Produced by Charlie Howard and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Transcriber’s Note: Black Letter is indicated by =equals signs=;
italics text is indicated by _underscores_.
LEGENDS
OF
LOVE AND CHIVALRY.
Knights of England, France, and Scotland.
THE
KNIGHTS
OF
ENGLAND, FRANCE,
AND
SCOTLAND.
BY
HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT,
AUTHOR OF “THE CAVALIERS OF ENGLAND”--“THE ROMAN TRAITOR”--“CROMWELL,”
“THE BROTHERS”--“CAPTAINS OF THE OLD WORLD,” ETC.
[Illustration]
REDFIELD,
CLINTON HALL, NEW YORK
1852.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852,
BY J. S. REDFIELD,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States,
in and for the Southern District of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE,
13 Chambers Street, N. Y.
CONTENTS
PAGE
LEGENDS OF THE NORMAN CONQUERORS 7
The Saxon’s Oath 9
The Norman’s Vengeance 22
The Faith of Woman 37
The Erring Arrow 45
The Saxon Prelate’s Doom 61
The Fate of the Blanche Navire 73
The Saxon’s Bridal 85
LEGENDS OF THE CRUSADERS 99
The Syrian Lady 101
The Templar’s Trials 115
The Renegado 128
LEGENDS OF FEUDAL DAYS 143
The False Ladye 145
The Vassal’s Wife 177
True Love’s Devotion 221
LEGENDS OF SCOTLAND 303
Passages in the Life of Mary Stuart 305
Chastelar 305
Rizzio 323
The Kirk of Field 337
Bothwell 351
The Captivity 364
The Closing Scene 378
Elizabeth’s Remorse 393
The Moorish Father 407
LEGENDS
OF
THE NORMAN CONQUERORS.
THE SAXON’S OATH.
“My tongue hath sworn, but still my mind is free.”
The son of Godwin was the flower of the whole Saxon race. The
jealousies which had disturbed the mind of Edward the Confessor had
long since passed away; and Harold, whom he once had looked upon with
eyes of personal aversion, he now regarded almost as his own son. Yet
still the Saxon hostages--Ulfnoth, and the young son of Swerga, who in
the time of his mad predilection for the Normans, and his unnatural
distrust of his own countrymen, had been delivered for safe keeping
to William, duke of Normandy--still lingered, melancholy exiles, far
from the white cliffs of their native land. And now, for the first time
since their departure, did the aspect of affairs appear propitious for
their liberation; and Harold, brother of one, and uncle of the other,
full of proud confidence in his own intellect and valor, applied to
Edward for permission that he might cross the English channel, and,
personally visiting the Norman, bring back the hostages in honor and
security to the dear land of their forefathers. The countenance of the
Confessor fell at the request; and, conscious probably in his own heart
of some rash promise made in days long past, and long repented, to the
ambitious William, he manifested a degree of agitation amounting almost
to alarm.
“Harold,” he said, after a long pause of deliberation--“Harold, my son,
since you have made me this request, and that your noble heart seems
set on its accomplishment, it shall not be my part to do constraint
or violence to your affectionate and patriotic wishes. Go, then, if
such be your resolve, but go without _my_ leave, and contrary to _my_
advice. It is not that I would not have your brother and your kinsman
home, but that I do distrust the means of their deliverance; and sure I
am, that should you go in person, some terrible disaster shall befall
ourselves and this our country. Well do I know Duke William; well do I
know his spirit--brave, crafty, daring, deep, ambitious, and designing.
You, too, he hates especially, nor will he grant you anything, save at
a price that shall draw down an overwhelming ruin on you who pay it,
and on the throne of which you are the glory and the stay. If we would
have these hostages delivered at a less ransom than the downfall of our
Saxon dynasty--the misery of merry England--another messenger than thou
must seek the wily Norman. Be it, however, as thou wilt, my friend, my
kinsman, and my son.”
Oh, sage advice, and admirable counsel! advice how fatally
neglected--counsel how sadly frustrated! Gallant, and brave, and young;
fraught with a noble sense of his own powers, a full reliance on his
own honorable purposes; untaught as yet in that, the hardest lesson
of the world’s hardest school, distrust of others, suspicion of all
men--Harold set forth upon his journey, as it were, on an excursion
in pursuit of pleasure. Surrounded by a train of blithe companions,
gallantly mounted, gorgeously attired, with falcon upon fist, and
greyhounds bounding by his side, gayly and merrily he started, on
a serene autumnal morning, for the coast of Sussex. There he took
ship; and scarcely was he out of sight of land, when, as it were at
once to justify the words of Edward, the wind, which had been on
his embarkation the fairest that could blow from heaven, suddenly
shifted round, the sky was overcast with vast clouds of a leaden
hue, the waves tossed wildly with an ominous and hollow murmur; and,
ere the first day had elapsed, as fierce a tempest burst upon his
laboring barks as ever baffled mariner among the perilous shoals and
sandbanks of the narrow seas. Hopeless almost of safety, worn out
with unaccustomed toil and hard privations, for three days and as
many nights they battled with the stormy waters; and on the morning
of the fourth, when the skies lightened, and the abating violence of
the strong gales allowed them to put in, and come to anchor, where
the Somme pours its noble stream into the deep, through the rich
territories of the count of Ponthieu, they were at once made prisoners,
robbed of their personal effects, held to a heavy ransom, and cast as
prisoners-of-war into the dungeon-walls of Belram, to languish there
until the avarice of the count Guy should be appeased with gold.
Still Harold bore a high heart and a proud demeanor, bearding the
robber-count even to his teeth, set him at defiance, proclaiming
himself an embassador from England to the duke of Normandy, and
claiming as a right the means of making known to William his
unfortunate condition. This, deeming it perchance his interest so to
do, the count at once conceded; and before many days had passed, Harold
might see, from the barred windows of his turret-prison, a gallant band
of lancers, arrayed beneath the Norman banner, with a pursuivant and
trumpet at their head, wheeling around the walls of the grim fortress.
A haughty summons followed, denouncing “the extremities of fire and
of the sword against the count de Ponthieu, his friends, dependants,
and allies, should he not instantly set free, with all his goods and
chattels, his baggage and his horses, friends, followers, and slaves,
unransomed with all honor, Harold, the son of Godwin, the friend and
host of William, high and puissant duke of Normandy!” Little, however,
did mere menaces avail with the proud count de Ponthieu; nor did the
Saxon prince obtain his liberty till William had paid down a mighty
sum of silver, and invested Guy with a magnificent demesne on the rich
meadows of the Eaune.
Then once more did the son of Godwin ride forth a freeman, in the
bright light of heaven, escorted--such were the strange anomalies
of those old times--by a superb array of lances, furnished for his
defence by the same count de Ponthieu, who, having held him in vile
durance until his object was obtained, as soon as he was liberated on
full payment of the stipulated price, had thenceforth treated him as
a much-honored guest, holding his stirrup at his castle-gate when he
departed, and sending a strong guard of honor to see him in all safety
over the frontier of the duke’s demesne. Here, at the frontier town,
William’s high senechal attended his arrival; and gay and glorious was
his progress through the rich fields of Normandy, until he reached
Rouen. The glorious chase--whether by the green margin of some brimful
river they roused the hermit-tyrant of the waters, that noblest of the
birds of chase, to make sport for their long-winged falcons, or through
the sere trees of the forest pursued the stag or felon wolf with horn,
hound, and halloo--diversified the tedium of the journey; while every
night some feudal castle threw wide its hospitable gates to greet with
revelry and banqueting the guest of the grand duke. Arrived at Rouen,
that powerful prince himself, the mightiest warrior of the day, rode
forth beyond the gates to meet the Saxon; nor did two brothers long
estranged meet ever with more cordiality of outward show than these,
the chiefs of nations long destined to be rival and antagonistic, till
from their union should arise the mightiest, the wisest, the most
victorious, and enlightened, and free race of men, that ever peopled
empires, or spread their language and their laws through an admiring
world. On that first meeting, as he embraced his guest, the princely
Norman announced to him that his young brother and his nephew were
thenceforth at his absolute disposal.
“The hostages are yours,” he said--“yours, at your sole request; nor
would I be less blithe to render them, if Harold stood before me
himself a landless exile, than as I see him now, the first lord of a
powerful kingdom, the most trusty messenger of a right noble king. But,
of your courtesy, I pray you leave us not yet awhile; though if you
will do so, my troops shall convey you to the seashore, my ships shall
bear you home!--but, I beseech, do this honor to your host, to tarry
with him for a little space: and as you be the first--for so you are
reported to us--in all realities and sports of Saxon warfare, so let us
prove your prowess, and witness you our skill, in passages of Norman
chivalry.”
In answer to this fair request, what could the Saxon do but acquiesce?
Yet, even as he did so, the words of the gray-headed king came sensibly
upon his memory, and he began to feel as if in truth the net of the
deceiver were already round about him with its inevitable meshes.
Still, having once assented, nothing remained for him but to fulfil,
as gracefully as possible, his half-unwilling promise. So joyously,
however, were the days consumed--so gayly did the evenings pass, among
festivities far more refined and delicate than were the rude feasts of
the sturdy Saxons, wherein excess of drink and vulgar riot composed
the chief attractions--that, after one short week had flown, all the
anxieties and fears of Harold were lost in admiration of the polished
manners of his Norman hosts, and the high qualities of his chief
entertainer. From town to town they passed in gay cortége, visiting
castle after castle in their route, and ever and anon testing the valor
and the skill each of the other, in those superb encounters of mock
warfare--the free and gentle passage of arms--which in the education
of the warlike Normans were second only to the real shock of battle,
which was to them, not metaphorically, the very breath of life.
Nor in these jousts and tournaments, whether with headless lance or
blunted broadsword, or in the deadlier though still amicable strife
at _outrance_, did not the Saxon, though unused to the menêge of
the destrier and equestrian combat with the lance, win high renown
and credit with his martial hosts. The Saxon tribes had, from their
earliest existence as a people, been famed as infantry; their arms, a
huge and massive axe; a short, sharp, two-edged sword, framed like the
all-victorious weapon of the Romans; a target, and ponderous javelin,
used ever as a missile. Cavalry, properly so called, although their
leaders sometimes rode into the conflict, they had none; and by a
natural consequence, one of that people for the first time adopting
the complete panoply, mounting the barbed war-horse, and tilting with
the long lance of the Gallic chivalry, must have engaged with the
practised champions of the time at a fearful disadvantage. Still, even
at this odds, such was the force of emulation acting upon a spirit
elastic, vigorous, and fiery, backed by a powerful and agile frame,
inured to feats of strength and daring, that little time elapsed ere
Harold could abide the brunt of the best lance of William’s court, not
only without the risk of reputation, but often at advantage. After a
long and desperate encounter, wherein the Saxon prince had foiled all
comers, hurling three cavaliers to earth with one unsplintered lance,
William, in admiration of his bravery, insisted on bestowing on his
friend, with his own honored blade, the accolade of knighthood--buckled
the gilded spurs upon his heels; presented him with the complete
apparel of a knight--the lance, with its appropriate bandrol--the huge,
two-handed war-sword; and, above all, the finest charger of his royal
stables, which, constantly supplied from the best blood of Andalusia,
at that time were esteemed the choicest stud in Europe. It may now be
supposed that honors such as these, coming too from a Norman, for
the most part esteemed the scorner of the Saxon race--nor this alone,
but from the most renowned and famous warrior of the day--produced a
powerful effect on the enthusiastic and ambitious spirit of the young
Englishman; nor did the wily duke fail to observe the operation of his
deep-laid manœuvres, nor, when observed, did he neglect by every means
to strengthen the impression he had made. To this end, therefore, not
courtesies alone, nor the high-prized distinctions of military honor,
nor gorgeous gifts, nor personal deference, were deemed sufficient
instruments. To finish what he had himself so well begun, to complete
the ensnarement of the Saxon’s senses, the aid of woman was called
in--woman, all-powerful, perilous, fascinating woman! Nor did he lack
a fair and willing bait wherewith to give his prize. In his own court,
filled as it was with the most lovely, or at least--thanks to the
prowess of the Norman spear--the most renowned of Europe’s ladies,
there was not one that could compete in beauty, wit, or grace, with
Alice, his bright daughter. Too keen a player with the passions and the
characters of men--too wise a judge of that most wondrous compound,
that strange mass of inconsistencies, of evil and of good, of honor and
deceit, the human heart--too close a calculator of effects and causes,
was William, to divulge his purpose, or to hint his wishes, even to the
obedient ear of Alice. He cared not--he--whether she loved, or feigned
to love, so that his object was effected. Commanding ever his wildest
passions, using them but as instruments and tools to bend or break men
to his purposes, he never dreamed or recked of their ungovernable force
upon the minds of others. It was but a few days after the arrival of
his guest, that he discovered how he gazed after, and with signs of
evident and earnest admiration, on the young damsel, to whose intimacy
he had been studiously admitted as an especial and much-honored friend
of his host: and her father, to fan this flame on Harold’s part, it
needed little art from so consummate an intriguer as the duke; while as
to Alice, young as she was, and thoughtless, delighted with attention,
and attracted by the fine form and high repute of the young stranger,
and yet more by the raciness and trifling singularities of his foreign
though high-bred deportment--a fond, paternal smile, and an approving
glance, as she toyed with her young admirer, sufficed to give full
scope to her vivacious inclinations.
Daily the Norman’s game became more intricate, daily more certain; when
suddenly, just as the Saxon--flattered and half-enamored as he was,
began to feel that he had no excuse for lingering longer at a distance
from his country and his sovereign--began to speak of a return before
the setting-in of winter, an accident occurred, which, with his wonted
readiness of wit, William turned instantly to good account.
The ducal territories, which had descended to the Norman line from
their first champion, Rollo, were separated by the small stream of
Coësnor from the neighboring tract of Brittany, to which all the
succeeding princes had possessed a claim since Charles the Simple,
in the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, had ceded it to that great
duke, the founder of the Norman dynasty. The consequence of this
pretence--for such in fact it was--were endless bickerings, small
border wars, aggressions and reprisals, burnings, and massacres, and
vengeance! Some trivial skirmish had occurred upon this frontier, just
as the duke had perceived that he must either suffer Harold to depart
before his projects were accomplished, or force him to remain by open
violence. In such a crisis he resolved at once upon his line of action;
and, instantly proclaiming war, he raised the banner of his dukedom,
summoned his vassals, great and small, to render service for their
military tenures; and in announcing to his guest his march against the
forces of his hereditary foe, claimed his assistance in the field as
a true host from his well-proved guest, and a godfather-in-arms from
the son whom he had admitted to the distinguished honor of the knightly
accolade. Intoxicated with ambition and with love, madly desirous of
acquiring fame among the martial Normans, and fancying, with a vanity
not wholly inexcusable, that he was doing service to his country in
acquiring the respect of foreign powers, he met half-way the proffer.
And, in the parlance of the day, right nobly did he prove his gilded
spurs of knighthood. In passing the Coësnor, which, like the See,
the Seluna, and the other streams that cross the great Grêve of St.
Michel, is perilous from its spring-tide and awful quicksands, Harold
displayed, in recovering several soldiers, who, having quitted the
true line of march, were on the point of perishing, a noble union of
intrepidity and strength.
During the whole course of the war, the Norman and his guest had but
one tent and one table; side by side in the front of war they charged
the enemy, and side by side they rode upon the march, beguiling the
fatigue and labor with gay jests or graver conversation: and now so
intimate had they become, so perfect was the confidence reposed by
the frank Englishman in his frank-seeming friend, that the sagacious
tempter felt the game absolutely in his power, and waited but a fitting
opportunity for aiming his last blow. Nor was it long ere the occasion
he had sought, occurred. Some brilliant exploits, performed in the
last skirmish of the campaign, by the intended victim of his perfidy,
gave him a chance to descant on the national and well-proved hardihood
and valor of this Saxon race. Thence, by a stroke of masterly and
well-timed tact, he touched upon the beauties, the fertility, the noble
forests, and the rich fields of England--the happy days which he had
passed amid the hospitalities of that fair island. The praises of the
reigning monarch followed, a topic wherein Harold freely and eagerly
united with his host.
“You were but young in those days,” William continued, “and scarce,
I trow, can recollect the scenes which to my older memory are but as
things of yesterday. Then, then, indeed, our races were at variance,
and your good sire--peace to his soul!--worked me and mine sore scathe
and trouble. Yet was it natural, most natural! For in those times
your excellent and venerable king--long may he sway the sceptre he
so honors!--lived with me upon terms of the most close and cordial
friendship. Ay, in good sooth, we were as two brothers--living beneath
the same roof, eating of the same board, and drinking from one cup!
Not thou and I, my Harold, are more sure comrades. Ay! and he promised
me--this in thy private ear--if ever he should gain the throne of
England, to leave me by his will, in default of his own issue, heir to
that noble kingdom. I doubt not of his troth nor loyalty, though it is
years since we spoke of it. You have more lately been about him: hast
ever heard him speak of it? What thinkest thou of his plighted faith?
He is not one, I do believe, to register a vow in heaven, and fall from
it!”
Taken thus by surprise, annoyed and much embarrassed by the turn their
converse had thus taken, Harold turned pale, and actually stammered, as
he made reply:--
“He never had presumed to question his liege lord and king on matters
of such import. The king had never dropped the slightest hint to him
concerning the succession. If he had sworn, doubtless he would perform
his oath: he was famed, the world over, for his strict sanctity; how,
then, should he be perjured? He doubted not, had he so promised, the
duke would have no reason to complain of any breach of faith in good
King Edward’s testament.”
“Ay! it is so,” said William, musingly, as it appeared to Harold,
although in truth his every word had been premeditated long before. “I
had so hoped it would be; and, by my faith, right glad am I that you
confirm me in mine aspirations. By your aid, my good friend--with the
best Saxon on my side--all else is certain; and by my faith, whatever
you shall ask of me, were it my daughter’s hand in marriage, surely it
shall be yours when I am king of England!”
Again the words of the Confessor flashed on the mind of the ill-fated
Saxon, and he foresaw at once the terrible result of this unwilling
confidence. At the same time he saw no means of present extrication,
and, with an air of evident embarrassment, he answered in words
half-evasive, yet sufficiently conclusive, as he hoped, to stop,
for the time being, the unpleasing topic. But this was far from the
intent of William, who, having read with an intuitive and almost
supernatural sagacity the thought that flashed across the brain of
Harold, determined that he should commit himself in terms decisive, and
admitting of no dubious explanation. Taking it, then, for granted that
he had replied fully in the affirmative--
“Since, then,” he said, “you do engage so loyally to serve me, you
shall engage to fortify for me the castle on the heights of Dover; to
dig in it good wells of living water; and, at my summons, to surrender
it! You shall give me your sister, that she may be espoused unto the
noblest of my barons; and you shall have to wife my daughter Alice:
some passages, I trow, have gone between ye ere now. Moreover, as a
warrant of your faith, your brother Ulfnoth shall yet tarry with me;
and when I come to England to possess my crown, then will I yield him
to you!”
In all its force, the madness of his conduct now glared upon the very
soul of Harold. He saw the guilt he had incurred already; the peril he
had brought upon the kinsmen he had come to save; the wo that might
result to his loved country! But, seeing this, he saw no better means
than to feign acquiescence with this unworthy project, holding himself
at liberty to break thereafter an unwilling promise.
No more was said upon the subject. They rode onward as before, but the
light-hearted pleasure of the Saxon was destroyed; and though the great
duke feigned not to perceive the changed mood of his comrade, he had
resolved already that he should yet more publicly commit himself ere he
should leave the realm.
At Avranches, but three days after their discourse, William convoked a
grand assembly of his lords and barons--the mightiest and the noblest
of his vavasours and vassals--the pride of Normandy. There, in the
centre of the hall, he caused an immense chest to be deposited, filled
to the very brim with the most holy relics--bones of the martyred
saints--fragments of the true cross--all that was deemed most sacred
and most awful by the true-hearted catholic--and covered with a superb
cloth of gold, as though it were an ordinary slab or table. There,
seated in high state, upon his chair of dignity--a drawn sword in his
hand, wearing his cap of maintenance, circled by _fleurs-de-lis_,
upon his head, and clad in ermined robes of state--he held _cour
pleusêre_ of his nobles. The Saxon stood among them, honored among the
first at all times, and now the more especially distinguished, that
it was his farewell reception previous to his departure for England.
After presenting him with the most splendid gifts, and making the
most liberal professions of attachment, “Harold,” exclaimed the duke,
“before we part, I call on you, before this noble company, here to
confirm by oath your promise made to me three days since, ‘to aid me in
obtaining, after the death of Edward, the throne and crown of England;
to take my daughter Alice to wife; and to send me your sister hither,
that I may find for her a princely spouse among my vavasours!’”
Taken a second time at fault, and daring not thus openly to falsify
his word--but with a blank and troubled aspect, unsatisfied with his
internal reservation, and conscious of his perjury--Harold laid both
his hands on two small reliquaries which lay, as if by chance, upon
the cloth of gold; and swore, provided he should live, to make good
all those promises--“so might God aid him.” And with one deep, solemn
acclamation, the whole assembly echoed those last words: “So may God
aid him! may God aid! God aid!” At the same instant, on a signal
from the duke, the cloth of gold was drawn aside, and Harold saw the
sacrilege he must commit, so deeply sworn on things so holy, should he
repent, or falsify his oath! He saw, and shuddered visibly, as though
he had been stricken by an ague; yet presently, by a powerful effort,
rallying all his courage to his aid, he made his last farewells,
departed, loaded with gifts and honors, but with a melancholy heart;
and sailed immediately for England, leaving the brother, for whose
liberty he came a suitor, ten times more deeply forfeit than he had
been before. On his first interview with Edward, he related all that
had occurred--even his own involuntary oath. And the old sovereign
trembled, and grew pale, but manifested nothing of surprise or anger!
“I knew it,” he replied, in calm but hollow tones; “I knew it, and I
did forewarn you, how that your visit to the Norman should bring misery
on you, and ruin on our country! As I forewarned you, so has it come to
pass! So shall it come to pass hereafter, till all hath been fulfilled:
God only grant that I live not to see it!”
THE NORMAN’S VENGEANCE.
“God and good angels fight on _William’s_ side,
And _Harold_ fall in height of all his pride.”--SHAKSPERE.
Edward the Confessor was dead; and dying, had bequeathed the crown
of merry England to Harold, son of Godwin, destined, alas! to be the
last prince of the Saxon race who should possess the throne of the
fair island. The oath which he had sworn to William, duke of Normandy,
engaging to assist him in obtaining that same realm, which had now
fallen to himself, alike by testament of the late king, and by election
of the people, dwelt not in the new monarch’s bosom! Selfishness
and ambition, aided, perhaps, and strengthened by the suggestions
of a sincere patriotism, that whispered to his soul the baseness of
surrendering his countrymen, their lives, their liberties, their
fortunes, and his loved native land, into the stern hands of a foreign
ruler, determined him to brave the worst, rather than keep the oath,
which, with its wonted sophistry, self-interest was ready to represent
involuntary and of no avail. Not long, however, was he allowed to
flatter himself with hopes that the tempest, excited by his own weak
duplicity, might possibly blow over. The storm-clouds were already
charged with thunder destined to burst almost at once on his devoted
head. The cry of warfare had gone forth through Christendom; the pope
had launched the dreadful bolt of interdict and excommunication against
the perjured Saxon, and all who should adhere to him in his extremity;
nay, more, had actually granted to the Norman duke, by virtue of his
holy office as God’s vicegerent and dispenser of all dignities on
earth, the sovereignty of the disputed islands. In token of his perfect
approbation of the justice of his cause, the Roman pontiff had sent,
moreover, to the duke, a ring of gold, containing an inestimable relic,
a lock of hair from the thrice-mitred temples of St. Peter, the first
Roman bishop; a consecrated banner blest by himself--the same which had
been reared, in token of the greatness and supremacy of holy church, by
those bold Normans, Raoul and William of Montreuil, above the captured
battlements of every tower and castle through the bright kingdom of
Campania. Thus doubly armed, once by the justice of his cause, and yet
more strongly by the sanction of the church, the bold duke hesitated
not to strive by force of arms to gain that rich inheritance, which he
had hoped to win by the more easy agency of guile and of persuasion.
A herald, sent, with a most noble train, bore William’s terms to the
new monarch. “William, the duke of Normandy,” he said, boldly, but with
all reverence due to his birth and present station, “calls to your
memory the oath, which you swore to him by your hand and by your mouth,
on good and holy relics!”
“True it is,” answered Harold, “that I did so swear; but under force I
did so, not by free will of mine! Moreover, I did promise that which
’twas not mine to grant. My royalty belongs not to myself, but to my
people, in trust of whom I hold it. I may not yield it but at their
demand; let them but second William, and instantly the crown he seeks
for shall be his! Farther, without my people’s leave, I may not wed a
woman of a stranger race. My sister, whom he would have espoused unto
the noblest of his barons--she hath been dead a year. Will he, that I
should send her corpse?”
A little month elapsed, and during that brief interval, Harold
neglected nothing that might preserve the crown he had determined
never, except with life, to yield to his fierce rival. A powerful fleet
was instantly appointed to cruise upon the Downs, and intercept the
French invaders; a mighty army was collected on the coast, and each and
all the Saxon landholders, nobles, and thanes, and franklins, bound
themselves by strong oaths “never to entertain or truce, or treaty,
with the detested Normans, but to die freemen, or freemen to conquer.”
A second time the herald came in peace, demanding, in tones fair and
moderate, that Harold, if he might not keep _all_ the conditions of
his oath, would fulfil part, at least, and wed Alice, his betrothed
wife already, the daughter of the puissant duke, who, thereupon, would
yield to him, as being his daughter’s dower, all right and title to the
crown, which he now claimed as his by heritage.
Harold again returned a brief and stern refusal; resolved, that as
he would not yield the whole, he would not, by conceding part, risk
the alienation of the love--which he possessed in an extraordinary
degree--of the whole English people. Then burst the storm at once. From
every part of Europe, where the victorious banners of the Normans were
spread to the wind of heaven, adventurers flocked to the consecrated
standard of their kinsman.
Four hundred vessels of the largest class, and more than twice that
number of the transports of the day, were speedily assembled in the
frith of Dives, a stream which falls into the sea between the Seine
and Orne. There, for a month or better, by contrary winds and furious
storms, they were detained inactive. At length, a southern breeze rose
suddenly, and by its aid they made the harbor of Saint Valery; but
there, again, they were detained by times more stormy than before; and,
superstitious as all men of that period were, the soldiers soon began
to tremble and to murmur; strange tales of dreams, and prodigies were
circulated, and the spirit of that vast host, of late so confident and
proud, sank hourly. At length, whether at the instigation of their own
fanatical belief, or as a last resource, or hoping to distract the
minds of men from gloomier considerations, the Norman chiefs appointed
a procession round the harbor of Saint Valery; bearing the holiest
relics, and among them, the bones of the good saint himself, the patron
and nomenclator of the town; and ere the prayers were ended, lo! the
wind shifted once again, and now blew steadily and fair, swelling the
canvass with propitious breath, and driving out each vane and streamer
at full length, toward their destined port.
The same storm, which had held William on his Norman coast, windbound
and motionless, which he had cursed as unpropitious and disastrous,
fifty times every day, for the last month, had been, in truth--so
little is the foresight, and so ignorant the wisdom even of the most
sagacious among mortals--had been, in truth, the agent by which his
future conquest was to be effected. Those gales which pent the Norman
galleys in their harbors, had forced the English fleet, shattered and
storm-tossed, to put in for victuals and repairs, leaving the seas
unguarded to the approach of the invaders. Nor was this all! Those
self-same gales had wafted from the northward another fleet of foemen,
the Norwegian host of the bold sea-king, Harold Hardrada, and the
treacherous Tosti, the rebel brother of the Saxon monarch. Debarking in
the Humber, they had laid waste the fertile borders of Northumberland
and Yorkshire; had vanquished, in a pitched battle, Morcar and Edwin,
and the youthful Waltheof--who had made head against them with their
sudden levies, raised from the neighboring countries--had driven
them into the walls of York, and there were now besieging them with
little hope of rescue or relief. Meanwhile, the king, who had, for
months, been lying in the southern portion of the realm, in Essex,
Kent, or Sussex, awaiting, at the head of the best warriors of his
kingdom, the arrival of his most inveterate foeman--summoned by news
of this irruption, unexpected, yet, as it seemed most formidable, into
his northern provinces, lulled into temporary carelessness by the
long tarrying of his Norman enemy; and hoping, as it indeed seemed
probable, that the prevailing wind would not change so abruptly,
but that he might, by using some extraordinary diligence and speed,
attack and overpower the besieging force at York, and yet return to
Dover in time to oppose, with the united force of his whole nation,
the disembarkation of the duke--had left his post and travelled with
all speed toward York, leading the bravest and best-disciplined of
his army against the fierce Norwegians, while the shores of Sussex
remained comparatively naked and defenceless. A bloody and decisive
battle fought at the bridge of Staneford, over the river Derwent,
rewarded his activity and valor--a battle in which he displayed no
less his generalship and valor, than the kind generosity and mercy
of his nature. Riding, himself, in person, up to the hostile lines,
before the first encounter, sheathed in the complete armor of the
Norman chivalry--which, since his visit to the continent, he had
adopted--“Where,” he cried, in his loudest tones, “is Tosti, son of
Godwin?”
