that youth, after a moment’s hesitation, “I must frankly
tell you, Ralph, that I doubt if there are any two maids within a score
of miles of us who have been tried so often by such as you and proved
more intractable. The knight, their father, is a rough old fellow, as
rich as though he were an abbot, hale and frank with every one. You
may come or go about his halls, and (for they have no mother) lay what
siege you like to his girls, nor will he say a word. So far so well,
and many a pretty gallant asks no better opportunity. But, because you
begin thus propitious, it does not follow either fair citadel is yours!
No! these virgin walls have stood unmoved a hundred assaults, and as
much escalading as only a country swarming with poor desperate youths
can any way explain.”
“St. Denis!” exclaimed the other, “all this but fans the spark of my
desire.”
“Oh, desire by all means. If wishes would bring down well-lined
maidenhoods, those were a mighty scarce commodity. But, soberly, does
thy comprehensive valor intend to siege both these heiresses at once,
or will one of them suffice?”
“One, gentle Delafosse, and, when my exulting pennon flutters
triumphant from that captured turret, I will in gratitude help thee to
mount the other. Difference them, beguile this all too tedious way with
an account of their peculiar graces. Which maid dost thou think I might
the most aptly sue?”
“Well, you may try, of course, but remember I hold out no hope, neither
of the elder nor the younger. That one, the first, is as magnificent
a shrew as ever laughed an honest lover to scorn. She is as black and
comely as any daughter of Zion. ’Tis to her near every Knight yields
at first glance; but--gads!--it does them little good! She has a heart
like the nether millstone; and, as for pride, she is prouder than
Lucifer! I know not what game it may be this swart Circe sees upon the
skyline--some say ’tis even for that bold boy the young Prince himself,
now gone with his father to France, she waits; and some others say she
will look no lower than a Duke backed by the wealth of the grand Soldan
himself. But whoever it be, he has not yet come.”
“By the bones of St. Thomas à Becket,” the young Knight laughed, “I
have a mind that that Knight and I may cross the drawbridge together!
Canst tell me, out of good comradeship, any weak place in this damsel’s
harness?”
“There is none I know of. She is proof at every point. Indeed, I am
nigh reluctant to let one like you, whose heart has ripened in the
sun of experience so much faster than his head, engage upon such a
dangerous venture. They say one gallant was so stung by the calm scorn
with which she mocked his offer that he went home and hung himself to
a cellar beam; and another, blind in desperate love, leaped from her
father’s walls, and fell in the courtyard, a horrid, shapeless mass!
Young De Vipon, as you know, stabbed himself at her feet, and ’tis told
the maid’s wrath was all because his spurting heart’s-blood soiled
her wimple a day before it was due to go to wash! How thrives thy
inclination?”
“Oh! well enough: ’twould take more than this to spoil my appetite!
But, nevertheless, let us hear something of the other sister. This
elder is obviously a proud minx, who has set her heart on lordly game,
and will not marry because her suitors seem too mean. How is it with
the other girl?”
“Why,” said Delafosse, “it is even more hopeless with her. She will not
marry, for the cold sufficient reason that her suitors be all men!”
“A most abominable offense.”
“Ah! so she thinks it. Such a tender, shy and modest maid there is not
in the boast of the county. While the elder will hear you out, arms
crossed on pulseless bosom, cold, disdainful eyes fixed with haughty
stare to yours, the other will not stop to listen--no, not so much
as to the first inkling of your passion! Breathe so little as half a
sigh, or tint your speech with a rosy glint of dawning love, and she
is away, lighter than thistledown on the upland breeze. I know of
but two men--loose, worldly fellows both of them--who cornered her,
and they came from her presence looking so crestfallen, so abashed
at their hopes, so melancholy to think on their gross manliness as
it had appeared against the white celibacy of that maid, that even
some previous suitors sorrowed for them. This is, I think, the safer
venture, but even the least hopeful.”
“Is the maid all fallow like that? Has she no human faults to set
against so much sterile virtue?”
“Of her faults I cannot speak, but you must not hold her altogether
insipid and shallow. She is less approachable than her sister, and
contemns and fears our kind, yet she is straight and tall in person,
and, I have heard from a foster-brother of hers, can sit a fiery
charger, new from stall, like a groom or horse boy, she is the best
shot with a crossbow of any on the castle green, and in the women’s
hall as merry a romp, as ready for fun or mischief, as any village girl
that ever kept a twilight tryst on a Saturday evening.”
“Gads! a most pleasant description. I will keep tryst with this one for
a certainty, not only Saturdays, but six other days out of the week.
The black jade may wait for her princeling for a hundred years as far
as I am concerned. How far is it to the castle?--I am hot impatience
itself!”