“Here stands he,” answered the rebel, from the centre of the Norwegian
phalanx, which, with lowered spears, awaited the attack.
“Thy brother,” replied Harold, concealed by the frontlet of his barred
helmet from all recognition, “sends thee his greeting--offers thee
peace, and friendship, and all thine ancient honors.”
“Good words!” cried Tosti, “mighty good, and widely different from the
insults he bestowed on me last year! But if I should accept the offer,
what will he grant to Harold, son of Sigurd?”
“Seven feet of English earth,” replied the king; “or, since he be
gigantic in his stature, he shall have somewhat more!”
“Let Harold, then address himself to battle,” answered Tosti. “None
but a liar ever shall declare that Tosti, son of Godwin, has played a
traitor’s part to Harold, son of Sigurd!”
There was no more of parley. With a shock, that was heard for leagues,
the hosts encountered; and in the very first encounter, pierced by an
arrow in the throat, Hardrada fell, and to his place succeeded that
false brother and rebellious subject, Tosti, the Saxon. Again the
generous Harold offered him peace and liberal conditions! again his
offers were insultingly rejected! and once again, with a more deadly
fury than before, the armies met, and, this time, fought it out, till
not a leader or a chief of the Norwegian host was left alive, save
Olaf, Harold’s son, and the prince bishop of the Orkneys--Tosti,
himself, having at length obtained the fate he merited so richly. A
third time peace and amity were offered, and now they were accepted;
and swearing friendship to the English king for ever, the Norsemen left
the fatal land, whereon yet weltered in their gore their king, the
noblest of their chiefs, and twice five thousand of the bravest men of
their brave nation. But glorious as that day was justly deemed--and
widely as it was sung and celebrated by the Saxon bards--perfect as was
the safety which it wrought to all the northern counties--and freely
as it suffered Harold to turn his undivided forces against whatever
foe might dare set hostile foot on English soil inviolate--still was
that day decisive of his fate!--decisive of the victory of William,
whose banners were already floating over the narrow seas in proud
anticipation of their coming triumph!
It was a bright and beauteous morning in September, when the great
fleet of William put to sea, the galley of the grand duke leading.
She was a tall ship, of the largest tonnage then in use, well manned,
and gallantly equipped; from the main-topmast streamed the consecrated
banner of the pope, and from her peak, a broad flag with a blood-red
cross. Her sails were, not as now, of plain white canvass, but
gorgeously adorned with various colors, and blazoned with the rude
incipient heraldry, which, though not then a science, was growing
gradually into esteem and use. In several places might be seen depicted
the three Lions, which were even then the arms of Normandy; and on her
prow was carved, with the best skill of the French artist, a young
child with a bended bow, and a shaft quivering on the string. Fair
blew the breeze, and free the gallant ship careered before it--before
the self-same wind which at the self-same moment was tossing on its
joyous pinions the victorious banners of the Saxon king. Fair blew
the breeze, and fast the ship of William sped through the curling
billows--so fast that, ere the sun set in the sea, the fleet was hull
down in the offing, though staggering along under all press of sail.
Night sank upon the sea; and faster flew the duke; and as the morning
broke, the chalky cliffs of Albion were in full view, at two or three
leagues distance. William, who had slept all that night as soundly and
as calmly as a child, stood on the deck ere it was light enough to see
the largest object on the sea, one mile away. His first glance was
toward the promised land, he was so swiftly nearing; his second, toward
the offing, where he hoped to see his gallant followers. Brighter and
brighter grew the morning, but not a speck was visible upon the clear
horizon. “Up to the topmast, mariners,” cried the bold duke; “up to the
topmast-head! And now what see ye?” he continued, as they sprang up in
rapid emulation to that giddy height.
“Naught,” cried the first--“naught but the sea and sky!”
“Anchor, then--anchor, presently; we will await their coming, and in
the meanwhile, Sir Seneschal, serve us a breakfast of your best, and
see there be no lack of wines, the strongest and the noblest!” and,
on the instant, the heavy plunge was heard of the huge anchor in the
deep; the sails were furled; and like a living creature endowed with
intellect, and moving by volition, the gallant ship swung round,
awaiting the arrival of her consorts.
The feast was spread, and, from the high duke on the poop to the most
humble mariner on the forecastle, the red wine flowed for all in
generous profusion. Again a lookout was sent up, and now he cried, “I
see far, far, to seaward, the topsails of four vessels.” A little pause
consumed in revelry and feasting, and once again the ship-boy climbed
the mast. “I see,” he said, the third time, “a forest on the deep, of
masts and sails!”
“God aid! God aid!” replied the armed crew--“God aid!” and, with the
word, again they weighed the anchor, and, ere three hours had passed,
the whole of that huge armament rode at their moorings off the beach at
Pevensey.
There was no sign of opposition or resistance; and on the third day
after Harold’s victory at Staneford, the Norman host set foot on
English soil. The archers were the first to disembark--armed with
the six-foot bows, and cloth-yard shafts, then, for the first time,
seen in England, soon destined to become the national weapon of its
stout yeomanry. Their faces closely shorn, and short-cut hair, their
light and succinct garments, were seen by the affrighted peasantry,
who looked upon their landing from a distance, with equal terror and
astonishment. Next came the men-at-arms, sheathed in their glittering
hauberks and bright hose-of-mail, with conical steel helmets on
their heads, long lances in their hands, and huge two-handed swords
transversely girt across their persons. After them landed the pioneers,
the laborers, and carpenters, who made the complement of that
immense army, bearing with them, piece after piece, three fortresses
of timber, arranged beforehand, and prepared to be erected on the
instant, wherever they should come to land. Last of the mighty host,
Duke William left his galley, and the long lines fell into orderly and
beautiful array, as he was rowed to land. In leaping to that wished-for
shore, the Norman’s right foot struck the gunwale of the shallop, and
he fell headlong on the sand, face downward. Instantly, through the
whole array, a deep and shuddering murmur rose--“God guard us--’tis a
sign of evil!”
But ere the sounds had passed away, he had sprung to his feet. “What
is it that you fear?” he shouted, in clear and joyous tones, “or what
dismays you? Lo! I have seized this earth in both mine hands, and, by
the splendor of our God, ’tis yours!”
Loud was the cheer of gratulation which peeled seaward far, and
far into the bosom of the invaded land, at that most brilliant and
successful repartee--and with alacrity and glee--confident of success,
and high in daring courage--the Norman host marched, unopposed, in
regular and terrible array, toward Hastings. Here on the well-known
heights, to this day known by the commemorative name of Battle,
the wooden fortresses were speedily erected; trenches were dug;
and William’s army sat down for the night upon the land, which was
thenceforth to be their heritage--thenceforth for evermore.
The news reached Harold as he lay at York, wounded and resting from his
labors, and on the instant, with his victorious army, he set forth,
publishing, as he marched along, his proclamation to all the chief of
provinces and shires, to arm their followers, and meet him with all
speed at London. The western levies came without delay; those from the
north, owing to distance, were some time behind; and yet, could Harold
have been brought by any means to moderate his fierce and desperate
impatience, he would, ere four days had elapsed, have found himself, at
least, in the command of twice two hundred men. But irritated to the
utmost by the sufferings of his countrymen, whose lands were pitilessly
ravaged, whose tenements were burned for miles around the Norman camp,
whose wives and daughters were subjected to every species of insult and
indignity, the Saxon king pressed onward. And though his forces did
not amount to one-fourth part of the great duke’s array, still, he was
resolved to encounter them, precipitate and furious as a madman.
On the eighteenth day after the defeat of Tosti and Hardrada, the
Saxon army was encamped over against the fortified position of the
invaders. On that same day, a monk, Sir Hugues Maigrot, came to find
Harold, with proposals from the foe, offering him peace on one of three
conditions--either that he should yield the kingdom presently--or leave
it to the arbitration of the pope--or, finally, decide the matter by
appeal to God in single combat.
To each and all of these proposals, the Saxon answered bluntly in the
negative. “I will not yield my kingdom! I will not leave it to the
pope! I will not meet the duke in single combat!”
Again the monk returned. “I come again,” he said, “from William. ‘Tell
Harold,’ said the duke, ‘if he will hold him to his ancient compact,
I yield him all the lands beyond the Humber; I give his brother Gurth
all the demesnes his father, Godwin, held. If he refuse these my last
proffers, tell him before his people, he is a perjured liar, accursed
of the pope, and excommunicated--he, and all those that hold to him!’”
But no effect had the bold words of William on the stern spirits
of the English. “Battle,” they cried--“no peace with the Normans.
Battle--immediate battle!” and with that answer did the priest return
to his employer; and either host prepared for the appeal to that great
arbiter, the sword.
Fairly the morning broke which was to look upon the slaughter of so
many thousands; broad and bright rose the sun before whose setting
one of those two magnificent and gallant armies must necessarily be
involved in utter ruin. As the first rays were visible upon the eastern
sky, Odo, the bishop of Bayeux, William’s maternal brother, performed
high mass before the marshalled troops, wearing his cope and rochet
over his iron harness. The holy rites performed, he leaped upon his
snow-white charger, and, with his truncheon in his hand, arrayed the
cavalry, which he commanded.
It was a glorious spectacle, that mighty host, arrayed in three long
columns of attack, marching with slow and orderly precision against
the palisaded trenches of the Saxons. The men-at-arms of the great
counts of Boulogne and Ponthieu composed the first; the second being
formed by the auxiliar bands of Brittany, Poitou, and Maine; and in the
third, commanded by the duke in person--mounted on a superb Andalusian
charger, wearing about his neck the reliquary on which his rival had
sworn falsely, and accompanied by a young noble, Tunstan the White,
bearing the banner of the pope--were marshalled all the flower and
strength of Normandy. Scattered along the front of the advance were
multitudes of archers, lightly equipped in quilted jerkins, with long
yew bows, and arrows of an ell in length, mingled with crossbow-men
with arbalasts of steel, and square, steel-headed quarrels.
Steadily they advanced, and in good order; while, in their entrenched
camp, guarded by palisades of oak morticed together in a long line of
ponderous trellis-work, the Englishmen awaited their approach, drawn up
around their standard, which--blazoned with the white dragon, long both
the ensign and the war-cry of their race--was planted firmly in the
earth, surrounded by the dense ranks of heavy infantry which formed the
strength of their array.
Just as the charge began, William rode out before the lines, and thus
addressed his soldiery: “Turn your hearts wholly to the combat! set
all upon the die, either to fall or conquer! For if we gain, we shall
be rich and glorious. That which I gain, shall be your gain; that
which I conquer, yours! If I shall win this land, ye shall possess it!
Know, too, and well remember this, that not to claim my right have I
come only, but to revenge--ay, to revenge our gentle nation on all the
felonies, the perjuries, the treasons of the English!--the English,
who, in profound peace, upon Saint Brice’s eve, ruthlessly slew the
unarmed and defenceless Danes; who decimated the bold followers of
Alfred, _my_ kinsman and _your_ countryman, and slew himself by
shameless treachery! On, then, with God’s aid, Normans! on, for revenge
and victory!”
Then out dashed from the lines the boldest of his vavasours, the Norman
Taillefer, singing aloud the famous song--well known through every
province of proud France--the song of Charlemagne and Rollo--tossing
aloft the while his long, two-handed war-sword, and catching it
adroitly as it fell; while at each close of that proud, spirit-stirring
chant, each warrior of that vast array thundered the burden of the
song--“God aid! God aid!”
Then, like a storm of hail, close, deadly, and incessant, went forth
the volleyed showers from arbalast and long-bow; while infantry and
horse charged in unbroken order against the gates and angles of the
fort. But with a cool and stubborn hardihood the Saxon infantry stood
firm. Protected by the massive palisades from the appalling volleys of
the archery, they hurled their short and heavy javelins with certain
aim and deadly execution over their stout defences; while their huge
axes, wherever they came hand to hand, shivered the Norman spears like
reeds, and cleft the heaviest mail, even at a single blow! Long, and
with all the hot, enthusiastic valor of their race, did the assailants
crowd around the ramparts; but it was all in vain--they could not scale
them in the face of that indomitable infantry; they could not force
one timber from its place; and they at length recoiled, weary and
half-subdued, toward the reserve of William.
After a short cessation, again the archery advanced; but, by the
orders of the duke, their volleys were no longer sent point-blank,
but shot at a great elevation, so that they fell in a thick, galling
shower, striking the heads and wounding the unguarded faces of
the bold defenders. Harold himself, who fought on foot beside his
standard, lost his right eye at the first flight; but not for that did
he desert his post, or play less valiantly the part of a determined
soldier and wise leader. Again with that tremendous shout of “Nôtre
Dame--God aid! God aid!” which had, in every realm of Europe, sounded
the harbinger of victory, the horse and foot rushed on to the attack;
while from their rear that heavy and incessant sleet of bolt, and
shaft, and bullet, fell fast and frequent into the dense ranks of
the still-undaunted English. At no point did they force their way,
however, even when fighting at this desperate advantage. At no point
did a single Norman penetrate a gate, or overtop a palisade; while at
one entrance so complete was the repulse of the attacking squadrons,
that they recoiled, hard pressed by the defenders, to a ravine at
some considerable distance from the trenches, deep, dangerous,
and filled with underwood and brambles; these, as they fell back
in confusion, their horses stumbling and unable to recover, were
overthrown and slain pell-mell, and half defeated. One charge of
cavalry, one shock of barbed horse, would have insured the total rout
of the invaders; but--wo for England on that day!--cavalry she had
none, nor barbed horse, to complete gloriously the work her sturdy
footmen had commenced so gallantly. Still, great was the disorder,
great was the disarray and peril, of the foreign soldiery. The cry
went through the host that the great duke was slain; and, though he
flung himself amid the flyers, with his head bare, that they might
recognise his features--threatening, cursing, striking at friend and
foe with undiscriminating violence--it was well nigh an hour before
he could restore the semblance of any discipline or order. This,
once accomplished, he advanced again; and yet a third time, though
he exerted every nerve, was he repulsed at every point in terrible
disorder, and with tremendous loss.
Evening was fast approaching; and well did William know that, if
the following morning should find the Saxons firm in their unforced
entrenchments, his hopes were vain and hopeless! The country, far
and near, was rousing to the Saxon war-cry; and to the Normans, not
to conquer, was to be conquered utterly; and to be conquered was to
perish, one and all! Valor or open force, it was too evident, could
effect nothing against men as valiant and as strong, posted with more
advantage. Guile was his last resource; and guile, as usual, prevailed!
A thousand of his cavaliers advanced, as though about to charge
the trenches at full speed, with lances lowered, and with their
wonted _ensenzie_, “God aid!” But as they neared the palisades, by
preconcerted stratagem, as if they had lost heart, they suddenly drew
bridle, all as a single man, and fled, as it appeared, in irretrievable
disorder, back, back to the main body! Meanwhile, throughout the
lines, the banners were waved to and fro disorderly, and the ranks
shifted, and spears rose and fell, and all betokened their complete
disorganization. The sight was too much even for the cool hardihood
of Saxon courage. With one tremendous shout they rushed from their
entrenchments--which, had they held to them, not forty-fold the force
of William could have successfully assailed--and, wielding with both
hands their bills and axes, plunged headlong in pursuit. That instant,
all was over! For, at a moment’s notice, at a concerted signal of a
single trumpet, the very men they deemed defeated wheeled into line;
and with their spears projecting ten feet, at the least, before their
chargers’ poitrels, their long plumes floating backward in the current
caused by their own quick motion, the chivalry of France bore down
on their pursuers, breathless, confused, and struggling. It was a
massacre, but not a rout; for not a man turned on his heel, or even
thought to fly: but back to back, in desperate groups, they fought
after their ranks were broken, hewing with their short weapons at
the mail-clad lancers, who securely speared them from the backs of
their barbed horses--asking not, nor receiving quarter--true sons of
England to the last, annihilated but not conquered! Night fell, and
Gurth, and Leofwyn, and Harold, lay dead around their standard--pierced
with innumerable wounds, gory, and not to be discerned, so were their
features and their forms defaced and mangled by friend or foeman. Yet
still, when all was lost, without array or order, standards, or chiefs,
or hopes, the Englishmen fought on--till total darkness sank down on
the field of slaughter, and utter inability to slay caused a brief
pause in the unsparing havoc. Such was the vengeance of the Norman!
THE FAITH OF WOMAN.
“Two things there be on earth that ne’er forget--
A woman, and a dog--where once their love is set!”--OLD MS.
It was the morning after the exterminating fight at Hastings. The
banner blessed of the Roman pontiff streamed on the tainted air,
from the same hillock whence the dragon standard of the Saxons had
shone unconquered to the sun of yester-even! Hard by was pitched the
proud pavilion of the conqueror, who, after the tremendous strife and
perilous labors of the preceding day, reposed himself in fearless
and untroubled confidence upon the field of his renown; secure in
the possession of the land, which he was destined to transmit to his
posterity for many a hundred years, by the red title of the sword.
To the defeated Saxons, morning, however, brought but a renewal of
those miseries which, having yesterday commenced with the first victory
of their Norman lords, were never to conclude, or even to relax, until
the complete amalgamation of the rival races should leave no Normans to
torment, no Saxons to endure; all being merged at last into one general
name of English, and by their union giving origin to the most powerful,
and brave, and intellectual people, the world has ever looked upon
since the extinction of Rome’s freedom.
At the time of which we are now speaking, nothing was thought of by the
victors save how to rivet most securely on the necks of the unhappy
natives their yoke of iron; nothing by the poor, subjugated Saxons, but
how to escape for the moment the unrelenting massacre which was urged
far and wide by the remorseless conquerors throughout the devastated
country. With the defeat of Harold’s host, all national hope of freedom
was at once lost to England. Though, to a man, the English population
were brave and loyal, and devoted to their country’s rights, the
want of leaders--all having perished side by side on that disastrous
field--of combination, without which myriads are but dust in the scale
against the force of one united handful--rendered them quite unworthy
of any serious fears, and even of consideration, to the bloodthirsty
barons of the invading army. Over the whole expanse of level country
which might be seen from the slight elevation whereon was pitched the
camp of William, on every side might be descried small parties of the
Norman horse, driving in with their bloody lances, as if they were mere
cattle, the unhappy captives; a few of whom they now began to spare,
not from the slightest sentiment of mercy, but literally that their
arms were weary with the task of slaying, although their hearts were
yet insatiate of blood.
It must be taken now into consideration by those who listen with
dismay and wonder to the accounts of pitiless barbarity--of ruthless,
indiscriminating slaughter on the part of men whom they have hitherto
been taught to look upon as brave indeed as lions in the field, but
not partaking of the lion’s nature after the field was won--not only
that the seeds of enmity had long been sown between those rival people,
but that the deadly crop of hatred had grown up, watered abundantly by
the tears and blood of either; and, lastly, that the fierce fanaticism
of religious persecution was added to the natural rancor of a war
waged for the ends of conquest or extermination. The Saxon nation,
from the king downward to the meanest serf who fought beneath his
banner, or buckled on the arms of liberty, were all involved under the
common ban of the pope’s interdict. They were accursed of God, and
handed over by his holy church to the kind mercies of the secular arm;
and therefore, though but yesterday they were a powerful and united
nation, to-day they were but a vile horde of scattered outlaws, whom
any man might slay wherever he should find them, whether in arms or
otherwise--amenable for blood neither to any mortal jurisdiction, nor
even to the ultimate tribunal to which all must submit hereafter,
unless deprived of their appeal like these poor fugitives, by
excommunication from the pale of Christianity. For thirty miles around
the Norman camp, pillars of smoke by day, continually streaming upward
to the polluted heaven, and the red glare of nightly conflagration,
told fatally the doom of many a happy home! Neither the castle nor the
cottage might preserve their male inhabitants from the sword’s edge,
their females from more barbarous persecution. Neither the sacred
hearth of hospitality nor the more sacred altars of God’s churches
might protect the miserable fugitives; neither the mail-shirt of the
man-at-arms nor the monk’s frock of serge availed against the thrust
of the fierce Norman spear. All was dismay and havoc, such as the land
wherein those horrors were enacted has never witnessed since, through
many a following age.
High noon approached, and in the conqueror’s tent a gorgeous feast
was spread. The red wine flowed profusely, and song and minstrelsy
arose with their heart-soothing tones, to which the feeble groans of
dying wretches bore a dread burden from the plain whereon they still
lay struggling in their great agonies, too sorely maimed to live, too
strong as yet to die. But, ever and anon, their wail waxed feebler
and less frequent; for many a plunderer was on foot, licensed to ply
his odious calling in the full light of day--reaping his first if not
his richest booty from the dead bodies of their slaughtered foemen.
Ill fared the wretches who lay there, untended by the hand of love
or mercy, “scorched by the death-thirst, and writhing in vain;” but
worse fared they who showed a sign of life to the relentless robbers of
the dead, for then the dagger--falsely called that of mercy--was the
dispenser of immediate immortality. The conqueror sat at his triumphant
board, and barons drank his health: “First English monarch, of the pure
blood of Normandy!”--“King by the right of the sword’s edge!”--“Great,
glorious, and sublime!” Yet was not his heart softened, nor was his
bitter hate toward the unhappy prince who had so often ridden by
his side in war, and feasted at the same board with him in peace,
relinquished or abated. Even while the feast was at the highest, while
every heart was jocund and sublime, a trembling messenger approached,
craving on bended knee permission to address the conqueror and
king--for so he was already schooled by brief but hard experience to
style the devastator of his country.
“Speak out, Dog Saxon!” cried the ferocious prince; “but since thou
must speak, see that thy speech be brief, an’ thou wouldst keep thy
tongue uncropped thereafter!”
“Great duke and mighty,” replied the trembling envoy, “I bear you
greeting from Elgitha, herewhile the noble wife of Godwin, the queenly
mother of our late monarch--now, as she bade me style her, the humblest
of your suppliants and slaves. Of your great nobleness and mercy,
mighty king, she sues you, that you will grant her the poor leave to
search amid the heaps of those our Saxon dead, that her three sons may
at least lie in consecrated earth--so may God send you peace and glory
here, and everlasting happiness hereafter!”
“Hear to the Saxon slave!” William exclaimed, turning as if in wonder
toward his nobles; “hear to the Saxon slave, that dares to speak of
consecrated earth, and of interment for the accursed body of that most
perjured, excommunicated liar! Hence! tell the mother of the dead dog,
whom you have dared to style your king, that for the interdicted and
accursed dead the sands of the seashore are but too good a sepulchre!”
“She bade me proffer humbly to your acceptance the weight of Harold’s
body in pure gold,” faintly gasped forth the terrified and cringing
messenger, “so you would grant her that permission.”
“Proffer us gold! what gold, or whose? Know, villain, all the gold
throughout this conquered realm _is_ ours. Hence, dog and outcast,
hence! nor presume e’er again to come, insulting us by proffering, as
a boon to our acceptance, that which we _own_ already, by the most
indefeasible and ancient right of conquest!--Said I not well, knights,
vavasours, and nobles?”
“Well! well and nobly!” answered they, one and all. “The land is ours,
and all that therein is: their dwellings, their demesnes, their wealth,
whether of gold, or silver, or of cattle--yea, they themselves are
ours! themselves, their sons, their daughters, and their wives--our
portion and inheritance, to be our slaves for ever!”
“Begone! you have our answer,” exclaimed the duke, spurning him with
his foot; “and hark ye, arbalast-men and archers, if any Saxon more
approach us on like errand, see if his coat of skin be proof against
the quarrel of the shaft!”
And once again the feast went on; and louder rang the revelry, and
faster flew the wine-cup, round the tumultuous board. All day the
banquet lasted, even till the dews of heaven fell on that fatal field,
watered sufficiently already by the rich gore of many a noble heart.
All day the banquet lasted, and far was it prolonged into the watches
of the night; when, rising with the wine-cup in his hand--“Nobles and
barons,” cried the duke, “friends, comrades, conquerors, bear witness
to my vow! Here, on these heights of Hastings, and more especially upon
yon mound and hillock, where God gave to us our high victory, and
where our last foe fell--there will I raise an abbey to his eternal
praise and glory. Richly endowed, it shall be, from the first fruits of
this our land. BATTLE, it shall be called, to send the memory of this,
the great and singular achievement of our race, to far posterity; and,
by the splendor of our God, wine shall be plentier among the monks of
Battle, than water in the noblest and richest cloister else, search the
world over! This do I swear: so may God aid, who hath thus far assisted
us for _our_ renown, and will not now deny his help, when it be asked
for _his own_ glory!”
The second day dawned on the place of horror, and not a Saxon had
presumed, since the intolerant message of the duke, to come to look
upon his dead. But now the ground was needed whereon to lay the first
stone of the abbey William had vowed to God. The ground was needed;
and, moreover, the foul steam from the human shambles was pestilential
on the winds of heaven. And now, by trumpet-sound, and proclamation
through the land, the Saxons were called forth, on pain of death, to
come and seek their dead, lest the health of the conquerors should
suffer from the pollution they themselves had wrought. Scarce had the
blast sounded, and the glad tidings been announced once only, ere from
their miserable shelters, where they had herded with the wild beasts of
the forest--from wood, morass, and cavern, happy if there they might
escape the Norman spear--forth crept the relics of that persecuted
race. Old men and matrons, with hoary heads, and steps that tottered
no less from the effect of terror than of age--maidens, and youths,
and infants--too happy to obtain permission to search amid those
festering heaps, dabbling their hands in the corrupt and pestilential
gore which filled each nook and hollow of the dinted soil, so they
might bear away, and water with their tears, and yield to consecrated
ground, the relics of those brave ones, once loved so fondly, and now
so bitterly lamented. It was toward the afternoon of that same day,
when a long train was seen approaching, with crucifix, and cross,
and censer--the monks of Waltham abbey, coming to offer homage for
themselves, and for their tenantry and vassals, to him whom they
acknowledged as their king; expressing their submission to the high
will of the Norman pontiff--justified, as they said, and proved by the
assertion of God’s judgment upon the hill of Hastings. Highly delighted
by this absolute submission, the first he had received from any English
tongue, the conqueror received the monks with courtesy and favor,
granting them high immunities, and promising them free protection, and
the unquestioned tenor of their broad demesnes for ever. Nay, after he
had answered their address, he detained two of their number--men of
intelligence, as with his wonted quickness of perception he instantly
discovered--from whom to derive information as to the nature of his
newly-acquired country and newly-conquered subjects. Osgad and Ailric,
the deputed messengers from the respected principal of their community,
had yet a further and higher object than to tender their submission
to the conqueror. Their orders were, at all and every risk, to gain
permission to consign the corpse of their late king and founder to the
earth previously denied to him. And soon, emboldened by the courtesy
and kindness of the much-dreaded Norman, they took courage to approach
the subject, knowing it interdicted, even on pain of death; and, to
their wonder and delight, it was unhesitatingly granted.
Throughout the whole of the third day succeeding that unparalleled
defeat and slaughter, those old men might be seen toiling among the
naked carcasses, disfigured, maimed, and festering in the sun, toiling
to find the object of their devoted veneration. But vain were all their
labors--vain was their search, even when they called in the aid of his
most intimate attendants, ay, of the mother that had borne him! The
corpses of his brethren, Leofwyn and Gurth, were soon discovered; but
not one eye, even of those who had most dearly loved him, could now
distinguish the maimed features of the king.
At last, when hope itself was now almost extinct, some one named
Edith--Edith the Swan-necked! She had been the mistress--years ere he
had been, or dreamed of being, king--to the brave son of Godwin. She
had beloved him in her youth with that one, single-minded, constant,
never-ending love, which but few, even of her devoted sex, can
feel, and they but once, and for one cherished object. Deserted and
dishonored when he she loved was elevated to the throne, she had not
ceased from her true adoration; but, quitting her now-joyless home, had
shared her heart between her memories and her God, in the sequestered
cloisters of the nunnery of Croyland. More days elapsed ere she could
reach the fatal spot, and the increased corruption denied the smallest
hope of his discovery: yet, from the moment when the mission was named
to her, she expressed her full and confident conviction that she could
recognise that loved one so long as but one hair remained on that head
she had once so cherished! It was night when she arrived on the fatal
field, and by the light of torches once more they set out on their
awful duty. “Show me the spot,” she said, “where the last warrior
fell;” and she was led to the place where had been found the corpses of
his gallant brethren: and, with an instinct that nothing could deceive,
she went straight to the corpse of Harold! It had been turned already
to and fro many times by those who sought it; his mother had looked on
it, and pronounced it not her son’s: but that devoted heart knew it at
once--and broke! Whom rank, and wealth, and honors had divided, defeat
and death made one!--and the same grave contained the cold remains of
Edith the Swan-necked and the last scion of the Saxon kings of England.
THE ERRING ARROW.
“’Tis merry, ’tis merry, in good green-wood,
When the navis and merle are singing,
When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter’s horn is ringing.”--LADY OF THE LAKE.
As beautiful a summer’s morning as ever chased the stars from heaven,
was dawning over that wide tract of waste and woodland, which still,
though many a century has now mossed over the ancestral oaks which then
were in their lusty prime, retains the name by which it was at that
day styled appropriately--the “New Forest.” Few years had then elapsed
since the first Norman lord of England had quenched the fires that
burned in thirty hamlets; had desecrated God’s own altars, making the
roofless aisles of many a parish church the haunt of the grim wolf or
antlered red-deer; turning fair fields and cultured vales to barren and
desolate wastes--to gratify his furious passion for that sport which
has so justly been entitled the mimicry of warfare. Few years had then
elapsed, yet not a symptom of their old fertility could now be traced
in the wild plains waving with fern, and overrun with copsewood, broom,
and brambles; unless it might be found in the profuse luxuriance with
which this thriftless crop had overspread the champaign once smiling
like a goodly garden with every meet production for the sustenance of
man.
It was, as has been said, as beautiful a summer’s morning as ever eye
of man beheld. The sun, which had just raised the verge of his great
orb above the low horizon, was checkering the mossy greensward with
long, fantastic lines of light and shadow, and tinging the gnarled
limbs of the huge oaks with ruddy gold; the dew, which lay abundantly
on every blade of grass and every bending wild-flower, had not yet felt
his power, nor raised a single mist-wreath to veil the brightness of
the firmament; nor was the landscape, that lay there steeped in the
lustre of the glowing skies, less lovely than the dawn that waked above
it: long sylvan avenues sweeping for miles through every variation
of the wildest forest-scenery--here traversing in easy curves wide
undulations clothed with the purple heather; here sinking downward to
the brink of sheets of limpid water; now running straight through lines
of mighty trees, and now completely overbowered as they dived through
brakes and dingles, where the birch and holly grew so thickly mingled
with the prickly furze and creeping eglantine as to make twilight of
the hottest noontide. Such were the leading features of the country
which had most deeply felt, and has borne down to later days most
evident memorials of, the Norman’s tyranny.
Deeply embosomed in these delicious solitudes--surrounded by its
flanking walls, and moat brimmed from a neighboring streamlet, with
barbican and ballium, and all the elaborate defences that marked the
architecture of the conquering race--stood Malwood keep, the favorite
residence of Rufus, no less than it had been of his more famous sire.
Here, early as was the hour, all was already full of life, full of the
joyous and inspiriting confusion that still characterizes, though in
a less degree than in those days of feudal pomp, the preparations for
the chase. Tall yeomen hurried to and fro--some leading powerful and
blooded chargers, which reared, and pawed the earth, and neighed till
every turret echoed to the din; some struggling to restrain the mighty
bloodhounds which bayed and strove indignantly against the leash; while
others, lying in scattered groups upon the esplanade of level turf,
furbished their cloth-yard shafts, or strung the six-foot bows, which,
for the first time, had drawn blood in England upon the fatal field of
Hastings.
It might be seen, upon the instant, it was no private retinue that
mustered to the “mystery of forests,” as in the quaint phrase of the
day the noble sport was designated. A hundred horses, at the least,
of the most costly and admired breeds, were there paraded: the huge,
coal-black _destrier_ of Flanders, limbed like an elephant, but with
a coat that might have shamed the richest velvet by its sleekness;
the light and graceful Andalusian, with here and there a Spaniard,
springy, and fleet, and fearless--while dogs, in numbers infinitely
greater, and of races yet more various, made up the moving picture:
bloodhounds to track the wounded quarry by their unerring scent;
slowhounds to force him from his lair; gazehounds and lymmers to
outstrip him on the level plain; mastiffs to bay the boar, “crook-kneed
and dew-lapped like Thessalian bulls;” with terriers to unkennel beasts
of earth, and spaniels to rouse the fowls of air. Nor were these all,
for birds themselves were there, trained to make war on their own
race: the long-winged hawks of Norway, with lanners from the isle of
Man; merlins, and jerfalcons, and gosshawks. No tongue could tell the
beauty of the creatures thus assembled: some scarcely half-reclaimed,
and showing their wild nature at every glance of their quick, flashing
eyes; some docile and affectionate, and in all things dependent upon
man, to whom, despite caprice, and cruelty, and coldness, they are
more faithful in his need than he, proud though he be, dare boast
himself toward his fellow. No fancy could imagine the superb and lavish
gorgeousness of their equipment.
A long, keen bugle-blast rang from the keep, and in an instant a
hundred bows were strung, a hundred ready feet were in the stirrup.
Again if rang, longer and keener than before, and every forester was in
his saddle; while from the low-browed arch, bending their stately heads
quite to their saddle-bows, over the echoing drawbridge a dozen knights
rode forth, the followers and comrades of their king.
Scarcely above the middle size, but moulded in most exquisite
proportion, thin-flanked, deep-chested, muscular, and lithe, and agile,
there was not one of all his train, noble, or squire, or yeoman, who
could display a form so fitted for the union of activity with strength,
of beauty with endurance, as could the second William. His hair, from
which he had derived his famous soubriquet, was not of that marked and
uncomely hue which we should now term red, but rather of a bright and
yellowish brown, curled closely to a classical and bust-like head;
his eye was quick and piercing; his features, severally, were well
formed and handsome; yet had the eye a wavering, and restless, and at
times even downcast expression; and the whole aspect of the face told
many a tale of pride, and jealousy, and passion--suspicion that might
be roused to cruelty, and wilfulness that surely would be lashed by
any opposition to violent and reckless fury. But now the furrows on
the brow were all relaxed, the harsh lines of the mouth smoothed into
temporary blandness. “Forward, messires!” he cried, in Norman-French;
“the morning finds us sluggards. What, ho! Sir Walter Tyrrel, shall we
two company to-day, and gage our luck against these gay gallants?”
“Right jovially, my liege,” returned the knight whom he addressed. A
tall, dark-featured soldier rode beside his bridle-rein, bearing a
bow which not an archer in the train could bend. “Right jovially will
we--an’ they dare cope with us! What sayest thou, De Beauchamp--darest
thou wager thy black boar-hound against a cast of merlins--thyself and
Vermandois against his grace and me?”
“Nay, thou shouldst gage him odds, my Walter,” Rufus interposed; “thy
shaft flies ever truest, nor yield I to any bow save thine!”
“To his, my liege?” cried Beauchamp, “thou yield to his! Never drew
Walter Tyrrel so true a string as thou; he lacks the sleight, I trow,
so ekes it out with strength! Tyrrel must hold him pleased if he rate
second i’ the field.”
“How now, Sir Walter?” shouted the king; “hearest thou this bold De
Beauchamp, and wilt thou yield the bucklers?--not thou, I warrant me,
though it be to thy king!”
“So please your highness,” Tyrrel answered; “’tis but a sleight to
’scape our wager--’scaping the shame beside of yielding! He deems us
over-strong for him, and so would part us!”
“Nay, by my halydom,” Rufus replied with a gay smile, “but we will have
it so. We two will ride in company, each shooting his own shaft for his
own hand. I dare uphold my arrow for twenty marks of gold, and my white
Alan, against thy Barbary bay. Darest thou, Sir Walter?”
“I know not _that_--I dare not!” answered Tyrrel; “but your grace
wagers high, nor will I lightly lose Bay Barbary: if so our wager
stand, I shoot no roving shaft.”
“Shoot as thou wilt, so stands it!”
“Amen!” cried Tyrrel, “and I doubt not to hear your grace confess
Tyrrel hath struck the lordlier quarry.”
“Away, then, all! away!” and, setting spurs to his curveting horse,
the monarch led the way at a hard gallop, followed by all his train--a
long and bright procession, their gay plumes and many-colored garments
offering a lively contrast to the deep, leafy verdure of July, and
their clear weapons glancing lifelike to the sunshine.
They had careered along, with merriment and music, perhaps three miles
into the forest, when the deep baying of a hound was heard, at some
short distance to the right, from a thick verge of coppice. Instantly
the king curbed in his fiery horse, and raised his hand on high, waving
a silent halt. “Ha! have we outlaws here?” he whispered close in the
ear of Tyrrel. “’Fore God, but they shall rue it!”
Scarcely had he spoken, when a buck burst from a thicket, and, ere it
made three bounds, leaped high into the air and fell, its heart pierced
through and through by the unerring shaft of an outlying ranger, who
the next instant stepped out of his covert, and, catching sight of
the gay cavalcade confronting him--the sounds of whose approach he
must have overlooked entirely in the excitement of his sport--turned
hastily as if to fly. But it was all too late: a dozen of the king’s
retainers had dashed their rowels into their horses’ flanks the instant
he appeared, and scarcely had he discovered their advance before he was
their prisoner.
“A Saxon, by my soul,” cried Rufus, with a savage scowl, “taken
red-hand, and in the fact! Out with thy wood-knife, Damian! By the most
holy Virgin, we will first mar his archery, and then present him with
such a taste of venison as shall, I warrant me, appease his hankering
for one while. Off with his thumb and finger! off with them speedily, I
say, an’ thou wouldst ’scape his doom! Ha! grinnest thou, villain?” he
continued, as a contortion writhed the bold visage of his victim, who,
certain of his fate, and hopeless of resistance or of rescue, yielded
with stubborn resolution to his torturers--“an’ this doth make thee
smile, thou shalt laugh outright shortly! Hence with him, now, Damian
and Hugonet; and thou, Raoul, away with thee--set toils enow, uncouple
half a score of brachs and slowhounds, and see thou take me a right
stag of ten ere vespers!--Barebacked shalt thou ride on him to the
forest, thou unhanged Saxon thief, and see how his horned kinsmen will
entreat thee! See that the dog escape ye not, or ye shall swing for it.
Bind him, and drag him hence to the old church of Lyme; hold him there,
on your lives, till sunset! And ye--lead thither his wild charger: we
will sup there upon the greensward, as we return to Malwood, and thou
shalt make us merry with thy untutored horsemanship. Now for our wager,
Walter! Forward--hurrah!” and on again they dashed, until they reached
the choicest hunting-ground of all that spacious woodland--the desolate
and desert spot where once had stood the fairest village of the land.
Unroofed and doorless, in different stages of decay, a score or two of
cottages, once hospitable, happy homes of a free peasantry, stood here
and there amid the brushwood which had encroached upon the precincts;
while in the midst the desecrated church of Lyme reared its gray
tower, now overgrown with ivy, and crumbling in silent ruin. Upon the
cross which crowned the lowly tower, there sat, as they approached, a
solitary raven--nor, though the whoop and horn rang close below his
perch, did he show any sign of wildness or of fear; but, rising slowly
on his wing, flapped round and round in two or three slow circles, and
then with a hoarse croak resumed his station. The raven was a favorite
bird with the old hunters; and when the deer was slain he had his
portion, thence named “the raven’s bone.” Indeed, so usual was the
practice, that this bird, the wildest by its nature of all the things
that fly, would rarely shun a company which its sagacity descried to be
pursuers of the sylvan game.
“What! sittest thou there, old black-frock, in our presence?” shouted
the king, bending his bow; “but we will teach thee manners!” Still,
the bird moved not, but again sent forth his ominous and sullen croak
above the jocund throng. The bow was raised--the cord was drawn back
to the monarch’s ear: it twanged, and the next moment the hermit-bird
came fluttering down, transfixed by the long shaft, with painful and
discordant cries, and fell close at the feet of Rufus’s charger.
There was a murmur in the crowd; and one, a page who waited on the
king, whispered with a pale face and agitated voice into his fellow’s
ear: “I have heard say--
‘Whose shaft ’gainst raven’s life is set,
Shaft’s feather his heart-blood shall wet!’”
The red king caught the whisper, and turning with an inflamed
countenance and flashing eye on the unwitting wakener of his
wrath--“Dastard and fool!” he shouted; and, clinching his gloved
hand, he dealt the boy so fierce a blow upon the chest, that he fell
to the earth like a lifeless body, plunging so heavily upon the sod
head-foremost, that the blood gushed from nose, ears, mouth, and he lay
senseless and inanimate as the surrounding clay. With a low, sneering
laugh, the tyrant once more spurred his charger forward, amid the
smothered execrations of his Norman followers, boiling with indignation
for that one of their noble and victorious race should have endured the
foul wrong of a blow, though it were dealt him by a monarch’s hand. And
there were scowling brows, and teeth set hard, among the very noblest
of his train; and, as the glittering band swept on, the father of the
injured boy--a dark-browed, aged veteran, who had couched lance at
Hastings to win the throne of earth’s most lovely island for that base
tyrant’s sire--reined in his horse, and, leaping to the earth, upraised
the body from the gory turf, and wiped away the crimson stream from
the pale features, and dashed pure water, brought from a neighboring
brooklet in a comrade’s bacinet, upon the fair young brow--but it
was all in vain! The dying child rolled upward his faint eyes; they
rested on the anxious lineaments of that war-beaten sire, who, stern
and fiery to all else, had ever to that motherless boy been soft and
tender as a woman. “Father,” he gasped, while a brief, painful smile
illuminated with a transient gleam his ashy lips--“mercy, kind mother
Mary! Father--father”--the words died in the utterance; the dim eyes
wavered--closed; the head fell back upon the stalwart arm that had
supported it, and, with one long and quivering convulsion, the innocent
soul departed!
Some three or four--inferior barons of the train, yet each a gentleman
of lineage and prowess in the field, each one in his own estimate a
prince’s peer--had paused around the desolate father and his murdered
child; and now, as the old man gazed hopelessly upon the features of
his first-born and his only, the sympathy which had moistened their
hard eyes and relaxed their iron features was swallowed up in a fierce
glare of indignation, irradiating their scarred and war-seamed visages
with that sublime expression, from which, when glowing on the face of a
resolute and fearless man, the wildest savage of the forest will shrink
in mute dismay. The father, after a long and fearful struggle with his
more tender feelings--wringing his hard hands till the blood-drops
started redly from beneath every nail--lifted his face, more pale and
ashy in its hues than that of the inanimate form which he had loved so
tenderly; and as he lifted it he caught the fierce glow mantling on the
front of each well-tried companion, and his own features lightened with
the self-same blaze: his hand sank downward to the hilt of the long
poniard at his girdle, and the fingers worked with a convulsive tremor
as they griped the well-known pommel, and an exulting smile curled his
mustached lip, prophetic of revenge. Once more he bowed above the dead;
he laid his broad hand on the pulseless heart, and printed a long kiss
on the forehead; then lifting, with as much tenderness as though they
still had sense and feeling, the relics of the only thing he loved on
earth, he bore them from the roadside into the shelter of a tangled
coppice; unbuckled his long military mantle, and spreading it above
them, secured it at each corner by heavy stones, a temporary shelter
from insult or intrusion. This done, in total silence he rejoined his
friends, who had foreborne to offer aid where they perceived it would
be held superfluous. Without one word, he grasped the bridle of his
charger, tightened his girths, and then, setting no foot to stirrup,
vaulted almost without an effort into the steel-bound demipique.
Raising his arm aloft, he pointed into the long aisles of the forest,
wherein the followers of Rufus had long since disappeared.
“Our thoughts are one!” he hissed, in accents scarcely articulate,
between his grinded teeth; “what need of words? Are not we soldiers,
gentlemen, and Normans, and shall not deeds speak for us?”
_Truly_ he said, their thoughts were one!--for each had severally
steeled his heart as by a common impulse: and now, without a word, or
sign, or any interchange of sentiments, feeling that each understood
the other, they wheeled their horses on the tyrant’s track, and at a
hard trot rode away, resolved on instant vengeance.
Meanwhile, the hunters had arrived at their appointed ground. The
slowhounds were uncoupled and cast loose; varlets with hunting-poles,
and mounted grooms, pressed through the underwood; while, in each open
glade and riding of the forest, yeomen were stationed with relays of
tall and stately gazehounds, to slip upon the hart the instant he
should break from the thick covert. The knights and nobles galloped
off, each with his long-bow strung, and cloth-yard arrow notched and
ready, to posts assigned to them--some singly, some in pairs; all was
replete with animation and with fiery joy.
According to the monarch’s pleasure, Tyrrel rode at his bridle-hand,
for that day’s space admitted as his comrade and his rival. Two
splendid bloodhounds, coal-black, but tawny on the muzzle and the
breast, so accurately trained that they required no leash to check
their ardor, ran at the red king’s heel; but neither page nor squire,
such was his special mandate, accompanied their master. And now the
loud shouts of the foresters and the deep baying of the pack gave note
that the chase was on foot; and by the varied cadences and different
points whence pealed the soul-exciting clamors, Rufus, a skilful and
sagacious sportsman, immediately perceived that two if not three of
the noble animals they hunted must have been roused at once. For a few
seconds he stood upright in his stirrups, his hand raised to his ear,
lest the slight summer breeze should interrupt the welcome sounds.
“This way,” he said, in low and guarded tones, “this way they bend;
and with the choicest buck--hark to old Hubert’s holloa! and _there,
there_, Tyrrel, list to that burst--list to that long, sharp yell!
Beshrew my soul, if that be not stanch Palamon--that hound is worth
ten thousand. Ha! they are now at fault. Again! brave Palamon again!
and now they turn; hark how the echoes roar! Ay, they are crossing now
the Deer-leap dingle; and now, now, as their notes ring out distinct
and tuneful, they gain the open moorland. Spur, Tyrrel, for your life!
spur, spur! we see him not again till we reach Bolderwood”--and, with
the word, he raised his bugle to his lips, and wound it lustily and
well till every oak replied to the long flourish.
Away they flew, driving their foaming chargers, now through the tangled
underwood with tightened reins, now with free heads careering along
the level glades, now sweeping over the wide brooks that intersect
the forest as though their steeds were winged, and now, at distant
intervals, pausing to catch the fitful music of the pack. After a
furious chase of at least two hours, the sounds still swelling on their
right, nearer and nearer as they rode the farther, the avenue through
which they had been galloping for many minutes was intersected at
right angles by one yet wider though neglected, and, as it would seem,
disused, for many marshy pools might be seen glittering to the sun,
which was now fast descending to the westward, and many plants of ash
and tufted hazels had sprung up, marring the smoothness of its surface.
Here, by a simultaneous motion, and as it seemed obedient to a common
thought, both riders halted.
“He must cross, Tyrrel, he _must_ cross here,” cried the excited
monarch; “ay, by the life of Him who made us--and that before we
be ten minutes older. I will take stand even here, where I command
both alleys: ride thou some fifty yards or so, to the right; stand
by yon rowan sapling. And mark me--see’st thou yon scathed but giant
oak?--Now, if he pass on this side, mine is the first shot; if on the
other, thine. I will not balk thy fortunes; meddle not thou with mine!”
They parted--the king sitting like a statue on his well-trained but
fiery Andalusian, the rein thrown loosely on the horse’s neck, and the
bow already half bent in the vigorous right hand; the baron riding, as
he had been commanded, down the neglected avenue, till he had reached
the designated tree, when he wheeled round his courser and remained
likewise motionless, facing the king, at that brief interval.
Nearer and nearer came the baying of the pack, while ever and anon a
sharp and savage treble, mixed with the deeper notes, gave token to the
skilful foresters that they were running with the game in view. Nearer
it came, and nearer; and now it was so close, that not an echo could
be traced amid the stormy music: but with the crash no human shout
was blended, no bugle lent its thrilling voice to the blithe uproar,
no clang of hoofs announced the presence of pursuers. All, even the
best and boldest riders, saving those two who waited there in calm,
deliberate impatience, had long been foiled by the quick turns and
undiminished pace maintained by the stout quarry.
The crashing of the branches might now be heard distinctly, as they
were separated by some body in swift motion; and next the laboring
sobs of a beast overdone with toil and anguish; the waving of the
coppice followed in a long, sinuous line, resembling in some degree
the wake of a fleet ship among the rolling billows. Midway it furrowed
the dense thicket between the king and Tyrrel, but with an inclination
toward the former. His quick eye noted his advantage: his bow rose
slowly and with a steady motion to its level; it was drawn to its
full extent--the forked steel head pressing against the polished yew,
the silken string stretched home to the right ear. The brambles were
forced violently outward, and with a mighty but laborious effort the
hunted stag dashed into the more open space. Scarcely had he cleared
the thicket, before a sharp and ringing twang announced the shot of
Rufus. So true had been his aim, that the barbed arrow grazed the
withers of the game--a hart of grease, with ten tines on his noble
antlers--leaving a gory line where it had razed the skin; and so strong
was the arm that launched it, that the shaft, glancing downward, owing
to the king’s elevation and the short distance of the mark at which he
aimed, was buried nearly to the feathers in the soft, mossy greensward.
The wounded stag bounded at least six feet into the air; and Tyrrel,
deeming the work already done, lowered his weapon. But the king’s
sight was truer. Raising his bridle-hand to screen his eyes from the
rays, now nearly level, of the setting sun--“Ho!” he cried, “Tyrrel,
shoot--in the fiend’s name shoot!”
Before the words had reached his ear, the baron saw his error;
for, instantly recovering, the gallant deer dashed onward, passing
immediately beneath the oak-tree which Rufus had already mentioned.
Raising his bow with a rapidity which seemed incredible, Tyrrel
discharged his arrow. It struck, just at the correct elevation, against
the gnarled trunk of the giant tree; but, swift as was its flight, the
motion of the wounded deer was yet more rapid: he had already crossed
the open glade, and was lost in the thicket opposite. Diverted from
its course, but unabated in its force, the Norman shaft sped onward;
full, full and fairly it plunged into the left side of the hapless
monarch, unguarded by the arm which he had cast aloft. The keen point
actually drove clear through his body, and through his stout buff coat,
coming out over his right hip; while the goose-feather, which had
winged it to its royal mark, was literally dabbled in his life-blood!
Without a breath, a groan, a struggle, the Conqueror’s son dropped
lifeless from his saddle. His horse, freed from the pressure of the
master-limbs that had so well controlled him, reared upright as the
monarch fell, and, with a wild, quick snort of terror, rushed furiously
away into the forest. The bloodhounds had already, by the fierce
cunning of their race, discovered that their game was wounded, and had
joined freshly with his old pursuers; while he, who did the deed, gazed
for one moment horror-stricken on the work of his right hand, and then,
without so much as drawing nigh to see if anything of life remained to
his late master, casting his fatal bow into the bushes, put spurs to
his unwearied horse, and drew not bridle till he reached the coast;
whence, taking ship, he crossed the seas, and fell in Holy Land, hoping
by many deeds of wilful bloodshed--such is the inconsistency of man--to
win God’s pardon for one involuntary slaughter.
Hours rolled away. The sun had set already, and his last gleams were
rapidly departing from the skies, nor had the moon yet risen, when six
horsemen came slowly, searching as it were for traces on the earth, up
the same alley along which Tyrrel and the king had ridden with such
furious speed since noontide. The lingering twilight did not suffice to
show the features of the group, but the deep tones of the second rider
were those of the bereaved and vengeful father.
“How now?” he said, addressing his words to the man who led the way,
mounted upon a shaggy forest-pony; “how now, Sir Saxon!--is it for this
we saved thee from the tyrant’s hangmen, that thou shouldst prove a
blind guide in this matter?”
“Norman,” replied the other, still scanning, as he spoke, the ground
dinted and torn by the fresh hoof-tracks, “my heart thirsts for
vengeance not less than thine; nor is our English blood less stanch,
although it be less fiery, than the hottest stream that swells the
veins of your proud race! I tell you, Rufus hath passed here, and he
hath not turned back. You _shall_ have your revenge!”
Even as he spoke, the beast which he bestrode set his feet firm and
snuffed the air, staring as though his eyeballs would start from their
sockets, and uttering a tremulous, low neigh. “Blood hath been shed
here! and that, I trow, since sunset! Jesu! what have we now?” he
cried, as his eye fell upon the carcass that so lately had exulted in
the possession of health, and energy, and strength, and high dominion.
“By Thor the Thunderer, it is the tyrant’s corpse!”
“And slain,” replied the father, “slain by another’s hand than mine!
Curses, ten thousand curses, on him who shot this shaft!” While he was
speaking he dismounted, approached the body of his destined victim, and
gazed with an eye of hatred most insatiably savage upon the rigid face
and stiffening limbs; then drawing his broad dagger--“I have sworn!”
he muttered, as he besmeared its blade with the dark, curdled gore--“I
have sworn! Lie there and _rot_,” he added, spurning the body with his
foot. “And now we must away, for we are known and noted; and, whoso
did the deed, ’tis we shall bear the blame of it. We must see other
lands. I will but leave a brief word with the monks of Lymington, that
they commit my poor boy to a hallowed tomb, and then farewell, fair
England!” And they, too, rode away, nor were they ever seen again on
British soil; nor--though shrewd search was made for them until the
confessor of Tyrrel, when that bold spirit had departed, revealed the
real slayer of the king--did any rumor of their residence or fortunes
reach any mortal ear.
The moon rose over the New Forest broad and unclouded, and the dew
fell heavy over glade and woodland. The night wore onward, and the
bright planet set, and one by one the stars went out--and still the
king lay there untended and alone. The morning mists were rising,
when the rumbling sound of a rude cart awoke the echoes of that
fearful solitude. A charcoal-burner of the forest was returning
from his nocturnal labors, whistling cheerfully the burden of some
Saxon ballad, as he threaded the dark mazes of the green-wood. A
wiry-looking cur--maimed, in obedience to the forest-law, lest he
should chase the deer reserved to the proud conquerors alone--followed
the footsteps of his master, who had already passed the corpse, when
a half-startled yelp, followed upon the instant by a most melancholy
howl, attracted the attention of the peasant. After a moment’s
search he found, although he did not recognise, the cause of his
dog’s terror; and, casting it upon his loaded cart, bore it to the
same church whereat but a few hours before the living sovereign
had determined to glut his fierce eyes with the death-pangs of his
fellow-man. Strange are the ways of Providence. That destined man
lived after his intended torturer! And, stranger yet, freed from his
bonds, that he might minister unto the slaughter of that self-same
torturer, he found his purpose frustrate--frustrate, as it were, by its
accomplishment--his meditated deed anticipated, his desperate revenge
forestalled.--“Verily, vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, “and I will
repay it.”
THE SAXON PRELATE’S DOOM.
“Die, prophet, in thy speech!”--KING HENRY VI.
The mightiest monarch of his age, sovereign of England--as his proud
grandsire made his vaunt of yore--by right of the sword’s edge; grand
duke of Normandy, by privilege of blood; and liege lord of Guienne, by
marriage with its powerful heritress; the bravest, the most fortunate,
the wisest of the kings of Europe, Henry the Second, held his court
for the high festival of Christmas in the fair halls of Rouen. The
banquet was already over, the revelry was at the highest, still,
the gothic arches ringing with the merriment, the laughter, and the
blended cadences of many a minstrel’s harp, of many a trouvere’s lay.
Suddenly, while the din was at the loudest, piercing through all the
mingled sounds, a single trumpet’s note was heard--wailing, prolonged,
and ominous--as was the chill it struck to every heart in that bright
company--of coming evil. During the pause which followed, for at that
thrilling blast the mirth and song were hushed as if by instinct--a
bustle might be heard below, the tread of many feet, and the discordant
tones of many eager voices. The great doors were thrown open, not with
the stately ceremonial that befitted the occasion, but with a noisy
and irreverent haste that proved the urgency or the importance of the
new-comers. Then, to the wonder of all present, there entered--not in
their wonted pomp, with stole, and mitre, crozier dalmatique and ring,
but in soiled vestments, travel-worn and dusty, with features haggard
from fatigue, and sharpened by anxiety and fear--six of the noblest
of old England’s prelates, led by the second dignitary of the church,
York’s proud archbishop. Hurrying forward to the dais, where Henry
sat in state, they halted all together at the step, and in one voice
exclaimed:--
“Fair sir, and king, not for ourselves alone, but for the holy church,
for your own realm and crown, for your own honor, your own safety, we
beseech you--”
“What means this, holy fathers?” Henry cried, hastily, and half
alarmed, as it would seem, by the excited language of the churchmen.
“What means this vehemence--or who hath dared to wrong ye, and for why?”
“For that, at your behest, we dared to crown the youthful king, your
son! Such, sire, is our offence. Our wrong--that we your English
prelates are excommunicated, and--”
“Now, by the eyes of God!”[A] exclaimed the king, breaking abruptly in
upon the bishop’s speech, his noble features crimsoned by the indignant
blood, that rushed to them at mention of this foul affront, “Now, by
the eyes of God, if all who have consented to his consecration be
accursed, then am I so myself!”
[A] For this strange but authentic oath, see Thierry’s “Norman
Conquest,” whence most of these details are taken.