“Nor need your patience cool! Look!” said Delafosse, and as he spoke
we turned a bend in the woodland road, and there, a mile before us,
flashing back the level sun from towers and walls that seemed of
burnished copper, was the noble pile we sought.
Certes! when we came up to it, it was a fine place indeed, cunningly
built with fosses round about, long barbican walls within them,
turreted and towered, and below these again were other walls so shrewd
designed for defense as to move any soldier heart with wonder and
delight. But if the walls did pleasure me, the great keep within,
towering high into the sky with endless buttresses, and towers, and
casements, grim, massive, and stately, rearing its proud circumference,
embattled and serrated far beyond the reach of rude assault or
desperate onset, filled me with pride and awe. I scarce could take
my eyes from those red walls shining so molten in the setting sun,
yet round about the country lay very fair to look at. All beyond
that noble pile the land dropped away--on two sides by sheer cliffs
to the shining river underneath--and on the others in gentle, grassy
undulations, dotted with great trees, whereunder lay, encamped by tent
and watchfire, the rear of King Edward’s army, and then on again into
the pleasant distance that lay stretched away in hill and valley toward
the yellow west.
All over that wide campaign were scattered the villages of serfs and
vassals who grew corn for the lordly owner in peace-time, and followed
his banner in battle. And in that knightly stronghold up above there
were, I found when I came to know it better, many kinsmen and women who
sheltered under my Lord’s liberality. Dowagers dwelt in the wings, and
young squires of good name--a jolly, noisy, unruly crew--harbored down
in the great vaulted chambers by the sally-port. There were kinsmen
of the left-hand degree in the warder’s lodge by the gates, and poor
wearers of the same noble escutcheon up among the jackdaws and breezes
of the highest battlements. And so generous was the Knight’s bounty,
so ample the sweep of his castellated walls and labyrinthine the mazes
of the palace keep they encircled, so abundant the income of his
tithes and tenure, dues and fees, that all these folk found living and
harborage with him; and not only did it not irk that Lord, but only to
his steward and hall porter was it known how many guests there were,
or when a man came or went, or how many hundred horses stood in the
stalls, or how many score of vassals fed in the great kitchen.
On Sundays, after mass, the smooth green in the center of the castle
would be thronged with men and maids in all their finery; while the
quintains spun merrily under the mock onsets of the young knights,
and dame and gallant trode the stony battlements, and down among the
wide shadow of the cedar-trees on the slope (’twas a Crusader who
brought the saplings from Palestine) vassal and yeoman idled and made
love or frolicked with their merry little ones. Over all that gallant
show my Lord’s great blazon snapped and flaunted in the wind upon the
highest donjon; and in the halls beneath the lords and ladies sat
in the deep-seated windows, and laughed and sang and jested in the
mullion-tinted sunshine with all the courtly extravagance of their
brilliant day.
Ah! by old Isis! at that time the world, it seemed to me, was less
complex, and the rules of life were simpler. Kingcraft had found its
mold and fashion in the courageous Edward, and the first duty of
a noble was then nobility: the Knights swore by their untarnished
chivalry, and the vassals by their loyalty. Yes! and it was priestly
then to fear God and hell, and every woman was, or would be, lovely! So
ran the simple creed of those who sang or taught, while nearly every
one believed them.
But you who live in a time when there is no belief but that of
Incredulence, when the creative skill and forethought of the great
primeval Cause is open to the criticism and cavil of every base human
atom it has brought about--you know better--you know how vain their
dream was, how foolish their fidelity, how simple their simplicity,
how contemptible their courage, and how mean by the side of your love
of mediocrity their worship of ideals and heroes! By the bright Theban
flames to which my fathers swore! by the grim shadow of Osiris which
dogged the track of my old Phœnician bark! I was soon more English than
any of them.
But while I thus tell you the thoughts that came of experience, I keep
you waiting at the castle-gate. They admitted us by drawbridge and
portcullised arch into the center space, and there we dismounted. Then
down the steps, to greet guests of such good degree, came the gallant,
grizzled old Lord himself in his quilted under-armor vest. We made
obeisance, and in a few words the host very courteously welcomed his
guests, leading us in state (after we had given our helmets to the
pages at the door) into the great hall of his castle, where we found a
throng of ladies and gallants in every variety of dress filling those
lofty walls with life and color.
In truth, it was a noble hall, the walls bedecked with antlers or
spoils of woodcraft, with heads and horns and bows and bills, and
tapestry; and the ceiling wonderfully wrought with carved beams as far
down that ample corridor as one could see. The floor of oak was dark
with wear, yet as smooth and reflective to many-colored petticoats and
rainbow-tinted shoes as the Parian marble of some fair Roman villa.