“Nor is this all,” replied the prelate, well pleased to note the
growing anger of the sovereign, “nor is this all the wrong. The same
bold man, who did you this affront, an’ you look not the sharper, will
light a blaze in England that shall consume right speedily your royal
crown itself. He marches to and fro, with troops of horse, and bands of
armed footmen, stirring the Saxon churls against the gentle blood of
Normandy, nay, seeking even to gain entrance into your garrisons and
castles.”
“Do I hear right,” shouted the fiery prince, striking his hand upon
the board with such fierce vehemence, that every flask and tankard
rang. “Do I hear right--and is it but a dream that I am England’s king?
What! _one_ base vassal; _one_ who has fattened on the bread of our
ill-wasted charity; _one_ beggar, who first came to our court with all
his fortunes on his back, bestriding a galled, spavined jade; _one_
wretch like this insult at once a line of sovereign princes--trample
a realm beneath his feet--and go unpunished and scathe-free? What!
was there not one man, one only, of the hordes of recreant knights
who feast around my board, to free his monarch from a shaveling who
dishonors and defies him? Break off the feast--break off, I say! no
time for revelry and wine!--To council, lords, to council! We must
indeed bestir us, an’ we would hold the crown our grandsire won, not
for himself alone, nor for his race--who, by God’s grace, will wear it,
spite priest, cardinal, or pope--but for the gentle blood of Norman
chivalry!”
Rising at once, he led the way to council; and, with wild haste and
disarray, the company dispersed. But as the hall grew thin, four
knights remained behind in close converse--so deep, so earnest, that
they were left alone, when all the rest, ladies, and cavaliers, and
chamberlains, and pages, had departed, and the vast gallery, which
had so lately rung with every various sound of human merriment, was
silent as the grave. There was a strange and almost awful contrast
between the strong and stately forms of the four barons--their deep
and energetic whispers, the fiery glances of their angry eyes, the
fierce gesticulations of their muscular and well-turned limbs--and the
deserted splendors of that royal hall: the vacant throne, the long
array of seats; the gorgeous plate, flagons, and cups, and urns of gold
and marquetry; the lights still glowing, as it were, in mockery over
the empty board; the wine unpoured--the harps untouched and voiceless.
“Be it so--be it so!” exclaimed, in louder tones than they had used
before, one, the most striking in appearance of the group; “be it
so--let us swear! Richard le Breton, Hugues de Morville, William de
Traci--even as I shall swear, swear ye--by God, and by our trusty
blades, and by our Norman honor!”
“We will,” cried all, “we swear! we be not recreant, nor craven, as our
good swords shall witness!”
“Thus, then,” continued the first speaker, drawing his sword, and
grasping a huge cup of wine, “thus, then, I, Reginald Fitz-Urse, for
mine own part, and for each one and all of ye, do swear--so help me
God and our good Lady!--never to touch the winecup; never to bend
before the shrine; never to close the eyes in sleep; never to quit the
saddle, or unbelt the brand; never to pray to God; never to hope for
heaven--until the wrong we reck of be redressed!--until the insult done
our sovereign be avenged!--until the life-blood of his foeman stream on
our battle-swords as streams this nobler wine!”
Then, with the words--for not he only, but each one of the four,
holding their long, two-handed blades extended at arms’ length before
them with all their points in contact, and in the other hand grasping
the brimming goblets, had gone through, in resolute, unflinching tones,
the fearful adjuration--then, with the words, they all dashed down the
generous liquor on the weapons, watched it in silence as it crimsoned
them from point to hilt, and sheathing them, all purple as they were,
hurried, not from the hall alone, but from the palace; mounted their
fleetest war-steeds, and, that same night, rode furiously away toward
the nearest sea.
The fifth day was in progress after King Henry’s banquet, when, at
the hour of noon, four Norman knights, followed by fifty men-at-arms,
sheathed cap-à-pie in mail, arrayed beneath the banner of Fitz-Urse,
entered the town of Canterbury at a hard gallop. The leaders of the
band alone were clad in garbs of peace, bearing no weapon but their
swords, and singularly ill-accoutred for horse-exercise, being attired
in doublets of rich velvet, with hose of cloth of gold or silver, as if
in preparation for some high and festive meeting. Yet was it evident
that they had ridden miles in that unsuitable apparel; for the rich
velvet was besmeared with many a miry stain, and the hose dashed with
blood, which had been drawn profusely by the long rowels of their
gilded spurs.
Halting in serried order at the market-cross, the leader of the party
summoned, by an equerry, the city mayor to hear the orders of the
king; and, when that officer appeared--having commanded him, “on his
allegiance, to call his men to arms, and take such steps as should
assuredly prevent the burghers of the town from raising any tumult on
that day, whate’er might come to pass”--with his three friends, and
twelve, the stoutest, of the men-at-arms who followed in their train,
rode instantly away to the archbishop’s palace.
The object of their deadly hatred, when the four knights arrived,
was in the act of finishing his noonday meal; and all his household
were assembled at the board, from which he had just risen. There was
no sign of trepidation, no symptom of surprise, much less of fear or
consternation, in his aspect or demeanor, as one by one his visitors
stalked unannounced into the long apartment. Yet was there much indeed
in the strange guise wherein they came--in their disordered habits,
in the excitement visibly depicted on their brows, haggard from want
of sleep, pale with fatigue and labor, yet resolute, and stern, and
terse, with the resolve of their dread purpose--to have astonished,
nay, dismayed the spirit of one less resolute in the defence of what
he deemed the right than Thomas à-Becket. Silently, one by one, they
entered, the leader halting opposite the prelate, with his arms
folded on his breast, and his three comrades forming as it were in a
half-circle around him. Not one of them removed the bonnet from his
brow, or bowed the knee on entering, or offered any greeting, whether
to the temporal rank or spiritual station of their intended victim; but
gazed on him with a fixed sternness that was far more awful than any
show of violence. This dumb-show, although it needs must occupy some
time in the description, had lasted perhaps a minute, when the bold
prelate broke the silence, addressing them in clear, harmonious tones,
and with an air as dignified and placid as though he had been bidding
them to share the friendly banquet.
“Fair sirs,” he said, “I bid ye welcome; although, in truth, the manner
of your entrance be not in all things courteous, nor savoring of that
respect which should be paid, if not to me--who am but as a worm, the
meanest of HIS creatures--yet to the dignity whereunto HE has raised
me! Natheless, I bid ye hail! Please ye disclose the business whereon
ye now have come to me.”
Still not a word did they reply--but seated themselves all unbidden,
still glaring on him with fixed eyes, ominous of evil. At length
Fitz-Urse addressed him, speaking abruptly, and in tones so hoarse and
hollow--the natural consequence of his extreme exertions, four days and
nights having been actually passed in almost constant travel--that his
most intimate associate could not have recognised his voice.
“We come,” he said, “on the king’s part, to take--and that, too,
on the instant--some order with your late proceedings: to have the
excommunicated presently absolved; to see the bishops, who have been
suspended, forthwith re-established; and to hear what _you_ may now
allege concerning your design against your sovereign lord and master!”
“It is not I,” Thomas replied, still calmer and more dignified than the
fierce spirits who addressed him, “it is not I who have done this. It
is the sovereign pontiff, God’s own supreme vicegerent, who, of his
own will, excommunicated my late brother of York. He alone, therefore,
can absolve him. I have no power in’t. As for the rest, let them but
make submission, and straightway shall they be restored!”
“From whom, then,” Reginald Fitz-Urse demanded, “from whom, then, hold
you your archbishopric--from England’s king, or from the pope of Rome?”
“My spiritual rights, of God and of the pope--my temporal privileges,
of the king,” was the prompt answer.
“The king, then, gave you _not_?” the baron asked again. “Beware, I
warn you, beware how you do answer me: the king, I say, gave you _not_
ALL that you enjoy?”
“He did not,” answered Becket, without moving a single muscle of his
composed but haughty countenance; although, at the reply, the fiery
temper of his unwelcome visiters was made more clearly manifest, as
a deep, angry murmur burst simultaneously from all their lips, and
they wrung with fierce gestures their gloved hands, as if it was with
difficulty they restrained themselves from violence more open in its
character.
“Ye threaten me, I well believe,” exclaimed the stately prelate, “but
it is vain and useless. Were all the swords in England brandished
against my head, ye should gain nothing, nothing from me.”
“We will do more than threaten,” answered Fitz-Urse; and rising from
his seat, rushed out of the apartment, followed by his companions,
crying aloud, even before they crossed the threshold, “To-arms,
Normans, to-arms!”
The doors were closed behind them, and barred instantly with the most
jealous care; while Reginald and the conspirators, meeting the guard
whom they had left without, armed themselves cap-à-pie in the courtyard
before the palace-gates, as if for instant battle, with helmet,
hood-of-mail, and hauberk; their triangular steel-plated shields
hanging about their necks; their legs protected by mail-hose, fitting
as closely and as flexible as modern stockings; their huge two-handed
swords belted about them in such fashion, that their cross-guarded
hilts came over their left shoulders, while their points clanked
against the spur on their right heels.
There was no pause; for, snatching instantly an axe from the hands
of a carpenter who chanced to be at work in the courtyard, Fitz-Urse
assailed the gate. Strong as it was, it creaked and groaned beneath
the furious blows, and the long corridors within rolled back the
threatening sounds in deep and hollow echoes. Within the palace all was
confusion and dismay, and every face was pale and ghastly, save his
alone who had the cause for fear.
“Fly! fly, my lord!” cried the assistants, breathless with terror; “fly
to the altar! There, there, at least, shall you be safe!”
“Never!” the prelate answered, his bold spirit as self-possessed and
calm in that most imminent peril as though he had been bred from
childhood upward to the performance of high deeds and daring; “never
will I turn back from that which I have set myself to do! God, if it be
his pleasure, shall preserve me from yet greater straits than these;
and if it be not so his will to do, then God forbid I should gainsay
him!” Nor would he stir one foot, until the vesper-bell, rung by the
sacristan, unwitting of his superior’s peril, began to chime from the
near walls of the cathedral. “It is the hour,” he quietly observed, on
hearing the sweet cadence of the bells, “it is the hour of prayer; my
duty calls me. Give me my vestments--carry my cross before me!” And,
attiring himself as though nothing of unusual moment were impending, he
traversed, with steps even slower than his wont, the cloister leading
from his dwelling to the abbey; though, ere he left the palace, the
din of blows had ceased, and the fierce shout of the assailants gave
token that the door had yielded. Chiding his servitors for their
excess of terror, as unworthy of their sacred calling, he still walked
slowly onward, while the steel-shod footsteps of his foemen might be
heard clashing on the pavement but a few yards behind him. He reached
the door of the cathedral; entered without casting so much as one
last glance behind; passed up the nave, and going up the steps of the
high altar, separated from the body of the church by a slight rail of
ornamental iron-work, commenced the service of the day.
Scarcely had he uttered the first words, when Reginald, sheathed, as
has been heretofore described, in complete panoply, with his two-handed
sword already naked, rushed into the cathedral.
“To me!” he cried, with a fierce shout, “to me, valiant and loyal
servants of the king!” while close behind him followed, in like array,
with flashing eyes, and inflamed visages, and brandished weapons, his
sworn confederates; and without the gates their banded men-at-arms
stood in a serried circle, defying all assistance from the town.
Again his servitors entreated Becket to preserve himself, by seeking
refuge in the dark crypts beneath the chancel, where he might rest
concealed in absolute security until the burghers should be aroused
to rescue; or by ascending the intricate and winding turret-stairs to
the cathedral-roof, whence he might summon aid ere he could possibly
be overtaken: but it was all in vain. Confiding in the goodness of his
cause, perhaps expecting supernatural assistance, the daring prelate
silenced their prayers by a contemptuous refusal; and even left the
altar, to prevent one of the monks from closing the weak, trellised
gates, which marked the holiest precincts. Meanwhile, unmoved in their
fell purpose, the Normans were at hand.
“Where is the traitor?” cried Fitz-Urse, but not a voice replied;
and the unwonted tones were vocal yet beneath the vaulted roof in
lingering echoes, when he again exclaimed, “Where--where is the
archbishop?”
“Here stands he,” Becket answered, drawing his lofty person up to its
full height, and spreading his arms forth with a gesture of perfect
majesty. “Here stands he, but no traitor! What do ye in God’s house in
such apparel? what is your will, or purpose?”
“That you die, presently!” was the reply, enforced by the uplifted
weapon and determined features of the savage baron.
“I am resigned,” returned the prelate, the calm patience of the martyr
blent with a noble daring that would have well become a warrior on the
battle-field. “Ye shall not see me fly before your swords! But in the
name of the all-powerful God, whom ye dishonor and defy, I do command
ye injure no one of my companions, layman or priest.” His words were
interrupted by a heavy blow across his shoulders, delivered, with the
flat of his huge sword, by Reginald.
“Fly!” he said, “fly, priest, or you are dead!” But the archbishop
moved not a step, spoke not a syllable. “Drag him hence, comrades,”
continued the last speaker; “away with him beyond the threshold--we may
not smite him here!”
“Here--here, or nowhere!” the archbishop answered--“here, in the very
presence, and before the altar, and the image, of our God!” And, as he
spoke, he seized the railings with both hands, set his feet firm, and,
being of a muscular and powerful frame, sustained by daring courage and
highly-wrought excitement, he succeeded in maintaining his position, in
spite of the united efforts of the four Norman warriors.
Meanwhile, all the companions of the prelate had escaped, by ways
known only to themselves--all but one faithful follower--the Saxon,
Edward Grim, his cross-bearer since his first elevation to the see of
Canterbury--the same who had so boldly spoken out after the conference
of Clarendon; and the conspirators began to be alarmed lest, if their
purpose were not speedily accomplished, the rescue should arrive and
frustrate their intentions. Their blood, moreover, was heated by the
struggle; and their fierce natures, never much restrained by awe or
reverence for things divine, burst through all bonds.
“Here, then, if it so please you!--here!” cried William de Traci,
striking, as he spoke, a blow with the full sweep of both his arms
wielding his ponderous weapon, at the defenceless victim’s head. But
the bold Saxon suddenly stretched out his arm to guard his beloved
master. Down came the mighty blow--but not for that did the true
servitor withdraw his naked limb--down came the mighty blow, and lopped
the unflinching hand, sheer as the woodman’s bill severs the hazel-twig!
Still, Becket stood unwounded. “Strike! strike, you others!” shouted
the Norman, as he grasped the maimed but still-resolved protector of
his master, and held him off by the exertion of his entire strength;
“strike! strike!” And they did strike, fearlessly--mercilessly! Hugues
de Morville smote him with a mace upon his temples, and he fell,
stunned, but still alive, face downward on the pavement; and Reginald
Fitz-Urse, whirling his espaldron around his head, brought it down with
such reckless fury upon the naked skull, that the point clove right
through it, down to the marble pavement, on which it yet alighted with
a degree of violence so undiminished, that it was shivered to the very
hilt, and the strong arms of him who wielded it were jarred up to the
shoulders, as if by an electric shock. One of the men-at-arms, who had
rushed in during the struggle, spurned with his foot the motionless and
senseless clay.
“Thus perish all,” he said, “all foemen of the king, and of the gentle
Normans--all who dare, henceforth, to arouse the base and slavish
Saxons against their free and princely masters!”
Thus fell the Saxon prelate, ruthlessly butchered at the very shrine
of God--not so much that he was a Romish priest, and an upholder
of the rights of Rome, as that he was a Saxon-man, a vindicator of
the liberties of England! Yet, though the pope absolved that king
whose cruel will had, in truth, done the deed, yet was that deed not
unavenged. If the revolt and treachery of all most dear to him, the
hatred of his very flesh and blood, the unceasing enmity of his own
sons, a miserable old age, and a heart-broken death-bed--if these
things may be deemed Heaven’s vengeance upon murder--then, of a surety,
that murder was avenged!
THE FATE OF THE BLANCHE NAVIRE.[B]
“The bark that held a prince went down,
The sweeping waves rolled on,
And what was England’s glorious crown
To him who wept a son?”--HEMANS.
The earliest dawning of a December’s morning had not yet tinged the
eastern sky, when in the port of Barfleur the stirring bustle which
precedes an embarkation broke loudly on the ear of all who were on
foot at that unseemly hour; nor were these few in number, for all
the population of that town--far more considerable than it appears
at present, when mightier cities, some rendered so by the gigantic
march of commerce, some by the puissant and creative hands of military
despotism, have sprung on every side into existence, and overshadowed
its antique renown--were hastening through the narrow streets toward
the water’s edge. The many-paned, stone-latticed casements gleamed with
a thousand lights, casting a cheerful glare over the motley multitude
which swarmed before them with all the frolic merriment of an unwonted
holyday. All classes and all ranks might there be seen, of every age
and sex: barons and lords of high degree, clad in the rich attires of
a half-barbarous yet gorgeous age, mounted on splendid horses, and
attended by long retinues of armed and liveried vassals; ladies and
demoiselles of birth and beauty curbing their Spanish jennets, and
casting sidelong looks of love toward the favored knights curveting in
the conscious state of proud humility beside their bridle-reins--as
clearly visible as at high noon, in the broad radiance of the torches
that accompanied their progress; while all around them and behind
crowded the humbler throng of mariners and artisans, with here a solemn
burgher, proud in his velvet pourpoint and his golden chain, and there
a barefoot monk, far prouder in his frock of sackcloth and his knotted
girdle; and ever and anon a group of merry maidens, with their high
Norman caps and short jupons of parti-colored serge, crowding around
the _jongleur_[C] with his ape and gittern--or pressing on to hear the
loftier professor[D] of the _gai-science_, girded with sword and dagger
in token of his gentle blood, and followed by his boy bearing the harp,
which then had power to win, not with the low-born and vulgar throng,
but with the noble and the fair, high favor for its wandering master!
[B] The title given by the chroniclers to this ill-fated
vessel is “The Blanche _Nef_,” the latter word being the
old French for the modern term, which we have substituted.
Singularly enough, the ancient word survives as the name
of a piece of antique gold plate modelled like a ship, in
which the napkins of the royal table are served in the high
ceremonials of the court of France.
[C] The juggler of the middle ages, who, like the
street-musicians of the present time, were mostly Savoyards
by birth, generally carried with them the ape or marmoset,
even to this day their companion, and added to their feats
of strength and sleight of hand both minstrelsey and music.
[D] The _gai-science_, so early as the commencement of the
century of which we write, had its degrees, its colleges,
and its professors, who, though itinerants, and dependent
for their subsistence on their instrument and voice,
considered war no less their trade than song, esteeming
themselves, and moreover admitted by others to be, in the
fullest sense, gentlemen.
The courts and thoroughfares of the old town--for it was old even
then--by slow degrees grew silent and deserted; and, ere the sun was
well above the wave, the multitudes which thronged them had rolled
downward to the port, and stood in dense ranks gazing on its calm
and sheltered basin. Glorious indeed and lovely was the sight when
the first yellow rays streamed over the still waters: they waked the
distant summits of the hills behind the town into a sudden life;
they kissed the crest of every curling ripple that dimpled with its
“innumerable laughter” the azure face of ocean; but, more than all,
they seemed to dwell upon two noble barks, which lay, each riding at a
single anchor, at a short arrow-shot from the white sands that girt as
with a silver frame the liquid mirror of the harbor.
Fashioned by the best skill of that early day, and ornamented with
the most lavish splendor, though widely different from the floating
castles of modern times, those vessels--the picked cruisers of the
British navy--were in their structure no less picturesque than in their
decoration royally magnificent. Long, low, and buoyant, they floated
lightly as birds upon the surface; their open waists already bristling
with the long oars by which, after the fashion of the Roman galley,
they were propelled in serene weather; their masts clothed with the
wings which seemed in vain to woo the breeze; their elevated sterns
and forecastles blazing with tapestries of gold and silver, reflected
in long lines of light, scarcely broken by the dancing ripples. The
larger of the two bore on her foresail, blazoned in gorgeous heraldry,
the arms of England. The second, somewhat smaller, but if anything more
elegant in her proportions, and fitted with a nicer taste, although
less sumptuous, was painted white from stem to stern; her oars, fifty
in number, of the same spotless hue, were barred upon the blades with
silver; and on her foresail of white canvass, overlaid with figured
damask, were wrought, among a glittering profusion of devices, in
characters of silver, the words “La Blanche Navire.” Beyond them,
in the outer bay, a dozen ships or more were dimly seen through the
mist-wreaths which the wintry sun was gradually scattering--their
canvass hanging in festoons from their long yard-arms, and their decks
crowded, not with mariners alone, but with the steel-clad forms of
men-at-arms and archers, the gallant train of the third Norman who had
swayed the destinies of England.
The youngest son of the sagacious Conqueror, after the death of the
“Red king,” by a rare union of audacity and cunning, Henry, had seized
the sceptre of the fair island--the hereditary right of his romantic,
generous, and gallant brother, who with the feudatories of his Norman
duchy was waging war upon the Saracen, neglectful of his own and of his
subjects’ interests alike, beneath the burning sun of Syria. Already
firmly seated in his usurped dominion ere Robert returned homeward,
nor yet contented with his ill-gained supremacy, he had wrung from
the bold crusader, partly by force but more by fraud, his continental
realms; and adding cruelty which scarcely can be conceived to violence
and fraud, deprived him of Heaven’s choicest blessing, sight, and cast
him--of late the most renowned and glorious knight in Christendom--a
miserable, eyeless captive into the towers of Cardiff, his dungeon
while he lived, and after death his tomb!
No retributive justice had discharged its thunders upon the guilty
one; no gloom sat on his smooth and lordly brow, no thorns had lurked
beneath the circle of Henry’s blood-bought diadem. Fortune had
smiled on every effort; had granted every wish, however wild; had
sanctioned every enterprise, however dubious or desperate: he never
had known sorrow; and from his restless, energetic soul, remorse and
penitence were banished by the incessant turmoil of ambition and the
perpetual excitement of success. And now his dearest wish had been
accomplished--the most especial aim and object of his life perfected
with such absolute security, that his insatiate soul was satisfied.
Absolute lord of England, and undisputed ruler of the fair Cotentin,
he had of late disarmed the league which for a time had threatened
his security; detaching from the cause of France the powerful count
of Anjou, whose daughter--the most lovely lady and the most splendid
heiress of the time--he had seen wedded to his first-born and his
favorite, William. The previous day he had beheld the haughty barons
tender the kiss of homage and swear eternal loyalty to the young heir
of England, Normandy, and Anjou; the previous night he had sat glad
and glorious at the festive board, encompassed by all that was fair,
and noble, and high-born, in the great realms he governed, and among
all that proud and graceful circle his eye had looked on none so brave
and beautiful as that young, guiltless pair for whom he had imbrued,
not his hands only, but his very soul, in blood! He sat on the high
dais, beneath the gilded canopy; and as he quaffed the health of those
who had alone a kindly tenure of his cold and callous heart, a noble
knight approached with bended knee, and placing in his hand a mark
of gold--“Fair sir,” he said, “I, a good knight and loyal--Thomas
Fitz-Stephen--claim of your grace a boon. My father, Stephen
Fitz-Evrard, served faithfully and well, as long as he did live, your
father William--served him by sea, and steered the ship with his own
hand which bore him to that glorious crown which he right nobly won
at Hastings. I pray you, then, fair king, that you do sell to me, for
this gold mark, the fief I crave of you: that, as Fitz-Evrard served
the first King William, so may Fitz-Stephen serve the first King Henry.
I have right nobly fitted--ay, on mine honor, as beseems a mighty
monarch--here, in the bay of Barfleur, ‘the Blanche Navire.’ Receive it
at my hands, great sir, and suffer me to steer you homeward; and so may
the blessed Virgin and her Son send us the winds which we would have!”
“Good knight and loyal,” answered the prince, as he received the
proffered coin, “grieved am I, of a truth, and sorrowful, that
altogether I may not confer on you the fief which of good right you
claim: for lo! the bark is chosen--nay, more, apparelled for my
service--which must to-morrow, by Heaven’s mercy, bear me to that land
whither your sire so fortunately guided mine. But since it may not be
that I may sail myself, as would I could do so, in your good bark, to
your true care will I intrust what I hold dearer than my very soul--my
sons, my daughters--mine and my country’s hope; and as your father
steered the FIRST, so shall you steer the THIRD King William, that
shall be, to the white cliffs of England!”
“Well said, my liege!” cried Foulke, the count of Anjou, a
noble-looking baron of tall and stately presence, although far past the
noon of manhood, the father of the lovely bride; “to better mariner or
braver ship than stout Fitz-Stephen and La Blanche Navire, was never
freight intrusted! Quaff we a full carouse to their blithe voyage! How
sayest thou, daughter mine,” he added, turning to the blushing girl,
who sat attired in all the pomp of newly-wedded royalty beside her
youthful lover--“how sayest thou? wouldst desire a trustier pilot, or a
fleeter galley?”
“Why,” she replied, with a smile half-sweet, half-sorrowful, while
a bright tear-drop glittered in her eye--“why should I seek for
fleetness, when that same speed will but the sooner bear me from the
sight of our fair France, and of thee, too, my father?”
“Dost thou, then, rue thy choice?” whispered the ardent voice of
William in her ear; “and wouldst thou tarry here, when fate and duty
summon me hence for England?”
Her full blue eye met his, radiant with true affection, and her slight
fingers trembled in the clasp of her young husband with a quick thrill
of agitation, and her lips parted, but the words were heard by none
save him to whom they were addressed; for, with the clang of beakers,
and the loud swell of joyous music, and the glad merriment of all the
courtly revellers, the toast of the bride’s father passed round the
gleaming board: “A blithe and prosperous voyage--speed to the Blanche
Navire, and joy to all who sail in her!”
Thus closed the festive evening, and thus the seal of destiny was set
upon a hundred youthful brows, foredoomed, alas! to an untimely grave
beneath the ruthless billows.
The wintry day wore onward; and, wintry though it was, save for a
touch of keenness in the frosty air, and for the leafless aspect of
the country, it might have passed for a more lightsome season; the sky
was pure and cloudless as were the prospects and the hopes of the gay
throng who now embarked secure and confident beneath its favorable
omens. The sun shone gayly as in the height of summer, and the blue
waves lay sleeping in its lustre as quietly as though they ne’er had
howled despair into the ears of drowning wretches! There was no thought
of peril or of fear--how should there be? The ships were trustworthy;
the seamen skilful, numerous, and hardy; the breezes fair, though
faint; the voyage brief; the time propitious.
The day wore onward; and it was high noon before the happy king--his
every wish accomplished, secure as he conceived himself, and firm in
the fruition of his blood-bought majesty--rowed with his glittering
train on board the royal galley. Loud pealed the cheering clamors of
his Norman subjects, bidding their sovereign hail; but louder yet
they pealed, when, with its freight of ladies, the second barge shot
forth--William and his fair sister, and yet fairer bride, and all the
loveliest of the dames that graced the broad Cotentin.
Not yet, however, were the anchors weighed--not yet were the sails
sheeted home; for on the deck of the king’s vessel, beneath an awning
of pure cloth-of-gold, a gorgeous board was spread. Not in the regal
hall of Westminster could more of luxury have been brought together
than was displayed upon that galley’s poop. Spread with the softest
ermine--meet carpet for the gentle feet that trod it--cushioned with
seats of velvet, steaming with perfumes the most costly, it was a scene
resembling more some fairy palace than the wave-beaten fabric that
had braved many a gale, and borne the flag of England through many a
storm in triumph. And there they sat and feasted, and the red wine-cup
circled freely, and the song went round: their hearts were high and
happy, and they forgot the lapse of hours; and still the reveller’s
shout was frequent on the breeze, and still the melody of female tones,
blent with the clang of instrumental music, rang in the ears of those
who loitered on the shore, after the sun had bathed his lower limb in
the serene and peaceful waters.
Then, as it were, awaking from their trance of luxury, the banqueters
broke off. Skiff after skiff turned shoreward, till none remained on
board the royal ship except the monarch and his train, and that loved
son with his bright consort, whom, parting from them there, he never
was to look upon again! The courses were unfurled, topsails were
spread, and pennants floated seaward; and, as the good ship gathered
way, the father bade adieu--adieu, as he believed it, but for one
little night--to all he loved on earth; and their barge, manned by
a score of powerful and active rowers, wafted the bridal party to
the Blanche Navire, which, as her precious freight drew nigh, luffed
gracefully and swiftly up to meet them, as though she were a thing of
life, conscious and proud of the high honor she enjoyed in carrying the
united hopes of Normandy and England.
Delay--there was yet more delay! The night had settled down upon the
deep before the harbor of Barfleur was fairly left behind; and yet so
lovely was the night--with the moon, near her full, soaring superbly
through the cloudless sky, and myriads on myriads of clear stars
weaving their mystic dance around her--that the young voyagers walked
to and fro the deck, rejoicing in the happy chance that had secured to
them so fair time for their excursion: and William sat aloof, with his
sweet wife beside him, indulging in those bright anticipations, those
golden dreams of happiness, which indeed make futurity a paradise to
those who have not learned, by the sad schoolings of experience, that
human life is but another name for human sorrow.
Fairer--the breeze blew fairer; and every sail was set and drawing,
and the light ripples burst with a gurgling sound like laughter about
the snow-white stem; and, still to waft them the more swiftly to their
home, fifty long oars, pulled well and strongly by as many nervous
arms, glanced in the liquid swell. The bubbles on the surface were
scarcely seen as they flashed by, so rapid was their course; and a
long wake of boiling foam glanced in the moonshine, till it was lost
to sight in the far distance. The port was far behind them; and the
king’s ship, seen faintly on the glimmering horizon, loomed like a pile
of vapor far on their starboard bow. And still the music rang upon
the favorable wind, and still the rowers sang amid their toil, and
still the captain sent the deep bowl round. The helmsman dozed upon
the tiller--the watch upon the forecastle had long since stretched
themselves upon the deck--in the deep slumbers of exhaustion and
satiety.
“Give way! my merry men, give way!” such was the jovial captain’s cry;
“pull for the pride of Normandy--pull for your country’s fame, men of
the fair Cotentin. What! will ye let yon island-lubbers outstrip ye in
the race? More way! more way!”
And with unrivalled speed the Blanche Navire sped on. A long black line
stretches before her bow, dotting the silvery surface with ragged and
fantastic shades; but not one eye has marked it! On she goes, swifter
yet and swifter, and still the fatal shout is ringing from her decks:
“Give way, men of Cotentin! give more way!” Now they are close upon
it, and now the dashing of the surf about the broken ledges--for that
black line is the dread Raz de Gatteville, the most tremendous reef
of all that bar the iron coast of Normandy! The hoarse and hollow roar
must reach the ears even of those who sleep. But no! the clangor of the
exulting trumpets, and the deep booming of the Norman nakir, and that
ill-omened shout, “Give way--yet more--more way!” has drowned even the
all-pervading roar of the wild breakers. On, on she goes, fleet as the
gazehound darting upon its antlered prey; and now her bows are bathed
by the upflashing spray; and now--hark to that hollow shock, that long
and grinding crash!--hark to that wild and agonizing yell sent upward
by two hundred youthful voices, up to the glorious stars that smiled
as if in mockery of their ruin. There rang the voice of the strong,
fearless men; the knight who had spurred oft his destrier amid the
shivering of lances and the rending clash of blades, without a thought
unless of high excitement and fierce joy; the mariner who, undismayed,
had reefed his sail, and steered his bark aright, amid the wildest
storm that ever lashed the sea to fury--now utterly unnerved and
paralyzed by the appalling change from mirth and revelry to imminent
and instant death.
So furious was the rate at which the galley was propelled, that, when
she struck upon the sharp and jagged rocks, her prow was utterly
stove inward, and the strong tide rushed in, foaming and roaring like
a mill-stream! Ten seconds’ space she hung upon the perilous ledge,
while the waves made a clear breach over her, sweeping not only every
living being, but every fixture--spars, bulwarks, shrouds, and the tall
masts themselves--from her devoted decks. At the first shock, with the
instinctive readiness that characterizes, in whatever peril, the true
mariner, Fitz-Stephen, rallying to his aid a dozen of the bravest of
his men, had cleared away and launched a boat; and, even as the fated
bark went down, bodily sucked into the whirling surf, had seized the
prince and dragged him with a stalwart arm into the little skiff, which
had put off at once, to shun the drowning hundreds who must have
crowded in and sunk her on the instant.
“Pull back!--God’s death!--pull back!” cried the impetuous youth,
as he looked round and saw that he alone of all his race was there;
“pull back, ye dastard slaves, or by the Lord and Maker of us all,
though ye escape the waves, ye ’scape not my revenge!”--and, as he
spoke, he whirled his weapon from the scabbard and pressed the point
so closely to Fitz-Stephen’s throat, that its keen temper razed the
skin; and, terrified by his fierce menaces, and yet more by the
resolute expression that glanced forth from his whole countenance,
they turned her head once more toward the reef, and shot into the
vortex, agitated yet and boiling, wherein the hapless galley had been
swallowed. A female head, with long, fair hair, rose close beside the
shallop’s stern, above the turbulent foam. William bent forward: he had
already clutched those golden tresses--a moment, and she would have
been enfolded in his arms--another head rose suddenly! another--and
another--and another! Twenty strong hands grappled the gunwale of the
skiff with the tenacity of desperation. There was a struggle, a loud
shout, a heavy plunge, and the last remnant of the Blanche Navire went
down, actually dragged from beneath the few survivors by the despairing
hands of those whom she could not have saved or succored had she been
of ten times her burden.
All, all went down! There was a long and awful pause, and then a slight
splash broke the silence, a faint and gurgling sigh, and a strong
swimmer rose and shook the brine from his dark locks; and lo, he was
alone upon the deep! Something he saw at a brief distance, distinct and
dark, floating upon the surface, and with a vigorous stroke he neared
it--a fragment of a broken spar. Hope quickened at his heart, and love
of life, almost forgotten in the immediate agony and terror, returned
in all its natural strength. He seized a rope, and by its aid reared
himself out of the abyss; and now he sat, securely as he deemed it,
upon a floating fragment on which, one little hour before, he would
not have embarked for all the wealth of India. Scarcely had he reached
his temporary place of safety, before another of the sufferers swam
feebly up and joined him, and then a third, the last of the survivors.
The first who reached the spar--it was no other than Fitz-Stephen--had
perused with an anxiety the most sickening and painful the faces of
the new-comers: he knew them, but they were not the features he would
have given his own life to see in safety--Berault, a butcher of Rouen,
and Godfrey, a renowned and gallant youth, the son of Gilbert, count
de L’Aigle. “The prince--where is the prince?” Fitz-Stephen cried to
each, as he arrived; “hast thou not seen the prince?” And each, in
turn, replied: “He never rose again--he, nor his brothers, nor his
sister, nor his bride, nor one of all their company!”--“Wo be to me!”
Fitz-Stephen cried, and letting go his hold, deliberately sank into the
whirling waters; and, though a strong man and an active swimmer, chose
to die with the victims whom his rashness had destroyed, rather than
meet the indignation of their bereaved father, and bear the agonies of
his own lifelong remorse.
Three days elapsed before the tidings reached King Henry, who in the
fearful misery of hope deferred had lingered on the beach, trusting to
hear that, from some unknown cause, the galley of his son might have
put back to Barfleur. On the third day, Berault, the sole survivor
of that night of misery, was brought in by a fishing-boat which had
preserved him; and, when he had concluded his narration, Robert of
Normandy had been revenged, although his wrongs had been a hundred-fold
more flagrant than they were. Henry, though he lived years, NEVER
SMILED AGAIN!
THE SAXON’S BRIDAL.
There are times in England when the merry month of May is not, as it
would now appear, merely a poet’s fiction; when the air is indeed mild
and balmy, and the more conspicuously so, that it succeeds the furious
gusts and driving hailstorms of the boisterous March, the fickle
sunshine and capricious rains of April. One of these singular epochs in
the history of weather it was in which events occurred, which remained
unforgotten for many a day, in the green wilds of Charnwood forest.
If was upon a soft, sweet morning, toward the latter end of the month,
and surely nothing more delicious could have been conceived by the
fancy of the poet. The low west wind was fanning itself among the
tender leaves of the new-budded trees, and stealing over the deep
meadows, all redolent with dewy wild flowers, waving them with a
gentle motion, and borrowing a thousand perfumes from their bosoms.
The hedgerows were as white with the dense blossoms of the hawthorn
as though they had been powdered over by an untimely snowstorm; while
everywhere along the wooded banks the saffron primrose and its sweet
sister of the spring, the violet, were sunning their unnumbered
blossoms in the calm warmth of the vernal sunshine. The heavens, of a
pure, transparent blue, were laughing with a genial lustre, not flooded
by the dazzling glare of midsummer, but pouring over all beneath
their influence a lovely, gentle light, in perfect keeping with the
style of the young scenery; and all the air was literally vocal with
the notes of innumerable birds, from the proud lark, “rejoicing at
heaven’s gate,” to the thrush and blackbird, trilling their full, rich
chants from every dingle, and the poor linnet, piping on the spray.
Nothing--no, nothing--can be imagined that so delights the fancy with
sweet visions, that so enthrals the senses, shedding its influences
even upon the secret heart, as a soft, old-fashioned May morning.
Apart from the mere beauties of the scenery--from the mere enjoyment
of the bright skies, the dewy perfumes that float on every breeze, the
mild, unscorching warmth--apart from all these, there is something
of a deeper and a higher nature in the thoughts called forth by the
spirit of the time; a looking forward of the soul to fairer things to
come; an excitement of a quiet hope within, not very definite, perhaps,
nor easily explained, but one which almost every man has felt, and
contrasted with the languid and pallid satiety produced by the full
heat of summer, and yet more with the sober and reflective sadness that
steals upon the mind as we survey the russet hues and the sere leaves
of autumn. It is as if the newness, the fresh youth of the season, gave
birth to a corresponding youth of the soul. Such are the sentiments
which many men feel now-a-days, besides the painter, and the poet, and
the soul-rapt enthusiast of nature: but those were iron days of which
we write, and men spared little time in thought from action or from
strife, nor often paused to note their own sensations, much less to
ponder on their origin or to investigate their causes.
The morning was such as we have described--the scene a spot of singular
beauty within the precincts of the then-royal forest of Charnwood, in
Leicestershire. A deep but narrow stream wound in a hundred graceful
turns through the rich meadow-land that formed the bottom of a small,
sloping vale, which had been partially reclaimed, even at that day,
from the waste; though many a willow-bush fringing its margin, and many
a waving ash, fluttering its delicate tresses in the air, betrayed the
woodland origin of the soft meadow. A narrow road swept down the hill,
with a course little less serpentine than that of the river below,
and crossed it by a small, one-arched stone bridge, overshadowed by a
gigantic oak-tree, and scaled the opposite acclivity in two or three
sharp, sandy zigzags. Both the hillsides were clothed with forest, but
still the nature of the soil or some accidental causes had rendered
the wood as different as possible; for, on the farther side of the
stream, the ground was everywhere visibly covered by a short, mossy
turf, softer and more elastic to the foot than the most exquisite
carpet that ever issued from the looms of Persia, and overshadowed
by huge and scattered oaks, growing so far apart that the eye could
range far between their shadowy vistas; while on the nearer slope--the
foreground, as it might be called, of the picture--all was a dense
and confused mass of tangled shrubbery and verdure. Thickets of old,
gnarled thorn-bushes, completely overrun and matted with woodbines;
coppices of young ash, with hazel interspersed, and eglantine and
dog-roses thickly set between; clumps of the prickly gorse and
plumelike broom, all starry with their golden flowerets, and fern so
wildly luxuriant, that in many places it would have concealed the head
of the tallest man, covered the ground for many a mile through which
the narrow road meandered.
There was one object more in view--one which spoke of man even in that
solitude, and man in his better aspect. It was the slated roof and
belfry, all overgrown with moss and stone-crop, of a small wayside
chapel, in the old Saxon architecture, peering out from the shadows
of the tall oaks which overhung it in the far distance. It was, as
we have said, very small, in the old Saxon architecture, consisting,
in fact, merely of a vaulted roof supported upon four squat, massy
columns, whence sprung the four groined ribs which met in the centre of
the arch. Three sides alone of this primitive place of worship, which
would have contained with difficulty forty persons, were walled in, the
front presenting one wide, open arch, richly and quaintly sculptured
with the indented wolf’s teeth of the first Saxon style. Small as it
was, however, the little chapel had its high altar, with the crucifix
and candle, its reading-desk of old black oak, its font, and pix, and
chalices, and all the adjuncts of the Roman ritual. A little way to the
left might be discovered the low, thatched eaves of a rustic cottage,
framed of the unbarked stems of forest-trees--the abode, probably,
of the officiating priest; and close beside the walls of the little
church a consecrated well, protected from the sun by a stone vault, of
architecture corresponding to the chapel.
Upon the nearer slope, not far from the roadside, but entirely
concealed from passers by the nature of the ground and the dense
thickets, there were collected, at an early hour of the morning, five
men, with as many horses, who seemed to be awaiting, in a sort of
ambush, some persons whom they would attack at unawares. The leader
of the party, as he might be considered, as much from his appearance
as from the deference shown to him by the others, was a tall, active,
powerful man, of thirty-eight or forty years, with a bold and
expressive countenance--expressive, however, of no good quality, unless
it were the fiery, reckless daring which blazed from his broad, dark
eye, and that was almost obscured by the cloud of insufferable pride
which lowered upon his frowning brow, and by the deep, scar-like lines
of lust, and cruelty, and scorn, which ploughed his weather-beaten
features. His dress was a complete suit of linked chain-mail--hauberk,
and sleeves, and hose--with shoes of plaited steel, and gauntlets
wrought in scale, covering his person from his neck downward in
impenetrable armor. He had large gilded spurs buckled upon his heels,
and a long, two edged dagger, with a rich hilt and scabbard, in his
belt; but neither sword, nor lance, nor any other weapon of offence,
except a huge steel mace, heavy enough to fell an ox at a single blow,
which he grasped in his right hand; while from his left hung the bridle
of a tall, coal-black Norman charger, which was cropping the grass
quietly beside him. His head was covered by a conical steel cap, with
neither crest, nor plume, nor visor, and mail-hood falling down from it
to protect the neck and shoulders of the wearer.
The other four were men-at-arms, clad all in suits of armor, but less
completely than their lord: thus they had steel shirts only, with
stout buff breeches and heavy boots to guard their lower limbs, and
iron skullcaps only, without the hood, upon their heads, and leather
gauntlets upon their hands; but, as if to make up for this deficiency,
they were positively loaded with offensive weapons. They had the long,
two-handed sword of the period belted across their persons, three
or four knives and daggers of various size and strength at their
girdles, great battle-axes in their hands, and maces hanging at their
saddle-bows. They had been tarrying there already several hours, their
leader raising his eyes occasionally to mark the progress of the sun as
he climbed up the azure vault, and muttering a brief and bitter curse
as hour passed after hour, and those came not whom he expected.
“Danian,” he said at length, turning to the principal of his followers,
who stood nearer to his person, and a little way apart from the
others--“Danian, art sure this was the place and day? How the dog
Saxons tarry! Can they have learned our purpose?”
“Surely not, surely not, fair sir,” returned the squire, “seeing that I
have mentioned it to no one, not even to Raoul, or Americ, or Guy, who
know no more than their own battle-axes the object of their ambush.
And it was pitch-dark when we left the castle, and not a soul has seen
us here; so it is quite impossible they should suspect--and hark! there
goes the bell; and see, sir, see--there they come, trooping through the
oak-trees down the hill!”
And indeed, as he spoke, the single bell of the small chapel began
to chime with the merry notes that proclaim a bridal, and a gay
train of harmless, happy villagers might be seen, as they flocked
along, following the footsteps of the gray-headed Saxon monk, who,
in his frock and cowl, with corded waist and sandalled feet, led the
procession. Six young girls followed close behind him, dressed in
blue skirts and russet jerkins, but crowned with garlands of white
May-flowers, and May-wreaths wound like scarfs across their swelling
bosoms, and hawthorn-branches in their hands, singing the bridal carol
in the old Saxon tongue, in honor of the pride of the village, the
young and lovely Marian. She was indeed the very personification of all
the poet’s dreams of youthful beauty--tall and slender in her figure,
yet exquisitely, voluptuously rounded in every perfect outline, with a
waist of a span’s circumference, wide, sloping shoulders, and a bust
that, for its matchless swell, as it struggled and throbbed with a
thousand soft emotions, threatening to burst from the confinement of
her tight-fitting jacket, would have put to shame the bosom of the
Medicean Venus. Her complexion, wherever the sun had not too warmly
kissed her beauties, was pure as the driven snow; while her large,
bright-blue eyes, red, laughing lip, and the luxuriant flood of sunny,
golden hair, which streamed down in wild, artless ringlets to her
waist, made her a creature for a prince’s, or more, a poet’s adoration.
But neither prince nor poet was the god of that fair girl’s idolatry,
but one of her own class, a Saxon youth, a peasant--nay, a serf--from
his very cradle upward the born thrall of Hugh de Mortemar, lord of
the castle and the hamlet at its foot, named, from its situation in
the depths of Charnwood, Ashby in the Forest. But there was now no
graven collar about the sturdy neck of the young Saxon, telling of
a suffering servitude; no dark shade of gloom in his full, glancing
eye; no sullen doggedness upon his lip: for he was that day, that
glad day, a freeman--a slave no longer--but free, free, by the gift
of his noble master; free as the wild bird that sung so loudly in the
forest; free as the liberal air that bore the carol to his ears. His
frock of forest-green and buskins of the untanned deer-hide set off his
muscular, symmetrical proportions, and his close-curled, short auburn
hair showed a well-turned and shapely head. Behind this gay and happy
pair came several maids and young men, two-and-two; and after these, an
old, gray-headed man, the father of the bride--and leaning on his arm
an aged matron, the widowed mother of the enfranchised bridegroom.
Merrily rang the gay, glad bells, and blithely swelled up the bridal
chorus as they collected on the little green before the ancient
arch, and slowly filed into the precincts of the forest shrine; but
very speedily their merriment was changed into dismay and terror and
despair, for scarcely had they passed into the sacred building, before
the knight, with his dark followers, leaped into their saddles, and
thundering down the hill at a tremendous gallop, surrounded the chapel
before the inmates had even time to think of any danger. It was a
strange, wild contrast, the venerable priest within pronouncing even
then the nuptial blessing, and proclaiming over the bright young pair
the union made by God, which thenceforth no man should dissever--the
tearful happiness of the blushing bride, the serious gladness of the
stalwart husband, the kneeling peasantry, the wreaths of innocent
flowers; and at the gate, the stern, dark men-at-arms, with their
scarred savage features, and their gold-gleaming harness and raised
weapons. A loud shriek burst from the lips of the sweet girl, as,
lifting her eyes to the sudden clang and clatter that harbingered those
dread intruders, she saw and recognised upon the instant the fiercest
of the Norman tyrants--dreaded by all his neighbors far and near, but
most by the most virtuous and young and lovely--the bold, bad baron
of Maltravers. He bounded to the earth as he reached the door, and
three of his followers leaped from their horses likewise, one sitting
motionless in his war-saddle, and holding the four chargers. “Hold,
priest!” he shouted, as he entered, “forbear this mummery; and thou,
dog Saxon, think not that charms like these are destined to be clasped
in rapture by any arms of thy slow, slavish race!” and with these words
he strode up to the altar, seemingly fearless of the least resistance,
while his men kept the door with brandished weapons. Mute terror seized
on all, paralyzed utterly by the dread interruption--on all but the
bold priest and the stout bridegroom.
“Nay, rather forbear thou, Alberic de Maltravers! These two are one for
ever--wo be to those who part them!”
“Tush, priest--tush, fool!” sneered the fierce baron, as he seized him
by the arm, and swinging him back rudely, advanced upon the terrified
and weeping girl, who was now clinging to the very rails of the high
altar, trusting, poor wretch, that some respect for that sanctity of
place which in old times had awed even heathens, might now prevail with
one whom no respect for anything divine or human had ever yet deterred
from doing his unholy will.
“Ha! dog!” cried he, in fiercer tones, that filled the chapel as
it were a trumpet, seeing the Saxon bridegroom lift up a heavy
quarter-staff which lay beside him, and step in quietly but very
resolutely in defence of his lovely wife--“Ha! dog and slave, dare you
resist a Norman and a noble?--back, serf, or die the death!” and he
raised his huge mace to strike him.
“No serf, sir, nor slave either,” answered the Saxon, firmly, “but a
freeman, by my good master’s gift, and a landholder.”
“Well, master freeman and landholder,” replied the other, with a bitter
sneer, “if such names please you better, stand back--for Marian lies on
no bed but mine this night--stand back, before worse come of it!”
“I will die rather,” was the answer.--“Then die! fool! die!” shouted
the furious Norman, and with the words he struck full at the bare brow
of the dauntless Saxon with his tremendous mace--it fell, and with
dint that would have crushed the strongest helmet into a thousand
splinters--it fell, but by a dexterous slight the yeoman swung his
quarter-staff across the blow, and parried its direction, although
the tough ash-pole burst into fifty shivers--it fell upon the carved
rails of the altar and smashed them into atoms; but while the knight,
who had been somewhat staggered by the impetus of his own misdirected
blow, was striving to recover himself, the young man sprang upon him,
and grappling him by the throat, gained a short-lived advantage.
Short-lived it was indeed, and perilous to him that gained--for
although there were men enough in the chapel, all armed with quarter
staves, and one or two with the genuine brown bill, to have overpowered
the four Normans, despite their war array--yet so completely were they
overcome by consternation, that not one moved a step to aid him; the
priest, who had alone showed any spark of courage, being impeded by the
shrieking women, who, clinging to the hem of his vestments, implored
him for the love of God to save them.
In an instant that fierce grapple was at an end, for in the twinkling
of an eye, two of the men-at-arms had rushed upon him and dragged him
off their lord.
“Now by the splendor of God’s brow,” shouted the enraged knight,
“thou art a sweet dog thus to brave thy masters. Nay, harm him not.
Raoul”--he went on--“harm not the poor dog,”--as his follower had
raised his battle-axe to brain him--“harm him not, else we should
raise the ire of that fool, Mortemar! Drag him out--tie him to the
nearest tree, and this good priest beside him--before his eyes we will
console this fair one.” And with these words he seized the trembling
girl, forcing her from the altar, and encircling her slender waist in
the foul clasp of his licentious arms. “And ye,” he went on, lashing
himself into fury as he continued,--“and ye churl Saxons, hence!--hence
dogs and harlots to your kennels!”
No farther words were needed, for his orders were obeyed by his own
men with the speed of light, and the Saxons overjoyed to escape on any
terms, rushed in a confused mass out of the desecrated shrine, and fled
in all directions, fearful of farther outrage. Meanwhile, despite the
struggles of the youth, and the excommunicating anathemas which the
priest showered upon their heads, the men-at-arms bound them securely
to the oak-trees, and then mounting their horses, sat laughing at their
impotent resistance, while with a refinement of brutality worthy of
actual fiends, Alberic de Maltravers bore the sweet wife clasped to his
iron breast, up to the very face of her outraged, helpless husband, and
tearing open all her jerkin, displayed to the broad light the whole of
her white, panting bosom, and poured from his foul, fiery lips a flood
of lustful kisses on her mouth, neck, and bosom, under the very eyes of
his tortured victim. To what new outrage he might have next proceeded,
must remain ever doubtful, for at this very instant the long and mellow
blast of a clearly-winded bugle came swelling through the forest
succeeded by the bay of several bloodhounds, and the loud, ringing
gallop of many fast approaching.
“Ha!” shouted he, “ten thousand curses on him! here comes De Mortemar.
Quick--quick--away! Here, Raoul, take the girl, buckle her tight to
your back with the sword-belt, and give me your twohanded blade; I lost
my mace in the chapel!--That’s right! quick! man--that’s right--now,
then, be off--ride for your life--straight to the castle; we will stop
all pursuit. Fare thee well, sweet one, for a while--we will conclude
hereafter what we have now commenced so fairly!”
And as he spoke, he also mounted his strong charger, and while the man,
Raoul, dashed his spurs rowel-deep into his horse’s flanks, and went
off at a thundering gallop, the other four followed him at a slower
pace, leaving the Saxons in redoubled anguish--redoubled by the near
hope of rescue.
But for once villany was not permitted to escape due retribution,
for ere the men-at-arms, who led the flight, had crossed the little
bridge, a gallant train came up at a light canter from the wood, twenty
or thirty archers, all with their long bows bent, and their arrows
notched and ready, with twice as many foresters on foot, with hounds of
every kind, in slips and leashes, and at their head a man of as noble
presence as ever graced a court or reined a charger. He was clad in a
plain hunting-frock of forest-green, with a black velvet bonnet and a
heron’s plume, and wore no other weapon but a light hunting-sword--but
close behind him rode two pages, bearing his knightly lance with its
long pennon, his blazoned shield, and his two-handed broadsword. It
was that brave and noble Norman, Sir Hugh de Mortemar. His quick eye
in an instant took in the whole of the confused scene before him, and
understood it on the instant.
“Alberic de Maltravers!” he cried, in a voice clear and loud as the
call of a silver trumpet, “before God he shall rue it,” and with the
words he snatched his lance from the page, and dashing spurs into his
splendid Spanish charger, thundered his orders out with the rapid
rush of a winter’s torrent. “Bend your bows, archers,--draw home your
arrows to the head! stand, thou foul ravisher, dishonest Norman, false
gentleman, and recreant knight! Stand on the instant, or we shoot!
Cut loose the yeoman from the tree, ye varlets, and the good priest.
Randal, cast loose the bloodhounds down to the bridge across yon knoll,
and lay them on the track of that flying scoundrel. Ha! they will meet
us.”
And so in truth they did; for seeing that he could not escape the
deadly archery, Alberic de Maltravers wheeled short on his pursuers,
and shouted his war-cry--“Saint Paul for Alberic!--false knight and
liar in your throat. Saint Paul! Saint Paul! charge home,”--and with
the words the steel-clad men-at-arms drove on, expecting by the weight
of their harness to ride down and scatter the light archery like
chaff. Unarmed although he was, De Mortemar paused not--not for a
moment!--but galloped in his green doublet as gallantly upon his foe
as though he had been sheathed in steel. He had but one advantage--but
one hope!--to bear his iron-clad opponent down at the lance point,
without closing--on! they came, on!--Maltravers swinging his twohanded
sword aloft, and trusting in his mail to turn the lance’s point--De
Mortemar with his long spear in rest--“Saint Paul! Saint Paul!”--they
met! the dust surged up in a dense cloud! the very earth appeared to
shake beneath their feet!--but not a moment was the conflict doubtful.
Deep! deep! throughed his linked mail, and through his leathern jerkin,
and through his writhing flesh, the grinded spear-head shove into his
bosom, and came out at his back, the ash-staff breaking in the wound.
Down he went, horse and man!--and down, at one close volley of the
gray goose shafts, down went his three companions!--one shot clear
through the brain by an unerring shaft--the others stunned and bruised,
their horses both slain under them. “Secure them,” shouted Hugh, “bind
them both hand and foot, and follow,”--and he paused not to look upon
his slain assailant, but galloped down the hill, followed by half his
train, the bloodhounds giving tongue fiercely, and already gaining on
the fugitive. It was a fearful race, but quickly over!--for though the
man-at-arms spurred desperately on, his heavy Norman horse, oppressed,
moreover, by his double load, had not a chance in competing with the
proud Andalusian of De Mortemar. Desperately he spurred on--but now the
savage hounds were up with him--they rushed full at the horse’s throat
and bore him to the earth--another moment, Raoul was a bound captive,
and Marian, rescued by her liege lord, and wrapped in his own mantle,
was clasped in the fond arms of her husband!
“How now, good priest,” exclaimed Sir Hugh, “are these two now fast
wedded?”
“As fast, fair sire, as the holy rites may wed them.”
“Then ring me, thou knave, Ringan, a death-peal! Thou, Gilbert, and
thou, Launcelot, make me three halters, quick--nay! four--the dead
knight shall swing, as his villany well merits, beside the living
knaves!--Sing me a death-chant, priest, for these are judged to death,
unhouselled and unshriven!”
Not a word did the ruffians answer, they knew that prayer was useless,
and with dark frowning brows, and dauntless bearing, they met their
fate, impenitent and fearless. For Marian begged their lives in vain.
De Mortemar was pitiless in his just wrath! And the spurs were hacked
from the heels of the dead knight, and the base halter twisted round
his cold neck, and his dishonored corpse hung up upon the very tree
to which he had bade bind the Saxon bridegroom. And the death-peals
were sung, and the death-hymn was chanted; and ere the sounds of either
had died away in the forest echoes, the three marauders writhed out
their villain souls in the mild air, and swung three grim and ghastly
monuments of a foul crime and fearful retribution--and this dread rite
consummated the Saxon’s bridal!
LEGENDS
OF
THE CRUSADERS.
THE SYRIAN LADY;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
“Yes, love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given,
To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love.”--THE GIAOUR.
There is something in the first approach of spring--in the budding of
the young leaves, the freshness increasing warmth and lustre of the
sun--as contrasted with the gloomy winter which has just departed,
that can not fail to awaken ideas of a gay and lively character in
all hearts accessible to the influences of gratitude and love. In
compliance, as it were, with this feeling, a custom has more or less
generally prevailed among all nations, and in all ages, of celebrating
the arrival of this season by merriment, and song, and rural triumph.