And on the other side there were fifty windows deep-set in the wall,
with gay stainings on them of parable and escutcheon; while on the
benches, fingering ribboned mandolins, whispering gentle murmurs under
the tinseled lawn of fair ladies’ kerchiefs, or sauntering to and fro
across the great chamber’s ample length, were all these good and gentle
folk, bedecked and tasseled and ribboned in a way that made that
changing scene a very fairy show of color.
Strange, indeed, was it for me to walk among the glittering throng,
all prattling that merry medley they called their native English, and
to remember all I could remember, to recall Briton, Roman, Norseman,
Norman, Saxon, and to know each and all of those varied peoples were
gone--gone forever--gone beyond a hope or chance of finding--and yet,
again, to know that each and every one of those nations, whose strong
life in turn had given color to my life, was here--here before me,
consummated in this people--oh, ’twas strange, and almost past belief!
And ever as I went among them in fairer silks and ermines than any, yet
underneath that rustling show I laughed to know that I was nothing but
the old Phœnician merchant, nothing but Electra’s petted paramour, the
strong, unruly Saxon Thane!
And if I thought thus of them, in sooth, they thought no less strangely
of me! Ever, as my good host led me here and there from group to group,
the laughter died away on cherry lips, and minstrel fingers went all
a-wandering down their music strings as one and all broke off in mid
pleasure to stare in mute perplexity and wonder at me. From group to
group we went, my host at each making me known to many a glittering
lord and lady, and to each of those courtly presences I made in return
that good Saxon bow, which subsequently I found instable fashion had
made exceeding rustic.
Presently in this way we came to a gay knot of men collected round
two fair women, the one of them seated in a great velvet chair,
holding court as I could guess by word and action over the bright
constellations that played about her, the other within the circle, yet
not of it, standing a little apart and turned from us as we approached.
Alianora, the first of these noble damsels, was the elder daughter
of the master of the house, and the second, Isobel, was his younger
child. The first of these was a queen of beauty, and from that first
moment when I stood in front of her, and came under the cold, proud
shine of those black eyes, I loved her! Jove! I felt the hot fire of
love leap through my veins on the instant as I bowed me there at her
footstool and forgot everything else for the moment, merging all the
world against the inaccessible heart of that beautiful girl. Indeed,
she was one who might well play the Queen among men. Her hair was black
as night, and, after the fashion of the time, worked up to either side
of her head into a golden filigree crown, beaded with shining pearls,
extraordinary regal. Black were her eyes as any sloe, and her smooth,
calm face was wonderful and goddess-like in the perfect outline and
color. Never a blush of shame or fear, never a sign of inward feeling,
stirred that haughty damsel’s mood. By Venus! I wonder why we loved
her so. To whisper gentle things into her ear was but like dropping
a stone into some deep well--the ripples on the dark, sullen water
were not more cold, silent, intangible than her responsive smile.
She was too proud even to frown, that disdainful English peeress,
but, instead, at slight or negligence she would turn those unwavering
eyes of hers upon the luckless wight and look upon him so that there
was not a knight, though of twenty fights, there was not a gallant,
though never so experienced in gentle tourney with ladies’ eyes, who
durst meet them. To this maid I knelt--and rose in love against all my
better instinct--wildly, recklessly enamored of her shining Circean
queenliness--ah! so enthralled was I by the black Alianora that my
host had to pluck me by the sleeve ere he whispered to me, “Another
daughter, sir stranger! Divide your homage,” and he led me to the
younger girl.
Now, if the elder sister had won me at first sight, my feelings
were still more wonderful to the other. If the elder had the placid
sovereignty of the evening star, Isobel was like the planet of the
morning. From head to heel she was in white. Upon her forehead her fair
brown hair was strained back under a coverchief and wimple as colorless
as the hawthorn flowers. This same fair linen, in the newest fashion of
demurity, came down her cheeks and under her chin, framing her face in
oval, in pretty mockery of the steel coif of an armed knight. Her dress
below was of the whitest, softest stuff, with long, hanging sleeves, a
wondrous slender middle drawn in by a silk and silver cestus belt made
like a warrior’s sword-wear, and a skirt that descended in pretty folds
to her feet and lay atwining about them in comely ampleness. She was as
supple as a willow wand, and tall and straight, and her face--when in a
moment she turned it on me--was wondrous pleasant to look at--the very
opposite of her sister’s--all pink and white, and honestly ashine with
demure fun and merriment, the which constantly twinkled in her downcast
eyes, and kept the pretty corners of her mouth a-twitching with covert,
ill-suppressed, unruly smiles. A fair and tender young girl indeed,
made for love and gentleness!
Unhappy Isobel!--luckless victim of an accursed fate! Wretched,
perverse Phœnician! Ill-omened Alianora! Between us three sprang up two
fatal passions. Read on, and you shall see.