Like many others, admirable practices of the olden time, the setting
apart to joy and innocent festivity of the first of May is now
gradually falling into neglect; but at the period of which we are about
to treat, not Christmas itself could be observed with more reverential
care than its inviting rival. On May-day, the evergreens which had
decked the cottage and the church, the castle and the cloister, gave
way to garlands of such flowers as the mellowing influences of the
season had already called into their existence of beauty and perfume;
troops of morris-dancers paraded the public way with their fantastic
dresses, glittering blades, and intricate evolutions; feasting and
wassail, without which even pleasure itself was then deemed incomplete,
prevailed on every side; in the crowded city, or in the secluded
valley; in the hut of the serf, or in the turreted keep of his warlike
lord; in the gloom of the convent, or in the glitter of the court,
the same feelings were excited, the same animation glowed in every
countenance, the same triumphant demonstrations of joy hailed the glad
harbinger of sunshine and of summer.
In England, above all other lands--the merry England of antiquity--was
this pleasing festival peculiarly dear to all classes of society; at
all times a period eagerly anticipated, and rapturously enjoyed, never
perhaps was its arrival celebrated by all men with wilder revelry, with
more enthusiastic happiness, than on the year which had accomplished
the deliverance of their lion-hearted monarch from the chains of
perfidious Austria. It seemed to the whole nation as though, not only
the actual winter of the year, with his dark accompaniments of snow
and storm, but the yet more oppressive winter of anarchy and misrule,
of usurpation and tyranny, were about to pass away from the people,
which had so long groaned under the griping sway of the bad John, or
been torn by the savage strife of his mercenary barons; while their
legitimate and honored sovereign was dragging his dreary hours along
in the dungeon, from which he had but now escaped, through the devoted
fidelity and unrivalled art of the minstrel Blondel.
Now, however, the king was on the throne of his fathers, girt with a
circle of three gallant spirits, who had shed their blood like water
on the thirsty deserts of Syria; earning not only earthly honor and
renown, but, as their imperfect faith had taught them to believe, the
far more lofty guerdon of eternal life. Now their national festival had
returned--they were called upon by the thousand voices of nature to
give the rein to Pleasure, and why should they turn a deaf ear to her
inspiring call?
The streets of London--widely different indeed from the vast
wilderness of walls, which has risen like a phœnix from the ashes of
its predecessor, but even at that early age a vast and flourishing
town--were thronged, from the earliest dawn, by a constant succession
of smiling faces: old and young, men and maidens, grave citizens and
stern soldiers, all yielding to the excitement of the moment, all
hurrying from the intricate lanes of the city to greet their king, who
had announced his intention of holding a court at Westminster, and
proceeding thence, at high noon, to feast with the city dignitaries
in Guild-hall. The open stalls, which then occupied the place of
shops, were adorned by a display of their richest wares, decorated
with wreaths of a thousand bright colors;--steel harness from the
forges of Milan; rich velvets from the looms of Genoa; drinking-cups
and ewers of embossed gold, glittered in every booth. The projecting
galleries, which thrust forward their irregular gables far across the
narrow streets, were hung with tapestries of price; while garlands of
flowers, stretched from side to side, and the profusion of hawthorn
boughs, with their light green leaves and snowy blossoms, lent a sylvan
appearance to the crowded haunts of the metropolis. From space to space
the streets were guarded by the city-watch in their white cassocks and
glittering head-pieces; while ever and anon the train of some great
lord came winding its way, with led horses in costly caparison, squires
and pages in the most gorgeous fashion of the day, the banner and
the knightly armor of the baron borne before him, from his lodgings
in the Minories, or the more notorious Chepe. The air was literally
alive with music and light laughter; even the shaven and cowled
monk, as he threaded his way through the motley concourse--suffered
the gravity of his brow to relax into a smile when he looked upon the
undisguised delight of some fair girl, escorted by her trusty bachelor;
now stopping to gaze on the foreign curiosities displayed in decorated
stalls; now starting in affected terror from the tramp and snort of the
proud war-horse, or mustering a frown of indignation at the unlicensed
salutation of its courtly rider; now laughing with unsuppressed glee
at the strange antics of the _mummers_ and _morricers_, who, in every
disguise that fancy could suggest, danced and tumbled through the
crowded ways--heedless of the disturbance they excited, or the danger
they incurred from the hoofs of chargers which were prancing along in
constant succession, to display the equestrian graces and firm seat of
some young aspirant for the honors of chivalry.
The whole scene was in the highest degree picturesque, and such as no
other age of the world could afford. The happiness which, although
fleeting and fictitious, threw its bright illumination over the whole
multitude, oblivious of the cares, the labors, and the sorrows of
to-morrow, afforded a subject for the harp of the poet, no less worthy
his inspired meditations than the gorgeous coloring and the rich
costume of the middle ages might lend to the pencil of a Leslie or a
Newton.
In a chamber overlooking with its Gothic casements this scene of
contagious mirth--alone, unmoved by the gay hum which told of happiness
in every passing breeze--borne down, as it would appear, by the weight
of some secret calamity--sat Sir Gilbert à-Becket, of glorious form
and unblemished fame. The bravest of the brave on the battle-plain,
unequalled for wisdom in the hall of council, he had been among the
first of those bold hearts who had buckled on their mighty armor to
fight the good fight of Christianity--to rear the cross above the
crescent--and to redeem the Savior’s sepulchre from the contaminating
sway of the unbeliever.
There was not one among the gallant thousands who had followed their
lion-hearted leader from the green vales of England to the sultry sands
of Palestine, whose high qualities had been more frequently tried, or
whose undaunted valor was more generally acknowledged, than the knight
à-Becket; there was not one to whose lance the chivalrous Richard
looked more confidently for support, nor one to whose counsel he more
willingly inclined his ear. In the last desperate effort before the
walls of Ascalon--when, with thirty knights alone, the English monarch
had defied the concentrated powers, and vainly sought an opponent
in the ranks of sixty thousand mussulmans--his crest had shone the
foremost in those fierce encounters which have rendered the name of the
Melec Ric a terror to the tribes of the desert that has endured even to
the present day. It was at the close of this bloody encounter, that,
conquered by his own previous exertions rather than by the prowess of
his foemen--his armor hacked and rent, his war-steed slain beneath
him--he had been overwhelmed by numbers while wielding his tremendous
blade beside the bridle-rein of his king, and borne away by the
Saracens into hopeless captivity.
Days and months had rolled onward, and the limbs of the champion were
wasted and his constitution sapped by the vile repose of the dungeon;
yet never for an instant had his proud demeanor altered, or his high
spirit quailed beneath the prospect of an endless slavery. All means
had been resorted to by his turbaned captors to induce him to adopt the
creed of Mohammed. Threat of torments such as was scarcely endured even
by the martyrs of old; promises of dominion, and wealth, and honor;
the agonies of thirst and hunger; the allurement of beauty almost
superhuman--had been brought to assail the faith of the despairing but
undaunted prisoner: and each temptation had been tried but to prove
how unflinching was his resolution, and how implicit his faith in that
Rock of Ages which he had ever served with enthusiastic, at least, if
erring zeal, and with a fervency of love which no peril could shake, no
pleasure could seduce from its serene fidelity.
At length, when hope itself was almost dead within his breast; when
ransom after ransom had been vainly offered; when the noblest moslem
captives had been tendered in exchange for his inestimable head; and,
to crown the whole, when the no-longer united powers of the crusading
league had departed from the shores on which they had lavished so much
of their best blood--his deliverance from the fetters of the infidel
was accomplished by one of those extraordinary circumstances which the
world calls chance, but which the Christian knows how to attribute to
the infinite mercies of an overruling Providence. The eagerness of the
politic sultan--whose name ranks as high among the tribes of Islam as
the glory of his opponents among the pale sons of Europe--to obtain
proselytes from the nations which he had the sagacity to perceive were
no less superior to the wandering hordes of the desert in arts than in
arms, had led him to break through those laws which are so intimately
connected with the religion of Mohammed--the laws of the harem! As
the pious faith of the western warrior appeared to gain fresh vigor
from every succeeding temptation, so did the anxiety of his conqueror
increase to gain over to his cause a spirit the value of which was
daily rendered more and more conspicuous. In order to bring about this
end, after every other device had failed, he commanded the admission to
the Briton’s cell of the fairest maiden of his harem--a maid whose pure
and spotless beauty went further to prove her unblemished descent than
even the titles which were assigned to the youthful Leila, of almost
royal birth.
Dazzled by her charms, and intoxicated by the fascination of her
manner, her artless wit, and her delicate timidity, so far removed from
the unbridled passion of such other eastern beauties as had visited
his solitude, the Christian soldier betrayed such evident delight in
listening to her soft words, and such keen anxiety for a repetition of
the interview, that the oriental monarch believed that he had in sooth
prevailed. Confidently, however, as he had calculated on the conversion
of the believing husband by the unbelieving wife, the bare possibility
of an opposite result had never once occurred to his distorted vision.
But truly has it been said, “_Magna est veritas et prævalebit!_” The
damsel who had been sent to create emotion in the breast of another,
was the first to become its victim herself: she whose tutored tongue
was to have won the prisoner from the faith of his fathers, was herself
the first to fall away from the creed of her race. Enamored, beyond the
reach of description, of the good knight, whose attractions of person
were no less superior to the boasted beauty of the oriental nobles,
than his rich and enthusiastic mind soared above their prejudiced
understandings, she had surrendered her whole soul to a passion as
intense as the heat of her native climate; she had lent a willing ear
to the fervid eloquence of her beloved, and had drank in fresh passion
from the very language which had won her reason from the debasing
superstitions of Islamism to the bright and everlasting splendors of
the Christian faith. From this moment the eastern maid became the bride
of his affections, the solace of his weary hours, the object of his
brightest hopes. He had discovered that she was worthy of his love;
he was sure that her whole being was devoted to his welfare; and he
struggled no longer against the spirit with which he had battled, as
unworthy his country, his name, and his religion.
It was not long ere the converted maiden had planned the escape, and
actually effected the deliverance, of her affianced lover. She had
sworn to join him in his flight; she had promised to accompany him to
his distant country, and to be the star of his ascendant destinies,
as she had been the sole illuminator to his hours of desolation and
despair.
Rescued from his fetters, he had lain in concealment on the rocky
shores of the Mediterranean, anxiously awaiting the vessel which was
to convey him to the land of his birth, and her whose society alone
could render his being supportable. The vessel arrived: but what was
the agony of his soul on learning that she whom he prized above light,
and life, and all save virtue, had fallen a sacrifice to the furious
disappointment of her indignant countrymen! Maddened with grief, and
careless of an existence which had now become a burden rather than
a treasure, he would have returned to avenge the wrongs of his lost
Leila, and perish on her grave, had not her emissaries--conscious
that in such a case the fate which had befallen the mistress must
undoubtedly be theirs likewise--compelled him to secure their common
safety by flight.
After weary wanderings, he had returned a heart-stricken wretch to his
native England, at that moment rejoicing with unfeigned delight at the
recovery of her heroic king. He sometimes mingled in the labors of the
council or the luxuries of the banquet, but it was evident to all that
his mind was far away! that for him there might indeed be the external
semblance of joy, but that all within was dark and miserable! It was
plain that, in the words of the poet--
“That heavy chill had frozen o’er the fountains of the tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, ’tis where the ice appears.”
On this morning of universal joy--to him a period fraught with the
gloomiest recollections, for it was the anniversary of that sad day on
which he had parted from the idol of his heart, never to behold her
more!--on this morning he had secluded himself from the sight of men;
he was alone with his memory! His eyes indeed rested on the letters of
an illuminated missal which lay open before him; but the long, dark
lock of silky hair which was grasped in his feverish hand, showed too
plainly that his grief was still of that harrowing and fiery character
which prevents the mind from tasting as yet the consolations of Divine
truth. He had sat thus for hours, unconscious of the passing multitude,
whose every sound was borne to his unheeding ears by the fresh breeze
of spring. His courtly robe and plumed bonnet, his collar, spurs, and
sword, lay beside him, arranged for the approaching festival by his
officious page; but no effort could have strung his nerves or hardened
his heart on that day to bear with the frivolous ceremonies and false
glitter of a court. He recked not now whether his presence would lend
a zest to the festival, or whether his absence might be construed into
offence. The warrior, the politician, the man, were merged in the
lover! Utter despondency had fallen upon his spirit. Like the oak of
his native forests, he was proud and unchanged in appearance, but the
worm was busy at his heart. Even tears would have been a relief to the
dead weight of despair which had benumbed his very soul; but never,
since that fatal hour, had one drop relieved the aching of his brain,
or one smile gleamed across his haggard features. Mechanically he
fulfilled his part in society: he moved, he spoke, he acted, like his
fellow-men; but he was now become, from the most ardent and impetuous
of his kind, a mere creature of habit and circumstance.
So deeply was he now absorbed in his dark reveries, that the increasing
clamor of the multitude had escaped his attention, although the
character of the sounds was no longer that of unmingled pleasure. The
voices of men, harsh and pitched in an unnatural key, rude oaths,
and tumultuous confusion, proclaimed that, if not engaged in actual
violence, the mob was at least ripe for mischief. More than once,
during the continuance of these turbulent sounds, had the plaintive
accents of a female voice been distinctly audible--when on a sudden
a shriek arose of such fearful import, close beneath the casements of
the abstracted baron, that it thrilled to his very heart. It seemed to
his excited fancy that the notes of a well-remembered voice lent their
music to that long-drawn cry; nay, he almost imagined that his own name
was indistinctly blended in that yell of fear.
With the speed of light he had sprung to his feet, and hurried to
the lattice; but twice before he reached it, had the cry repeated,
calling on the name of “Gilbert!” with a plaintive energy that could
no longer be mistaken. He gained the embrasure, dashed the trellised
blinds apart, and there--struggling in the licentious grasp of the
retainers who ministered to the brutal will of some haughty noble--her
raven tresses scattered to the winds of heaven, her turbaned shawl
and flowing caftan rent and disordered by the rude hands of lawless
violence--he beheld a female form of unrivalled symmetry, clad in the
well-remembered garments of the East. Her face was turned from him,
and the dark masses of hair which had escaped from their confinement
entirely concealed her features; still there was an undefined
resemblance which acted so keenly upon his feelings, that the thunder
of heaven could scarcely burst with a more appalling crash above the
heads of the guilty than did the powerful tones of the crusader as he
bade them, “as they valued life, release the damsel!” With a rapid
shudder which ran through every limb at his clear summons, she turned
her head. It was--it was his own lost Leila! the high and polished
brow; the eyes that rivalled in languor the boasted organs of the wild
gazelle; the rapturous ecstasy that kindled every lineament as she
recognised her lover’s form--
----“the voice that clove through all the din,
As a lute’s pierceth through the cymbal’s clash,
Jarred but not drowned by the loud brattling”--
were all, all Leila’s! To snatch his sword from its scabbard, to vault
at a single bound from the lofty casement, to force his way through the
disordered press, to level her audacious assailants to the earth, was
but a moment’s work for the gigantic power of the knight, animated as
he now was by all those feelings which can minister valor to the most
timid, and give strength to the feeblest arm! He beheld her whom he had
believed to be snatched for ever from his heart, nor could hundreds of
mail-clad soldiers have withstood his furious onset! He had already
clasped his recovered treasure in one nervous arm, while with the other
he brandished aloft the trusty blade, which had so often carried havoc
and terror to the centre of the moslem lines; when the multitude,
enraged at the interference of a stranger with what to them appeared
the laudable occupation of persecuting a witch or infidel, seconded by
the bold ruffians who had first laid hand upon the lovely foreigner,
rushed bodily onward, threatening to overpower all resistance by the
weight of numbers.
Gallantly, however, and at the same time mercifully, did Sir Gilbert
à-Becket support his previous reputation. Dealing sweeping blows with
his huge falchion on every side, yet shunning to use the point or edge,
he had cleft his way in safety to the threshold of his own door. Yet
even then the final issue of the strife was far from certain; for so
sudden had been the exit of the baron, and from so unusual an outlet,
that none of his household were conscious of their lord’s absence,
and the massy portal was closed against the entrance of the lawful
owner. Stones and staves flew thick around him; and so fiercely did the
leaders of the furious mob press upon his retreat, that, yielding at
length to the dictates of his excited spirit, he dealt the foremost a
blow which would have cloven him to the teeth though he had been fenced
in triple steel; thundering at the same time with his booted heel
against the oaken leaves of his paternal gate, and shouting to page and
squire within till the vaulted passages rang forth in startled echoes.
At this critical moment the din of martial music, which had long been
approaching, heralded the royal procession; though so actively were
the rioters engaged in their desperate onset, and so totally engrossed
was the baron in the rescue of his recovered bride, that neither party
were aware of it until its clangor rang close at hand, and a dazzling
cavalcade of knights and nobles came slowly on the scene of action.
Of stature almost gigantic, noble features, and kingly bearing--his
garb glittering with gold and jewels till the dazzled eye could
scarcely brook its splendor; backing a steed which seemed as though its
strength and spirit might have borne Goliath to the field; and wielding
a blade which no other arm in Christendom could have poised even for a
second--the lion-hearted Richard, followed by every noble of his realm,
dashed with his native impetuosity into the centre.
“Ha! St. George!” he shouted, in a voice heard clearly above the
mingled clang of instruments and the tumult of the conflict; “have ye
no better way to keep our festival than thus to take base odds on one?
Shame on ye, vile recreants! What, ho!” he cried, as he recognised the
person of the knight, “our good comrade à-Becket thus hard bestead!
Hence to your kennels, ye curs of England!--dare ye match yourselves
against the Lion and his brood?”
Loud rang the acclamations of the throng, accustomed to the blunt
boldness of their warrior-king, and losing sight of his haughty
language in joy for his return and admiration of the additional glory
which had accrued to the whole nation from the prowess of its champion:
“God save thee, gallant lion-heart! Never was so brave a knight! never
so noble a king!”
Louder still was the wonder of the monarch and his assembled court when
they learned the strange adventure which had been brought to so fair a
conclusion by their unexpected succor. The lady threatened with the
lasting indignation of the royal Saladin, though never really in danger
of life, had devised the false report of her own death--knowing that it
were hopeless for her to dream of flight, so long as the eyes of all
were concentrated on her in dark and angry suspicion; and knowing also
that no dread of instant dissolution nor hope of liberty could have
induced her devoted lover to have quitted the land while she remained
in “durance vile.”
When the first excitement--caused by the escape of a prisoner so
highly esteemed as was the bold crusader--had ceased to agitate the
mussulman divan, and affairs had returned to their usual course--easily
escaping from the vigilance of the harem guard, she had made good her
flight to the seabathed towers of Venice, and thence to the classic
plains of Italy. Then it was that the loneliness of her situation, the
perils, the toils, the miseries which she must necessarily endure,
weighed no less heavily on her tender spirits, than the unwonted
labor of so toilsome a journey on her delicate and youthful frame.
Ignorant of any European language, save the name of her lover, and the
metropolis of his far-distant country, her sole reply to every query
was the repetition, in her musical, although imperfect accents, of
the words--“London,” “Gilbert.” Marvellous it is to relate--and were
it not, in good sooth, history too marvellous--that her talismanic
speech did at length convey her through nations hostile to her race,
through the almost uninhabited forest, and across the snowy barrier of
the Alps, through realms laid waste by relentless banditti, and cities
teeming with licentious and merciless adventurers, to the chalky cliffs
and verdant meadows of England! For weeks had she wandered through the
streets of the vast metropolis, jeered by the cruel, and pitied, but
unaided, by the merciful--tempted by the wicked, and shunned by the
virtuous--repeating ever and anon her simple exclamation, “Gilbert,
Gilbert!” till her strength was well nigh exhausted, and her spirits
were fast sinking into utter despondency and despair.
On the morning of the festival she had gone forth with hopes renewed,
when she perceived the concourse of nobles crowding to greet their
king--for she knew her Gilbert to be high in rank and favor--and
fervently did she trust that this day would be the termination of
her miseries. Again was she miserably deceived; so miserably that,
perchance, had not the very assault which had threatened her with
death or degradation restored her, as it were by magic, to the arms
of him whom she had so tenderly and truly loved, she had sunk that
night beneath the pressure of grief and anxiety, too poignant to be
long endured. But so it was not ordained by that perfect Providence,
which, though it may for a time suffer bold vice to triumph, and humble
innocence to mourn, can ever bring real good out of seeming evil; and
whose judgments are so inevitably, in the end, judgments of mercy and
of truth, that well might the minstrel king declare of old, in the
inspired language of holy writ--
“I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”
THE TRIALS OF A TEMPLAR;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what can man do unto me.”
PSALM cxviii. 6.
A summer-day in Syria was rapidly drawing toward its close, as a
handful of European cavalry, easily recognised by their flat-topped
helmets, cumbrous hauberks, and chargers sheathed like their riders,
in plate and mail, were toiling their weary way through the deep sand
of the desert, scorched almost to the heat of molten lead by the
intolerable glare of an eastern sun. Insignificant in numbers, but high
of heart, confident from repeated success, elated with enthusiastic
valor, and inspiriting sense of a holy cause, they followed the
guidance of their leader, one of the best and most tried lances of the
temple, careless whither, and secure of triumph; their steel armor
glowing like burnished gold, their lance-heads flashing in the level
rays of the setting orb, and the party-colored banner of the Beauseant
hanging motionless in the still atmosphere.
Before them lay an interminable waste of bare and dusty plain, broken
into long swells succeeding each other in monotonous regularity,
though occasionally varied by stunted patches of thorny shrubs and
dwarf palm-trees. As they wheeled round one of these thickets, their
commander halted suddenly at the sight of some fifty horsemen, whose
fluttering garb and turbaned crowns, as well as the springy pace of
their Arab steeds, proclaimed them natives of the soil, winding along
the bottom of the valley beneath him, with the stealthy silence of
prowling tigers. Although the enemy nearly trebled his own force in
numerical power, without a moment’s hesitation Albert of Vermandois
arrayed his little band, and before the infidels had even discovered
his presence, much less drawn a blade, or concentrated their scattered
line, the dreaded war-cry rung upon their ears--“Ha! Beauseant! for the
temple! for the temple!” and down thundered the irresistible charge
of the western crusaders on their unguarded flank. Not an instant
did the Saracens withstand the brunt of the Norman lance; they broke
away on all sides, leaving a score of their companions stretched to
rise no more on the bloody plain. Scarcely, however, had the victors
checked their blown horses, or reorganized their phalanx, disordered
by the hot struggle, when the distant clang of cymbal, horn, and
kettle-drum mingled with the shrill _lelies_ of the heathen sounding
in every direction, announced that their march had been anticipated,
their route beset, themselves surrounded. Hastily taking possession
of the vantage-ground afforded by an abrupt hillock, and dismissing
the lightest of his party to ride for life to the Christian camp, and
demand immediate aid, Albert awaited the onset with the stern composure
which springs from self-possession. A few minutes sufficed to show
the Christians the extent of their embarrassment, and the imminence
of their peril. Three heavy masses of cavalry were approaching them
from as many different quarters; their gaudy turbans, gilded arms,
and waving pennons of a hundred hues, blazing in marked contrast to
the stern and martial simplicity of the iron soldiers of the west.
To the quick eye of Albert it was instantly evident that their hope
consisted in protracting the conflict till the arrival of succor; and
even this hope was diminished by the unwonted velocity with which the
Mohammedans hurried to the attack. It seemed as if they also were aware
that, in order to conquer, they must conquer quickly; for, contrary to
their usual mode of fighting, they charged resolutely upon the very
lances of the motionless Christians, who, in a solid circle, opposed
their mailed breasts in firm array to their volatile antagonists.
Fiercely, however, as they charged, their lighter coursers recoiled
before the bone and weight of the European war-steeds. The lances of
the crusaders were shivered in the onset; but to the thrust of these
succeeded the deadly sweep of the twohanded swords, flashing above
the cimeters of the infidel with the sway of some terrific engine.
Time after time the eastern warriors rushed on, time after time
they retreated, like the surf from some lonely rock on which it has
wasted its thunders in vain. At length they changed their plan, and
wheeling in rapid circles, poured their arrows in as fast, and for
a time as fruitlessly, as the snowstorm of a December day. On they
came again, right upon the point where Vermandois was posted, headed
by a tall chieftain, distinguished no less by his gorgeous arms than
by his gallant bearing. Rising in his stirrups, when at a few paces
distance, he hurled his long javelin full in the face of the crusader.
Bending his crest to the saddle-bow, as the dart passed harmlessly
over him, Albert cast his massive battle-axe in return. The tremendous
missile rustled past the chief at whom it was aimed, and smote his
shield-bearer to the earth, at the very moment when an arrow pierced
the templar’s charger through the eyeball to the brain. The animal,
frantic with the pain, bounded forward and rolled lifeless, bearing
his rider with him to the ground; yet even in that last struggle the
stern knight clave the turbaned leader down to the teeth before he
fell. Five hundred horse dashed over him--his array was broken--his
companions were hewn from their saddles, even before their commander
was snatched from beneath the trampling hoofs, disarmed, fettered,
and reserved for a doom to which the fate of his comrades had been a
boon of mercy. Satisfied with their success, and aware that a few hours
at the farthest must bring up the rescue from the Christian army, the
Saracens retreated as rapidly as they had advanced; all night long they
travelled with unabated speed toward their inaccessible fastnesses, in
the recesses of their wild mountains. Arrived at their encampment, the
prisoner was cast into a dungeon hewn from the living rock. Day after
day rolled heavily on, and Albert lay in utter darkness, ignorant of
his destiny, unvisited by any being except the swart and bearded savage
who brought the daily pittance, scarcely sufficient for the wants of
his wretched existence.
Albert of Vermandois, a Burgundian youth of high nobility, and yet more
exalted renown, had left his native land stung almost to madness by
the early death of her to whom he had vowed his affections, and whose
name he had already made “glorious by his sword,” from the banks of
the Danube to the pillars of Hercules. He had bound the cross upon his
breast, he had mortified all worldly desires, all earthly passions,
beneath the strict rule of his order. While yet in the flush and pride
of manhood, before a gray hair had streaked his dark locks, or a single
line wrinkled his lofty brow, he had changed his nature, his heart,
his very being; he had attained a height of dignity and fame scarcely
equalled by the best and noblest warriors of the temple. The vigor of
his arm, the vast scope of his political foresight, no less than the
unimpeached rigor of his morals, had long rendered him a glory to his
brotherhood, a cause of terror and an engine of defeat to the Saracen
lords of the Holy Land. Many a league had been formed to overpower,
many a dark plot hatched to inveigle him; but so invariably had he
borne down all odds in open warfare before his irresistible lance,
so certainly had he hurled back all secret treasons with redoubled
vengeance on the heads of the schemers, that he was almost deemed
the possessor of some cabalistic spell, framed for the downfall and
destruction of the sons of Islam.
Deep were the consultations of the infidel leaders concerning the
destiny of their formidable captive. The slaughter actually wrought by
his hand had been so fearful, the ravages produced among their armies
by his policy so unbounded, that a large majority were in favor of his
instant execution; nor could human ingenuity devise, or brute cruelty
perform, more hellish methods of torture than were calmly discussed in
that infuriate assembly.
It was late on the third day of his captivity, when the hinges of
his dungeon-grate creaked, and a broader glare streamed through the
aperture than had hitherto disclosed the secrets of his prisonhouse.
The red light streamed from a lamp in the grasp of a dark figure--an
imaum, known by his high cap of lambskin, his loose black robes, his
parchment cincture, figured with Arabic characters, and the long beard
that flowed even below his girdle in unrestrained luxuriance. A negro,
bearing food of a better quality, and the beverage abhorred by the
prophet, the forbidden juice of the grape, followed--his ivory teeth
and the livid circles of his eyes glittering with a ghastly whiteness
in the clear lamp-light. He arranged the unaccustomed dainties on the
rocky floor: the slave withdrew. The priest seated himself so that the
light should reveal every change of the templar’s features, while his
own were veiled in deep shadow.
“Arise, young Nazarene,” he said, “arise and eat, for to-morrow thou
shalt die. Eat, drink, and let thy soul be strengthened to bear thy
doom; for as surely as there is one God, and one prophet, which is
Mohammed, so surely is the black wing of Azrael outstretched above
thee!”
“It is well,” was the unmoved reply. “I am a consecrated knight, and
how should a templar tremble?--a Christian, and how should a follower
of Jesus fear to die?”
“My brother hath spoken wisely, yet is his wisdom but folly. Truly
hast thou said, ‘It is well to die;’ for is it not written that the
faithful and the yaoor must alike go hence? But is it the same thing
for a warrior to fall amid the flutter of banners and the flourish
of trumpets--which are to the strong man even as the breath of his
nostrils, or as the mild shower in seedtime to the thirsty plain--and
to perish by inches afar from his comrades, surrounded by tribes to
whom the very name of his race is a by-word and a scorn?”
“Now, by the blessed light of heaven!” cried the indignant soldier,
“rather shouldst thou say a terror and a ruin; for when have the dogs
endured the waving of our pennons or the flash of our armor? But it
skills not talking--leave me, priest, for I abhor thy creed, as I
despise thy loathsome impostor!”
For a short space the wise man of the tribes was silent; he gazed
intently on the countenance of his foeman, but not a sign of wavering
or dismay could his keen eye trace in the stern and haughty features.
“Allah Acbar,” he said at length; “to God all things are possible:
would the Christian live?”
“All men would live, and I am but a man,” returned the knight; “yet,
praise be to Him where all praise is due, I have never shrunk from
death in the field, nor can he fright me on the scaffold. If my Master
has need of his servant, he who had power to deliver Israel from
bondage, and Daniel from the jaws of the lion, surely he shall deliver
my soul from the power of the dog. And if he has appointed for me the
crown of martyrdom, it shall ne’er be said that Albert of Vermandois
was deaf to the will of the God of battles and the Lord of hosts.”
“The wise man hath said,” replied the slow, musical notes of the
priest, in strange contrast to the fiery zeal of the prisoner--“the
wise man hath said, ‘Better is the cottage that standeth firm than
the tower which tottereth to its fall.’ Will my brother hear reason?
Cast away the cross from thy breast, bind the turban upon thy brow, and
behold thou shalt be as a prince among our people!”
“Peace, blasphemer! I spit at thee--I despise, I defy thee! I, a
worshipper of the living Jehovah, shall I debase myself to the
camel-driver of Mecca? Peace! begone!” He turned his face to the wall,
folded his arms upon his chest, and was silent. No entreaties, no
threats of torment, no promises of mercy, could induce him again to
open his lips. His eyes were fixed as if they beheld some shape, unseen
by others; his brow was calm, and, but for a slight expression of scorn
about the muscles of the mouth, he might have passed for a visionary.
After a time, the imaum arose, quitted the cell, and the warrior was
again alone. But a harder trial was yet before him. The door of his
prison opened yet once more, and a form entered--a being whom the poets
in her own land of minstrelsey would have described under the types of
a young date-tree, bowing its graceful head to the breath of evening;
of a pure spring in the burning desert; of a gazelle, bounding over the
unshaken herbage; of a dove, gliding on the wings of the morning! And
of a truth she was lovely: her jetty hair braided above her transparent
brow, and floating in a veil of curls over her shoulders; her large
eyes swimming in liquid languor; and, above all, that indescribable
charm--
“The mind, the music breathing from her face”--
her form slighter and more sylph-like than the maids of Europe can
boast, yet rounded into the fairest mould of female beauty--all
combined to make up a creature resembling rather a houri of Mohammed’s
paradise than
“One of earth’s least earthly daughters.”
For a moment the templar gazed, as if he doubted whether he were not
looking upon one of those spirits which are said to have assailed and
almost shaken the sanctity of many a holy anchorite. His heart, for the
first time in many years, throbbed wildly. He bowed his head between
his knees, and prayed fervently; nor did he again raise his eyes, till
a voice, as harmonious as the breathing of a lute, addressed him in the
lingua-Franca:--
“If the sight of his hand-maiden is offensive to the eyes of the
Nazarene, she will depart as she came, in sorrow.”
The soldier lifted up his eyes, and saw her bending over him with so
sad an expression of tenderness, that, despite of himself, his heart
melted within him, and his answer was courteous and even kind: “I thank
thee, dear lady, I thank thee for thy good will, though it can avail me
nothing. But wherefore does one so fair, and it may well be so happy as
thou art, visit the cell of a condemned captive?”
“Say not condemned--oh, say not condemned! Thy servant is the bearer
of life, and freedom, and honor. She saw thy manly form, she looked
upon thine undaunted demeanor, and she loved thee--loved thee to
distraction--would follow thee to the ends of earth--would die to save
thee--has already saved thee, if thou wilt be saved! Rank, honor, life,
and love--”
“Lady,” he interrupted her, “listen! For ten long years I have not
lent my ear to the witchery of a woman’s voice. Ten years ago, I was
the betrothed lover of a maid, I had well-nigh said, as fair as thou
art. She died--died, and left me desolate! I have fled from my native
land; I have devoted to my God the feelings which I once cherished for
your sex. I could not give thee love in return for thy love; nor would
I stoop to feign that which I felt not, although it were to win, not
temporal, but eternal life.”
“Oh! dismiss me not,” she sobbed, as she threw her white arms around
his neck, and panted on his bosom; “oh! dismiss me not thus. I ask no
vows; I ask no love. Be but mine; let my country be your country, my
God yours--and you are safe and free!”
“My Master,” he replied coldly, as he disengaged her grasp, and removed
her from his arms, “hath said, ‘What would it profit a man, if he
should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ I have listened to
thee, lady, and I have answered thee; but my heart is heavy--for it is
mournful to see that so glorious a form should be the habitation of so
frail a spirit. I pray thee, leave me! To-morrow I shall meet my God,
and I would commune with him now in spirit and in truth!”
Slowly she turned away, wrapped her face in her veil, and moved with
faltering steps--wailing as if her heart were about to burst--through
the low portal. The gate clanged heavily as she departed; but the
sounds of her lamentation were audible long after the last being,
who would show a sign of pity for his woes, or of admiration for his
merits, had gone forth, never again to return!
All night long the devotions, the fervent and heartfelt prayers of the
crusader, ascended to the throne of his Master; and often, though he
struggled to suppress the feeling, a petition for his lovely though
deluded visiter was mingled with entreaties for strength to bear the
fate he anticipated.
Morning came at last, not as in frigid climates of the North--creeping
through its slow gradations of gray dawn and dappling twilight--but
bursting at once from night into perfect day. The prison-gates were
opened for the last time, the fetters were struck off from the limbs
of the undaunted captive, and himself led forth like a victim to the
sacrifice.
From leagues around, all the hordes of the desert had come together,
in swarms outnumbering the winged motes that stream like dusty atoms
in every sunbeam. It was a strange, and, under other circumstances,
would have been a glorious spectacle. In a vast sandy basin, surrounded
on every side by low but rugged eminences, were the swarthy sons of
Syria mustered, rank above rank, to feast their eyes on the unwonted
spectacle of a Christian’s sufferings. The rude tribes of the remotest
regions, Arab and Turcoman, mounted on the uncouth dromedary, or on
steeds of matchless symmetry and unstained pedigree, mingling their
dark baracans with the brilliant arms and gorgeous garbs of the
sultan’s court--even the unseen beauties of a hundred harems watched
from their canopied litters the preparations for the execution with
as much interest and as little concern as the belles of our own day
exhibit before the curtain has been drawn aside which is to disclose
the performances of a Pedrotti or a Malibran to the enraptured audience.
In the centre of this natural amphitheatre stood the scathed and
whitening trunk of a thunder-stricken palm. To this inartificial stake
was the captive led. One by one his garments were torn asunder, till
his muscular form and splendid proportions were revealed in naked
majesty to the wondering multitude. Once, before he was attached to the
fatal tree, a formal offer of life, and liberty, and high office in
the moslem court, was tendered to him, on condition of his embracing
the faith of the prophet--and refused by one contemptuous motion of
his hand. He was bound firmly to the stump, with his hands secured far
above his head. At some fifty paces distant, stood a group of dark and
fierce warriors, with bended bows and well-filled quivers, evidently
awaiting the signal to pour in their arrowy sleet upon his unguarded
limbs. He gazed upon them with a countenance unmoved and serene, though
somewhat paler than its usual tints. His eyes did not, however, long
dwell on the unattractive sight: he turned them upward, and his lips
moved at intervals, though no sound was conveyed to the ear of the
bystanders.
Some minutes had elapsed thus, when the shrill voice of the muezzin
was heard, proclaiming the hour of matin-prayer in his measured
chant: “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet!” In an
instant the whole multitude were prostrate in the dust, and motionless
as though the fatal blast of the simoom was careering through the
tainted atmosphere. A flash of contempt shot across the features of
the templar, but it quickly vanished in a more holy expression, as he
muttered to himself the words used on a far more memorable occasion, by
Divinity itself: “Forgive them, Lord; they know not what they do!”
The pause was of short duration. With a rustle like the voice of
the forest when the first breath of the rising tempest agitates its
shivering foliage, the multitude rose to their feet. A gallant horseman
dashed from the cavalcade which thronged around the person of their
sultan, checked his steed beside the archer-band, spoke a few hasty
words, and galloped back to his station.
Another minute--and arrow after arrow whistled from the Paynim bows,
piercing the limbs and even grazing the body of the templar; but not
a murmur escaped from the victim--scarcely did a frown contract his
brow. There was an irradiation, as if of celestial happiness, upon his
countenance; nor could a spectator have imagined for a moment that
his whole frame was almost convulsed with agony, but for the weapons
quivering even to their feathered extremities in every joint, and the
large blood-drops trickling like rain upon the thirsty soil!
Again there was a pause. Circled by his Nubian guard, and followed by
the bravest and the brightest of his court, the sultan himself rode up
to the bleeding crusader. Yet, even there, decked with all the pomp of
royalty and pride of war, goodly in person, and sublime in bearing,
the monarch of the East was shamed--shamed like a slave before his
master--by the native majesty of Christian virtue; nor could the prince
at first find words to address the tortured mortal who stood at his
feet with the serene deportment which would have beseemed the judge
upon his tribunal no less than the martyr at the stake.
“Has the Nazarene yet learned experience from the bitter sting of
adversity? The skill of the leech may yet assuage thy wounds, and
the honors which shall be poured upon thee may yet efface thine
injuries--even as the rich grain conceals in its luxuriance the furrows
of the ploughshare! Will the Nazarene live? or will he die the death of
a dog?”
“The Lord is on my side,” was the low but firm reply--“the Lord is on
my side: I will not fear what man doeth unto me!”
On swept the monarch’s train, and again the iron shower fell fast and
fatally--not as before, on the members, but on the broad chest and
manly trunk. The blood gushed forth in blacker streams; the warrior’s
life was ebbing fast away--when from the rear of the broken hills a
sudden trumpet blew a point of war in notes so thrilling, that it
pierced the ears like the thrust of some sharp weapon. Before the
astonishment of the crowd had time to vent itself in word or deed, the
eminences were crowded with the mail-clad myriads of the Christian
forces! Down they came, like the blast of the tornado on some frail
and scattered fleet, with war-cry, and the clang of instruments, and
the thick trampling of twice ten thousand hoofs. Wo to the sons of the
desert in that hour! They were swept away before the mettled steeds and
levelled lances of the templars like dust before the wind, or stubble
before the devouring flame!
The eye of the dying hero lightened as he saw the banners of his
countrymen. His whole form dilated with exultation and triumph. He tore
his arm from its fetters, waved it around his blood-stained forehead,
and for the last time shouted forth his cry of battle: “Ha! Beauseant!
A Vermandois for the temple!” Then, in a lower tone, he cried: “‘Lord,
now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word;
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’” He bowed his head, and his
undaunted spirit passed away.
THE RENEGADO;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
--------------“how faint and feebly dim
The fame that could accrue to him
Who cheered the band, and waved the sword,
A traitor in a turbaned horde.”--SIEGE OF CORINTH.
For well nigh two long years had the walls of Acre rung to the
war-cries and clashing arms of the contending myriads of Christian
and Mohammedan forces, while no real advantage had resulted to either
army, from the fierce and sanguinary struggles that daily alarmed the
apprehensions, or excited the hopes of the besieged. The rocky heights
of Carmel now echoed to the flourish of the European trumpet, and now
sent back the wilder strains of the Arabian drum and cymbal. On the one
side were mustered the gigantic warriors of the western forests, from
the wild frontiers of Germany, and the shores of the Baltic; while on
the other were assembled the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, the
wandering tribes from the Tigris to the banks of the Indus, and the
swarthy hordes of the Mauritanian desert. Not a day passed unnoted by
some bloody skirmish or pitched battle;--at one time the sultan forced
his way into the beleaguered city, and the next moment the crusaders
plundered the camp of the Mohammedan. As often as by stress of weather
the European fleet was driven from its blockading station, so often
were fresh troops poured in to replace the exhausted garrison; and
as fast as the sword of the infidel, or the unsparing pestilence,
thinned the camp of the crusaders, so fast was it replenished by fresh
swarms of pilgrims, burning with enthusiastic ardor, and aspiring to
re-establish the dominion of the Latin kings within the precincts of
the holy city.
Suddenly, however, the aspect of affairs was altered; a change took
place in the tactics of the paynim leaders--a change which, in the
space of a few weeks, wrought more havoc in the lines of the invaders
than months of open warfare. The regular attacks of marshalled front
and steady fighting, wherein the light cavalry of the Turkish and
Saracen tribes invariably gave way before the tremendous charges of
the steel-clad knights, were exchanged for an incessant and harassing
war of outposts. Not a drop of water could be conveyed into the
Christian camp, unless purchased by a tenfold effusion of noble blood;
not a picket could be placed in advance of their position, but it was
inevitably surrounded and cut off; not a messenger could be despatched
to any Latin city, but he was intercepted, and his intelligence
rendered subservient to the detriment and destruction of the inventors.
Nor was it long before the author of this new system was discovered.
In every affair a chieftain was observed, no less remarkable for his
powerful make, far exceeding the stature and slight, though sinewy,
frame of his oriental followers, than for his skill in disposing his
irregular horsemen, so as to act with the greatest possible advantage
against his formidable, but cumbrous opponents. His arms and equipment,
moreover, distinguished him yet more clearly than his huge person
from his paynim coadjutors. His brows indeed were turbaned, but
beneath the embroidered shawl and glittering tiara he wore the massive
_cerveilliere_ and barred vizor of the European headpiece; instead of
the fluttering caftan and light hauberk, his whole form was sheathed
in solid mail; the steed which he bestrode showed more bone and muscle
than the swift but slender coursers of the desert, and was armed on
chest and croup with plates of tempered steel. Nor, though he avoided
to risk his light-armed troops against their invulnerable opponents,
did he himself shrink from the encounter; on the contrary, ever leading
the attack and covering the retreat, it seemed his especial delight to
mingle hand to hand with the best lances of the temple. Many a knight
had fallen beneath the sweep of his tremendous blade, and these not
of the unknown and unregarded multitude; for it was ever from among
the noblest and the best that he singled out his antagonists--his
victims--for of all who had gone against him, not one had been known to
return. So great was the annoyance wrought to the armies of the cross
by the policy, as well as by the valor of the moslem chief, that every
method had been contrived for overpowering him by numbers, or deceiving
him by stratagem; still the sagacity and foresight of the infidel had
penetrated their deep devices, with a certainty as unerring as that
with which his huge battle-axe had cloven their proudest crests.
To such a pitch had the terror of his prowess extended, that not
content with the reality, in itself sufficiently gloomy, the soldiers
had begun to invest him with the attributes of a superhuman avenger.
It was observed, that save the gold and crimson scarf which bound his
iron temples, he was black from head to heel-stirrup, and spur, and
crest, the trappings of his charger, and the animal itself, all dark
as the raven’s wing--that, more than once since he had fought in the
van of the mussulmans, strange shouts had been heard ringing above
the _lelies_ of the paynim, and repeating the hallowed war-cry of the
Christian in tones of hellish derision--once, too, when he had utterly
destroyed a little band of templars, a maimed and wounded wretch, who
had escaped from the carnage of his brethren, skulking beneath his
lifeless horse, averred that, while careering at his utmost speed, the
charger of the mysterious warrior had swerved in mad consternation from
the consecrated banner, which had been hurled to the earth, and that
the sullen head of the rider had involuntarily bowed to the saddle-bow
as he dashed onward in his course of blood and ruin; and in truth there
was enough of the marvellous--in the activity by which he avoided all
collision with a superior force, and in the victories which he bore
off day by day from the men who, till he had come upon the stage, had
only fought to conquer--to palliate, if not to justify, some vague and
shadowy terrors, in an age when the truth of supernatural interference,
whether of saints or demons, was believed as implicitly as the holy
writ. Men, who a few weeks before would have gone forth to battle
against a threefold array of enemies rejoicing as if to a banquet,
now fought faintly, and began to look for safety in a timely retreat,
rather than in the deeds of their own right hands, as soon as they
beheld the sable form of that adversary, whom all regarded as something
more than a mere human foe; while many believed, that if not a natural
incarnation of the evil principle, he was, at least, a mortal endowed
with power to work the mischief designed for his performance, by the
inveterate malignity of the arch-fiend himself. And it was a fact, very
characteristic of the period at which these events occurred, that the
most accomplished warriors of the time bestowed as much attention on
the framing of periapt, and spell, and all the arms of spiritual war,
as on their mere earthly weapons, the spear, the buckler, and the steed.
The middle watch of night was long passed, and the sky was overcast
with heavy clouds--what little air was stirring came in blasts as close
and scorching as though they issued from the mouth of an oven. The
camp of the crusaders was silent, and sleeping, all but the vigilant
guards, ever on the alert to catch the faintest sound, which might
portend a sally from the walls of the city, or a surprise of the
indefatigable Saladin from without.
In the pavilion of Lusignan, the nominal leader of the expedition,
all the chiefs of the crusade had met in deep consultation. But the
debate was ended; one by one they had retired to their respective
quarters, and the Latin monarch was left alone, to muse on the brighter
prospects which were opening to his ambition in the approach of Philip
Augustus and the lion-hearted Richard, at the head of such an array
of gallant spirits as might justify his most extravagant wishes.
Suddenly his musings were interrupted by sounds, remote at first,
but gradually thickening upon his ear. The faint blast of a distant
trumpet, and the challenge of sentries, was succeeded by the hurried
tramp of approaching footsteps; voices were heard in eager and exulting
conversation, and lights were seen marshalling the new-comers to the
royal tent. A few moments, and a knot of his most distinguished knights
stood before him, and, with fettered hands, and his black armor soiled
with dust and blood, the mysterious warrior of the desert, a captive in
the presence of his conquerors.
The narration of the victory was brief. A foraging-party had ridden
forth on the preceding morning, never to return!--for, instructed by
his scouts, the infidel had beset their march, had assaulted them at
nightfall, and destroyed them to a man. But his good fortune had at
last deserted him. A heavy body of knights, with their archers and
sergeants, returning from a distant excursion, had come suddenly upon
his rear when he was prosecuting his easy triumph. The moslems, finding
themselves abruptly compelled to act on the defensive, were seized by
one of those panics to which all night-attacks are so liable--were
thrown into confusion, routed, and cut to pieces. Their commander, on
the first appearance of the Christians, had charged with his wonted
fury, before he perceived that he was deserted by all, and surrounded
past the hope of escape. Heretofore he had fought for victory, now
he fought for revenge and for death; and never had he enacted such
prodigies of valor as now when that valor was about to be extinguished
for ever! Quarter was offered to him, and the tender answered by
redoubled blows of his weighty axe. Before he could be taken, he had
surrounded himself with a rampart of dead; and when at length numbers
prevailed, and he was a prisoner, so deep was the respect of the
victors toward so gallant a foe, that all former prejudices vanished:
and when he had opposed the first attempt to remove his vizor, he was
conveyed, unquestioned and in all honor, to the tent of the Latin king.
The time had arrived when further concealment was impracticable. The
captive stood before the commander of the crusading force; and the
rules of war, no less than the usages of that chivalrous courtesy
practised alike by the warriors of the West and their oriental foemen,
required that he should remove the vizor which still concealed his
features. Still, however, he stood motionless, with his arms folded
across his breast, resembling rather the empty panoply which adorns
some hero’s monument than a being instinct with life, and agitated
by all the passions to which the mortal heart is liable. Words were
addressed to him in the lingua-Franca, or mixed language, which had
obtained during those frequent intervals of truce which characterized
the nature of the holy wars--breaking into the bloody gloom of strife
as an occasional ray of sunshine illuminates the day of storm and
darkness--but no effect was produced by their sound on the proud or
perhaps uncomprehending prisoner.
For a moment, their former terrors, which had vanished on the fall of
their dreaded opponent, appeared to have regained their ascendency over
the superstitious hearts of the unenlightened warriors: many there
were who confidently expected that the removal of the iron mask would
disclose the swart and thunder-stricken brow, the fiery glance, and the
infernal aspect, of the prince of darkness! No resistance was offered
when the chamberlain of Guy de Lusignan stepped forward, and with all
courtesy unlaced the fastenings of the casque and gorget. The clasps
gave way, and scarcely could a deeper consternation or a more manifest
astonishment have fallen upon the beholders had the king of terrors
himself glared forth in awful revelation from that iron panoply. It was
no dark-complexioned Saracen--
“In shadowed livery of the burnished sun,”
with whiskered lip and aquiline features, who struck such a chill by
his appearance on every heart. The pale skin, the full blue eye, the
fair curls that clustered round the lofty brow, bespoke an unmixed
descent from the tribes of some northern land of mountain and forest;
and that eye, that brow, those lineaments, were all familiar to the
shuddering circle as the reflexion of their own in the polished mirror.
One name burst at once from every lip in accents of the deepest scorn.
It was the name of one whose titles had stood highest upon their lists
of fame; whose deeds had been celebrated by many a wandering minstrel
even among the remote hills of Caledonia or the morasses of green
Erin; the valor of whose heart and the strength of whose arm had been
related far and near by many a pilgrim; whose untimely fall had been
mourned by many a maid beside the banks of his native Rhine!--“Arnold
of Falkenhorst!” The frame of the culprit was convulsed till the meshes
of his linked mail clattered from the nervous motion of the limbs
which they enclosed; a crimson flush passed across his countenance,
but not a word escaped from his lips, and he gazed straight before him
with a fixed, unmeaning stare--how sadly changed from the glance of
fire which would so short a time ago have quelled with its indignant
lightning the slightest opposition to his indomitable pride!
For an instant all remained petrified, as it were, by wonder and
vexation of spirit. The next moment a fierce rush toward the captive,
with naked weapons and bended brows, threatened immediate destruction
to the wretched renegado.
Scarcely, however, was this spirit manifested, before it was checked by
the grand-master of the temple, who stood beside the seat of Lusignan.
He threw his venerable person between the victim and the uplifted
weapons that thirsted for his blood.
“Forbear!” he cried, in the deep tones of determination--“forbear,
soldiers of the cross, and servants of the Most High! Will ye
contaminate your knightly swords with the base gore of a traitor to his
standard, a denier of his God? Fitter the axe of the headsman, or the
sordid gibbet, for the recreant and coward! Say forth, Beau Sire de
Lusignan--have I spoken well?”
“Well and nobly hast thou spoken, Amaury de Montleon,” replied the
monarch. “By to-morrow’s dawn shall the captive meet the verdict of his
peers; and if they condemn him--by the cross which I wear on my breast,
and the faith to which I trust for salvation, shall he die like a dog
on the gallows, and his name shall be infamous for ever! Lead him away,
Sir John de Crespigny, and answer for your prisoner with your head! And
you, fair sirs, meet me at sunrise in the tiltyard: there will we sit
in judgment before our assembled hosts, and all men shall behold our
doom. Till then, farewell!”
In the dogged silence of despair was the prisoner led away, and in the
silence of sorrow and dismay the barons of that proud array passed away
from the presence of the king: and the night was again solitary and
undisturbed.
It wanted a full hour of the appointed time for the trial, when the
swarming camp poured forth its many-tongued multitudes to the tiltyard.
The volatile Frenchman, the proud and taciturn Castilian, the resolute
Briton, and the less courtly knights of the German empire, crowded
to the spot. It was a vast enclosure, surrounded with palisades, and
levelled with the greatest care, for the exhibition of that martial
skill on which the crusaders set so high a value, and provided with
elevated seats for the judges of the games--now to be applied to a more
important and awful decision.
The vast multitude was silent, every feeling absorbed in breathless
expectation; every brow was knit, and every heart was quivering with
that sickening impatience which makes us long to know all that is
concealed from our vision by the dark clouds of futurity, even if that
all be the worst--
“The dark and hideous close,
Even to intolerable woes!”
This expectation had already reached its highest pitch, when, as the
sun reared his broad disk in a flood of radiance above the level
horizon of the desert, a mournful and wailing blast of trumpets
announced the approach of the judges. Arrayed in their robes of peace,
with their knightly belts and spurs, rode the whilome monarch of
Jerusalem, and the noblest chiefs of every different nation which had
united to form one army under the guidance of one commander. Prelates,
and peers, and knights--all who had raised themselves above the mass,
in which all were brave and noble, by distinguished talents of either
war or peace--had been convoked to sit in judgment on a cause which
concerned no less the welfare of the holy church and the interests
of religion than the discipline and laws of war. The peers of France
and England, and the dignitaries of the empire, many of whom were
present, although their respective kings had not yet reached the shores
of Palestine--were clad in their robes and caps of maintenance, the
knights in the surcoats and collars of their orders, and the prelates
in all the splendor of pontifical decoration. A strong body of knights,
whose rank did not as yet entitle them to seats in the council, were
marshalled like pillars of steel, in full caparison of battle, around
the listed field, to prevent the escape of the prisoner, no less than
to guard his person from premature violence, had such been attempted by
the enthusiastic and indignant concourse.
Arnold of Falkenhorst--stripped of his Moorish garb, and wearing in
its stead his discarded robes of knighthood, his collar and blazoned
shield about his neck, his golden spurs on his heel, and his swordless
scabbard belted to his side--was placed before his peers, to abide
their verdict. Beside him stood a page, displaying his crested burgonet
and the banner of his ancient house, and behind him a group of chosen
warders, keeping a vigilant watch on every motion. But the precaution
seemed needless: the spirits of the prisoner had sunk, and he seemed
deserted alike by the almost incredible courage which he had so often
displayed, and by the presence of mind for which he had been so widely
and so justly famous. His countenance, even to his lips, was as white
as sculptured marble, and his eyes had a dead and vacant glare; and
scarcely did he seem conscious of the purpose for which that multitude
was collected around him. Once, and once only, as his eye fell upon the
fatal tree, which cast its long shadow in terrible distinctness across
the field of judgment, with its accursed noose, and the ministers of
blood around it, a rapid and convulsive shudder ran through every
limb; it was but a momentary affection, and, when passed, no sign of
emotion could be traced in his person, unless it were a slight and
almost imperceptible rocking of his whole frame from side to side,
as he stood awaiting his doom. Utter despondency seemed to have taken
possession of his whole soul; and the soldier who had looked unmoved
into the very eye of death in the field, sunk like the veriest coward
under the apprehensions of that fate which he had no longer the
resolution to bear like a man.
The herald stepped forth, in his quartered tabard and crown of dignity,
and the trumpeter by his side blew a summons on his brazen instrument
that might have waked the dead. While the sounds were yet ringing in
the ears of all, the clear voice of the king-at-arms cried aloud:
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, count, banneret, and baron, hear! Thou standest
this day before thy peers, accused of heresy and treason; a forsworn
and perjured knight; a deserter from thy banner, and a denier of thy
God; leagued with the pagan dogs against the holy church; a recreant,
a traitor, and a renegado; with arms in thine hands wert thou taken,
battling against the cross which thou didst swear to maintain with the
best blood of thy veins! Speak! dost thou disavow the deed?”
The lips of Arnold moved, but no words came forth. It seemed as if
some swelling convulsion of his throat smothered his utterance. There
was a long pause, all expecting that the prisoner would seek to
justify his defection, or challenge--as his last resource--the trial
by the judgment of God. The rocking motion of his frame increased, and
it almost appeared as if he were about to fall upon the earth. The
trumpet’s din again broke the silence, and the herald’s voice again
made proclamation:
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, speak now, or hear thy doom!--and then for ever
hold thy peace!”
No answer was returned to the second summons; and, at the command of
Lusignan, the peers and princes of the crusade were called upon for
their award. Scarcely had he ceased, before the assembled judges rose
to their feet like a single man. In calm determination they laid each
one his extended hand upon his breast, and, like the distant mutterings
of thunder, was heard the fatal verdict--“Guilty, upon mine honor!”
The words were caught up by the myriads that were collected around, and
shouted till the welkin rang: “Guilty, guilty!--To the gibbet with the
traitor!”
As soon as the tumult was appeased, Guy de Lusignan arose from his
lofty seat, and--the herald making proclamation after him--pronounced
the judgment of the court:--
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, whilome count of the empire, belted knight,
and sworn soldier of the cross! by thy peers hast thou been
tried, and by thy peers art thou condemned! Traitor, recreant,
and heretic--discourteous gentleman, false knight, and fallen
Christian--hear thy doom! The crest shall be erased from thy burgonet;
the spurs shall be hewn from thine heels; the bearings of thy shield
shall be defaced; the name of thy house shall be forgotten! To the
holy church are thy lands and lordships forfeit! On the gibbet shalt
thou die like a dog, and thy body shall be food for the wolf and the
vulture!”
“It is the will of God,” shouted the assembled nations, “it is the will
of God!”
As soon as the sentence was pronounced--painful, degrading, abhorrent
as that sentence was--some portion of the prisoner’s anxiety was
relieved; at least, his demeanor was more firm. He raised his eyes,
and looked steadily upon the vast crowd which was exulting in his
approaching degradation. If there was no composure on his brow, neither
was there that appearance of abject depression by which his soul and
body had appeared to be alike prostrated. Nay, for an instant his eye
flashed and his lip curled, as he tore the collar of knighthood and
the shield from his neck, and cast them at the feet of the herald,
who was approaching to fulfil the decree. “I had discarded them
before,” he said, “nor does it grieve me now to behold them thus.”
Yet, notwithstanding the vaunt, his proud spirit was stung--stung more
deeply by the sense of degradation than by the fear of death. The spurs
which had so often goaded his charger to glory, amid the acclamations
and admiration of thousands, were hacked from his heels by the sordid
cleaver; the falcon-crest, which had once been a rallying-point and a
beacon amid the dust and confusion of the fight, was shorn from his
casque; the quarterings of many a noble family were erased from his
proud escutcheon, and the shield itself reversed and hung aloft upon
the ignominious tree. The pride which had burst into a momentary blaze
of indignation, had already ceased to act upon his flagging spirits;
and, when a confessor was tendered to him, and he was even offered the
privilege of readmission within the pale of the church, he trembled.
“The crime--if crime there be--is his,” he said, pointing toward Guy de
Lusignan. “I had served him, and served the cross, as never man did,
had he not spurned me with injury, and disgraced me before his court,
when I sought the hand of her whom I had rescued by my lance from
paynim slavery. Had I been the meanest soldier in the Christian army,
my deeds had won me a title to respect, at least, if not to favor. De
Lusignan and his haughty daughter drove me forth to seek those rights
and that honor from the gratitude of the infidel which were denied by
my brothers-in-arms. If I am a sinner, he made me what I am; and now
he slays me for it! I say not, ‘Let him give me the hand which he then
denied me;’ but let him spare my life, and I am again a Christian;
my sword shall again shine in the van of his array; the plots, the
stratagems, the secrets of the moslem, shall be his. I, even I, the
scorned and condemned renegado, can do more to replace De Lusignan on
the throne of Jerusalem than the lances of ten thousand crusaders--ay,
than the boasted prowess of Cœur de Lion, or the myriads of France
and Austria! All this will I do for him--all this, and more--if he
but grants me life. I cannot--I dare not die!--What said I?--I a
Falkenhorst, and dare not!”
“Thy life is forfeit,” replied the unmoved priest; “thy life is
forfeit, and thy words are folly. For who would trust a traitor to his
liege lord, a deserter of his banner, and a denier of his faith? Death
is before thee--death and immortality! Beware lest it be an immortality
of evil and despair--of the flame that is unquenchable--of the worm
that never dies! I say unto thee, ‘Put not thy trust in princes,’ but
turn thee to Him who alone can say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven!’ Bend thy
knee before the throne of grace; pluck out the bitterness from thine
heart, and the pride from thy soul; and ’though thy sins be redder than
scarlet, behold they shall be whiter than snow!’ Confess thy sins, and
repent thee of thy transgressions, and He who died upon the mount for
sinners, even he shall open unto thee the gates of everlasting life.”
“It is too late,” replied the wretched culprit, “it is too late! If I
die guilty, let the punishment light on those who shall have sent me to
my last account. Away, priest! give me life, or leave me!”
“Slave!” cried the indignant priest--“slave and coward, perish!--and be
thy blood, and the blood of Him whom thou hast denied, upon thine own
head!”
Not another word was spoken. He knew that all was hopeless--that he
must die, unpitied and despised; and in sullen silence he yielded
himself to his fate. The executioners led him to the fatal tree: his
arms were pinioned--the noose adjusted about his muscular neck. In
dark and gloomy despair he looked for the last time around him. He
gazed upon the lists, which had so often witnessed the display of his
unrivalled horsemanship, and echoed to the applauses which greeted
his appearance on the field of mimic war; he gazed on many a familiar
and once-friendly face, all scowling on him in hatred and disdain.
Heart-sick, hopeless, and dismayed, he closed his aching eyes; and,
as he closed them, the trumpets, to whose cheering sound he had so
often charged in glory, rang forth the signal of his doom! The pulleys
creaked hoarsely--the rope was tightened even to suffocation--and the
quivering frame struggled out its last agonies, amid the unheeded
execrations of the infuriate multitude!
“Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath,
Heralded his way to death:
Ere his very thought could pray,
Unanealed he passed away,
Without a hope from mercy’s aid--
To the last, a renegade!”
LEGENDS
OF
FEUDAL DAYS.
THE FALSE LADYE.
CHAPTER I.
There were merriment and music in the Chateau des Tournelles--at that
time the abode of France’s royalty!--music and merriment, even from the
break of day! That was a singular age, an age of great transitions.
The splendid spirit-stirring soul of chivalry was alive yet among the
nations--_yet!_ although fast declining, and destined soon to meet its
death-blow in the spear-thrust that hurled the noble Henry, last victim
of its wondrous system, at once from saddle and from throne! In every
art, in every usage, new science had effected even then mighty changes;
yet it was the OLD WORLD STILL! Gunpowder, and the use of musketry and
ordnance, had introduced new topics; yet still knights spurred their
barbed chargers to the shock, still rode in complete steel--and tilts
and tournaments still mustered all the knightly and the noble; and
banquets at high noon, and balls in the broad daylight, assembled to
the board or to the dance, the young, the beautiful, and happy.
There were merriment and music in the court, the hall, the staircase,
the saloons of state! All that France held of beautiful, and bright,
and brave, and wise, and noble, were gathered to the presence of their
king. And there were many there, well-known and honored in those olden
days; well-known and honored ever after. The first, in person as in
place, was the great king! the proud, and chivalrous, and princely!
becoming his high station at all times and in every place; wearing his
state right gracefully and freely--the second Henry!--and at his side
young Francis, the king-dauphin; with her, the cynosure of every heart,
the star of that fair company--Scotland’s unrivalled Mary hanging upon
his manly arm, and gazing up with those soft, dovelike eyes, fraught
with unutterable soul, into her husband’s face--into her husband’s
spirit. Brissac was there, and Joyeuse, and Nevers; and Jarnac,
the renowned for skill in fence, and Vielleville; and the cardinal
Lorraine, and all the glorious Guises and Montmorenci, soon to be
famous as the slayer of his king, and every peer of France, and every
peerless lady.
Loud peeled the exulting symphonies; loud sang the chosen
minstrelsey--and as the gorgeous sunbeams rushed in a flood of tinted
lustre through the rich many-colored panes of the tall windows,
glancing on soft voluptuous forms and eyes that might outdazzle their
own radiance, arrayed in all the pomp and pride of that magnificent and
stately period--a more resplendent scene could scarcely be imagined.
That was a day of rich and graceful costumes, when men and warriors
thought it no shame to be adorned in silks and velvets, with chains of
goldsmith’s work about their necks, and jewels in their ears, and on
their hatbands, buttons, and buckles, and swordhilts; and if such were
the sumptuous attire of the sterner and more solid sex, what must have
been the ornature of the court ladies, under the gentle sway of such a
being as Diane de Poictiers, the lovely mistress of the monarch, and
arbitress of the soft follies of the court?
The palace halls were decked with every fanciful variety, some in the
pomp of blazoned tapestries, with banners rustling from the cornices
above the jocund dancers, some filled with fresh green branches,
wrought into silver arbors, sweet garlands perfuming the air, and the
light half excluded or tempered into a mild and emerald radiance by the
dense foliage of the rare exotics. Pages and ushers tripped it to and
fro, clad in the royal liveries, embroidered with the cognizance of
Henry, the fuigist salamander, bearing the choicest wines, the rarest
cates, in every interval of the surrounding dance. It would be tedious
to dwell longer on the scene; to multiply more instances of the strange
mixture, which might be witnessed everywhere, of artificial luxury
with semibarbarous rudeness--to specify the graces of the company,
the beauty of the demoiselles and dames, the stately bearing of the
warrior nobles, as they swept back and forth in the quaint mazes of
some antiquated measure, were a task to be undertaken only by some
old chronicler, with style as curious and as quaint as the manners he
portrays in living colors. Enough for us to catch a fleeting glimpse of
the grand pageantry! to sketch with a dashy pencil the groups which he
would designate with absolute and accurate minuteness!
But there was one among that gay assemblage, who must not be passed
over with so slight a regard, since she attracted on that festive day,
as much of wondering admiration for her unequalled beauties as she
excited sympathy, and fear, in after-days, for her sad fortunes--but
there was now no cloud upon her radiant beauty, no dimness prophetic of
approaching tears in her large laughing eyes, no touch of melancholy
thought upon one glorious feature--Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the heiress
of a ducal fortune, the heiress of charms so surpassing, that rank and
fortune were forgotten by all who gazed upon her pure, high brow, her
dazzling glances, her seductive smile, the perfect symmetry of her
whole shape and person! Her hair, of the darkest auburn shade, fell in
a thousand ringlets, glittering out like threads of virgin gold when a
stray sunbeam touched them, fell down her snowy neck over the shapely
shoulders and so much of a soft, heaving bosom--veined by unnumbered
azure channels, wherein the pure blood coursed so joyously--as was
displayed by the falling laces which decked her velvet boddice. Her
eyes, so quick and dazzling was their light, almost defied description,
possessing at one time the depth and brilliance of the black, melting
into the softer languor of the blue--yet they were of the latter hue,
and suited truly to the whole style and character of her voluptuous
beauty. Her form, as has been noticed, was symmetry itself; and every
movement, every step, was fraught with natural and unstudied grace.
In sooth, she seemed almost too beautiful for mere mortality--and so
thought many a one who gazed upon her, half drunk with that divine
delirium which steeps the souls of men who dwell too steadfastly upon
such wondrous charms, as she bounded through the labyrinth of the
dance, lighter and springier than the world-famed gazelle, or rested
from the exciting toil in panting abandonment upon some cushioned
settle! and many inquired of themselves, could it be possible that
an exterior so divine should be the tenement of a harsh, worldly
spirit--that a demeanor and an air so frank, so cordial, and so warm,
should be but the deceptive veil that hid a selfish, cold, bad heart.
Ay, many asked themselves that question on that day, but not one
answered his own question candidly or truly--no! not one man!--for in
her presence he had been more or less than mortal, who could pronounce
his sentence unmoved by the attractions of her outward seeming.
For Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been but three short months before
affianced as the bride of the young Baron de La-Hirè--the bravest and
best of Henry’s youthful nobles. It had been a love-treaty--no matter
of shrewd bartering of hearts--no cold and worldly convenance--but the
outpouring, as it seemed, of two young spirits, each warm and worthy
of the other!--and men had envied him, and ladies had held her more
fortunate in her high conquest, than in her rank, her riches, or her
beauties; and the world had forgotten to calumniate, or to sneer, in
admiration of the young glorious pair, that seemed so fitly mated.
Three little months had passed--three more, and they had been made
one!--but in the interval Charles de La-Hirè, obedient to his king’s
behest, had buckled on his sword, and led the followers of his house to
the Italian wars. With him, scarcely less brave, and, as some thought,
yet handsomer than he, forth rode upon his first campaign, Armand de
Laguy, his own orphaned cousin, bred like a brother on his father’s
hearth; and, as Charles well believed, a brother in affection. Three
little months had passed, and, in a temporary truce, Armand de Laguy
had returned alone, leading the relics of his cousin’s force, and
laden with the doleful tidings of that cousin’s fall upon the field of
honor. None else had seen him die, none else had pierced so deeply into
the hostile ranks; but Armand had rushed madly on to save his noble
kinsman, and failing in the desperate attempt, had borne off his reward
in many a perilous wound. Another month, and it was whispered far and
near, that Marguerite had dried her tears already; and that Armand
de Laguy had, by his cousin’s death, succeeded, not to lands and to
lordships only, but to the winning of that dead cousin’s bride. It had
been whispered far and near, and now the whisper was proved true. For
on this festive day young Armand, still pale from the effects of his
exhausting wounds, and languid from loss of blood, appeared in public
for the first time, not in the sable weeds of decent and accustomed wo,
but in the gayest garb of a successful bridegroom--his pourpoint of
rose-colored velvet strewn thickly with seed-pearl and broideries of
silver, his hose of rich white silk, all slashed and lined with cloth
of silver, his injured arm suspended in a rare scarf of the lady’s
colors, and, above all, the air of quiet confident success with which
he offered, and that lovely girl received, his intimate attentions,
showed that for once, at least, the tongue of rumor had told truth.
Therefore men gazed in wonder--and marvelled as they gazed, and
half condemned!--yet they who had been loudest in their censure
when the first whisper reached their ears of so disloyal love, of
so bold-fronted an inconstancy, now found themselves devising many
an excuse within their secret hearts for this sad lapse of one so
exquisitely fair. Henry himself had frowned, when Armand de Laguy
led forth the fair betrothed, radiant in festive garb and decked
with joyous smiles--but the stern brow of the offended prince had
smoothed itself into a softer aspect, and the rebuff which he had
determined--but a second’s space before--to give to the untimely
lovers, was frittered down into a jest before it left the lips of the
repentant speaker.
The day was well-nigh spent--the evening banquet had been spread,
and had been honored duly--and now the lamps were lit in hall, and
corridor, and bower; and merrier waxed the mirth, and faster wheeled
the dance. The company were scattered to and fro, some wandering in
the royal gardens, which overspread at that day most of the Isle de
Paris; some played with cards or dice; some drank and revelled in the
halls; some danced unwearied in the grand saloons; some whispered
love in ladies’ ears in dark sequestered bowers--and of these last
were Marguerite and Armand--a long alcove of thick green boughs, with
orange-trees between, flowering in marble vases, and myrtles, and a
thousand odorous trees, mingling their perfumed shadows, led to a
lonely bower, and there alone, in the dim starlight--alone indeed! for
they might now be deemed as one, sat the two lovers. One fair hand of
the frail lady was clasped in the bold suitor’s right, while his left
arm, unconscious of its wound, was twined about her slender waist;
her head reclined upon his shoulder, with all its rich redundancy of
ringlets floating about his neck and bosom, and her eyes, languid
and suffused, fondly turned up to meet his passionate glances. “And
can it be,” he said, in the thick broken tones that tell of vehement
passion, “and can it be that you indeed love Armand? I fear, I fear,
sweet beauty, that I, like Charles, should be forgotten, were I, like
Charles, removed: for him thou didst love dearly, while on me never
didst thou waste thought or word.”
“Him--never, Armand, never!--by the bright stars above us--by the great
gods that hear us--I never--never _did_ love Charles de La-Hirè--never
did love man, save thee, my noble Armand. False girlish vanity and
pique led me to toy with him at first; now to my sorrow I confess
it--and when thou didst look coldly upon me, and seemedst to woo dark
Adeline de Courcy, a woman’s vengeance stirred up my very soul, and
therefore to punish thee, whom only did I love, I well nigh yielded up
myself to torture by wedding one whom I esteemed indeed and honored,
but never thought of for one moment with affection; wilt thou believe
me, Armand?”
“Sweet angel, Marguerite!” and he clasped her to his hot, heaving
breast, and her white arms were flung about his neck, and their lips
met in a long fiery kiss.
Just in that point of time--in that soft melting moment--a heavy hand
was laid quietly on Armand’s shoulder--he started, as the fiend sprang
up, revealed before the temper of Ithuriel’s angel weapon--he started
like a guilty thing from that forbidden kiss.
A tall form stood beside him, shrouded from head to heel in a dark
riding-cloak of the Italian fashion; but there was no hat on the
stately head, nor any covering to the cold stern impassive features.
The high broad forehead as pale as sculptured marble, with the dark
chestnut curls falling off parted evenly upon the crown--the full,
fixed, steady eye, which he could no more meet than he could gaze
unscathed on the meridian sun, the noble features, sharpened by want
and suffering and wo--were all! all those of his good cousin.
For a moment’s space the three stood there in silence--Charles de
La-Hirè reaping rich vengeance from the unconquerable consternation
of the traitor! Armand de Laguy bent almost to the earth with shame
and conscious terror! and Marguerite half dead with fear, and scarcely
certain if indeed he who stood before her were the man in his living
presence, whom she had vowed to love for ever; or if it were but the
visioned form of an indignant friend returned from the dark grave to
thunderstrike the false disturbers of his eternal rest.
“I am in time”--he said at length, in accents slow and unfaltering
as his whole air was cold and tranquil--“in time to break off this
monstrous union!--Thy perjuries have been in vain, weak man; thy
lies are open to the day. He whom thou didst betray to the Italian’s
dungeon--to the Italian’s dagger--as thou didst then believe and
hope--stands bodily before thee.”
A long heart-piercing shriek burst from the lips of Marguerite, as
the dread import of his speech fell on her sharpened fears--the man
whom she _had_ loved--_first_ loved!--for all her previous words were
false and fickle--stood at her side in all his power and glory--and she
affianced to a liar, a base traitor--a foul murderer in his heart!--a
scorn and byword to her own sex--an object of contempt and hatred to
every noble spirit!
But at that instant Armand de Laguy’s pride awoke--for he _was_ proud,
and brave, and daring!--and he gave back the lie, and hurled defiance
in his accuser’s teeth.
“Death to thy soul!” he cried; “’tis thou that liest, Charles! Did
I not see thee stretched on the bloody plain? did I not sink beside
thee, hewed down and trampled under foot, in striving to preserve thee?
And when my vassals found me, wert thou not beside me--with thy face
scarred, indeed, and mangled beyond recognition--but with the surcoat
and the arms upon the lifeless corpse, and the sword in the cold hand?
’Tis thou that liest, man!--’tis thou that, for some base end, didst
conceal thy life, and now wouldst charge thy felonies on me; but ’twill
not do, fair cousin! The king shall judge between us! Come, lady”--and
he would have taken her by the hand, but she sprang back as though a
viper would have stung her.
“Back, traitor!” she exclaimed, in tones of the deepest loathing; “I
hate thee--spit on thee--defy thee! Base have I been myself, and frail,
and fickle; but, as I live, Charles de La-Hirè--but as I live now, and
will die right shortly--I knew not of this villany! I did believe thee
dead, as that false murtherer swore--and--God be good to me!--I did
betray thee dead; and now have lost thee living! But for thee, Armand
de Laguy--dog! traitor! villain! knave!--dare not to look upon me any
more; dare not address me with one accent of thy serpent-tongue! for
Marguerite de Vaudreuil, fallen although she be, and lost for ever, is
not so all abandoned as, knowing thee for what thou art, to bear with
thee one second longer--no! not though that second could redeem all the
past, and wipe out all the sin--”
“Fine words, fine words, fair mistress! but on with me thou
shalt!”--and he stretched out his arm to seize her, when, with a
perfect majesty, Charles de La-Hirè stepped in and grasped him by the
wrist, and held him for a moment there, gazing into his eye as though
he would have read his soul; then threw him off with a force that
made him stagger back ten paces before he could regain his footing.
Then, then, with all the fury of the fiend depicted on his working
lineaments, Armand unsheathed his rapier and made a full longe,
bounding forward as he did so, right at his cousin’s heart; but he
was foiled again--for with a single, and, as it seemed, slight motion
of the sheathed broadsword which he held under his cloak, Charles de
La-Hirè struck up the weapon, and sent it whirling through the air to
twenty paces’ distance.
Just then there came a shout, “The king! the king!”--and, with the
words, a glare of many torches, and with his courtiers and his guard
about him, the monarch stood forth in offended majesty.
“Ha! what means this insolent broil? What men be these who dare draw
swords within the palace precincts?”
“_My_ sword is sheathed, sire,” answered De La-Hirè, kneeling before
the king, and laying the good weapon at his feet--“nor has been ever
drawn, save at your highness’ bidding, against your highness’ foes. But
I beseech you, sire, as you love honesty and honor, and hate deceit and
treason, grant me your royal license to prove Armand de Laguy recreant,
base, traitorous, a liar, and a felon, and a murtherer, hand to hand,
in the presence of the ladies of your court, according to the law of
arms and honor!”
“Something of this we have heard already,” replied the king, “Baron de
La-Hirè. But say out, now: of what accuse you Armand de Laguy? Show but
good cause, and thy request is granted; for I have not forgot your good
deeds in my cause against our rebel Savoyards and our Italian foemen.
Of what accuse you Armand de Laguy?”
“That he betrayed me, wounded, into the hands of the duke of Parma;
that he dealt with Italian bravos to compass my assassination; that by
foul lies and treacherous devices he has trained from me my affianced
bride; and last, not least, deprived her of fair name and honor. This
will I prove upon his body, so help me God and my good sword!”
“Stand forth and answer to his charge, De Laguy--speak out! what sayest
thou?”
“I say,” answered Armand, boldly--“I say that he lies! that he did
feign his own death, for some evil ends, and did deceive me, who would
have died to succor him; that I, believing him dead, have won from him
the love of this fair lady, I admit--but I assert that I did win it
fairly, and of good right; and, for the rest, I say he lies doubly when
he asserts that she has lost fair name or honor! This is _my_ answer,
sire; and I beseech you grant _his_ prayer, and let us prove our words,
as gentlemen of France, and soldiers, forthwith, by singular battle!”
“Amen!” replied the king. “The third day hence, at noon, in the
tiltyard, before our court, we do adjudge the combat--and this fair
lady be the prize of the victor!--”
“No, sire!” interposed Charles de La-Hirè, again kneeling; but before
he had the time to add a second word, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, who had
stood all the while with her hands clasped, and her eyes riveted upon
the ground, sprang forth with a great cry.
“No! no! for God’s sake! no! no! sire--great king--good
gentleman--brave knight! doom me not to a fate so dreadful. Charles
de La-Hirè is all that man can be of good, or great, or noble; but I
betrayed him, whom I deemed dead, and he can never trust me living!
Moreover, if he would take me to his arms, base as I am and most
false-hearted, he should not; for God forbid that my dishonor should
blight his noble fame. As for the slave De Laguy--the traitor and low
liar--doom me, great monarch, to the convent or the block, but curse me
not with such contamination! for, by the heavens I swear, and by the
God that rules them, that I will die by my own hand before I wed that
serpent!”
“Be it so, fair one,” answered the king, very coldly, “be it so; we
permit thy choice--a convent or the victor’s bridal bed shall be thy
doom, at thine own option! Meanwhile, your swords, sirs: until the hour
of battle ye are both under our arrest. Jarnac, be thou godfather to
Charles de La-Hirè; Nevers, do thou like office for De Laguy.”
“By God, not I, sire!” answered the proud duke. “I hold this man’s
offence so rank, his guilt so palpable, that, on my conscience, I think
your royal hangman were his best godfather!”
“Nevertheless, De Nevers, it shall be as I say! This bold protest of
thine is all-sufficient for thine honor; and it is but a form! No
words, duke! it must be as I have said! Joyeuse, escort this lady to
thy duchess; pray her accept of her as the king’s guest, until this
matter be decided. The third day hence at noon, on foot, with sword and
dagger, with no arms of defence or vantage; the principals to fight
alone, until one die or yield--and so God shield the right!”
CHAPTER II.
It was a clear, bright day in the early autumn, when the royal
tiltyard, on the Isle de Paris, was prepared for a deadly conflict.
The tilt-yard was a regular, oblong space, enclosed with stout,
squared palisades, and galleries for the accommodation of spectators,
immediately in the vicinity of the royal residence of the Tournelles,
a splendid Gothic structure, adorned with all the rare and fanciful
devices of that rich style of architecture. At a short distance thence
rose the tall, gray towers of Nôtre Dame, the bells of which were
tolling minutely the dirge for a passing soul.
From one of the windows of the palace a gallery had been constructed,
hung with rich crimson tapestry, leading to a long range of seats,
cushioned and decked with arras, and guarded by a strong party of
gentlemen in the royal livery, with partisans in their hands, and
sword and dagger at the belt. At either end of the list was a tent
pitched: that at the right of the royal gallery a plain marquee of
canvass, of small size, which had apparently seen much service,
and been used in real warfare. The curtain which formed the door
of this was lowered, so that no part of the interior could be seen
from without; but a parti-colored pennon was pitched into the ground
beside it, and a shield suspended from the palisades, emblazoned with
bearings, which all men knew to be those of Charles Baron de La-Hirè,
a renowned soldier in the late Italian wars, and the challenger in the
present conflict. The pavilion at the left, or lower end, was of a
widely-different kind--of the very largest sort then in use, completely
framed of crimson cloth, lined with white silk, festooned and fringed
with gold, and all the curtains looped up to display a range of massive
tables, covered with snow-white damask, and loaded with two hundred
covers of pure silver! Vases of flowers and flasks of crystal were
intermixed upon the board with tankards, flagons, and cups and urns of
gold, embossed and jewelled; and behind every seat a page was placed,
clad in the colors of the counts de Laguy. A silken curtain concealed
the entrance of an inner tent, wherein the count awaited the signal
that should call him to the lists.
Strange and indecent as such an accompaniment would be deemed
now-a-days to a solemn, mortal conflict, it was then deemed neither
singular nor monstrous; and in this gay pavilion Armand de Laguy, the
challenged in the coming duel, had summoned all the nobles of the court
to feast with him, after he should have slain--so confident was he of
victory--his cousin and accuser, Charles Baron de La-Hirè.
The entrances of the tiltyard were guarded by a detachment of the
king’s sergeants, sheathed cap-à-pie in steel, with shouldered
arquebuses and matches ready lighted. The lists were strewn with
sawdust, and hung completely with black serge, save where the royal
gallery afforded a strange contrast by its rich decorations to the
ghastly draperies of the battle-ground. One other object only remains
to be noticed: it was a huge block of black oak, dinted in many places
as if by the edge of a sharp weapon, and stained with plashes of dark
gore. Beside this frightful emblem stood a tall, muscular, gray-headed
man, dressed in a leathern frock and apron, stained like the block
with many a gout of blood, bare-headed and bare-armed, leaning upon a
huge two-handed axe, with a blade of three feet in breadth. A little
way aloof from these was placed a chair, wherein a monk was seated--a
very aged man, with a bald head and beard as white as snow--telling his
beads in silence until his ministry should be required.
The space around the lists and all the seats were crowded well-nigh to
suffocation by thousands of anxious and attentive spectators; and many
an eye was turned to watch the royal seats, which were yet vacant, but
which it was well known would be occupied before the trumpet should
sound for the onset. The sun was now nearly at the meridian, and the
expectation of the crowd was at its height, when the passing-bell
ceased ringing, and was immediately succeeded by the accustomed peal
announcing the hour of high noon. Within a moment or two, a bustle was
observed among the gentlemen-pensioners; then a page or two entered the
royal seats, and, after looking about them for a moment, again retired.
Another pause of profound expectation, and then a long, loud blast of
trumpets followed from the interior of the royal residence; nearer it
rang and nearer, till the loud symphonies filled every ear and thrilled
to the core of every heart: and then the king--the dignified and noble
Henry--entered with all his glittering court, princes, and dukes,
and peers, and ladies of high birth and matchless beauty, and took
their seats amid the thundering acclamations of the people, to witness
the dread scene that was about to follow, of wounds, and blood, and
butchery!
All were arrayed in the most gorgeous splendor--all except one, a
girl of charms unrivalled (although she seemed plunged in the deepest
agony of grief) by the seductive beauties of the gayest. Her bright,
redundant auburn hair was all dishevelled; her long, dark eyelashes
were pencilled in distinct relief against the marble pallor of her
colorless cheeks; her rich and rounded form was veiled, but not
concealed, by a dress of the coarsest serge, black as the robes of
night, and thereby contrasting more the exquisite fairness of her
complexion. On her all eyes were fixed--some with disgust, some with
contempt, others with pity, sympathy, and even admiration. That girl
was Marguerite de Vaudreuil--betrothed to either combatant; the
betrayed herself, and the betrayer; rejected by the man whose memory,
when she believed him dead, she had herself deserted; rejecting, in her
turn, and absolutely loathing him whose falsehood had betrayed her into
the commission of a yet deeper treason--Marguerite de Vaudreuil, lately
the admired of all beholders, now the prize of two kindred swordsmen,
without an option save that between the bed of a man she hated and the
lifelong seclusion of the convent.
The king was seated; the trumpets flourished once again, and at the
signal the curtain was withdrawn from the tent-door of the challenger,
and Charles de La-Hirè stepped calmly out on the arena, followed by his
godfather, De Jarnac, bearing two double-edged swords of great length
and weight, and two broad-bladed poniards. Charles de La-Hirè was
very pale and sallow, as if from ill health or from long confinement,
but his step was firm and elastic, and his air perfectly unmoved and
tranquil. A slight flush rose to his pale cheek as he was greeted by
an enthusiastic cheer from the people, to whom his fame in the wars
of Italy had much endeared him; but the flush was transient, and in a
moment he was as pale and cold as before the shout which hailed his
entrance. He was clad very plainly in a dark, morone-colored pourpoint,
with vest, trunk-hose, and nether socks of black-silk netting,
displaying to admiration the outlines of his lithe and sinewy frame. De
Jarnac, his godfather, on the contrary, was very foppishly attired with
an abundance of fluttering tags, and ruffles of rich lace, and feathers
in his velvet cap.
These two had scarcely stood a moment in the lists, before, from the
opposite pavilion, De Laguy and the duke de Nevers issued, the latter
bearing, like De Jarnac, a pair of swords and daggers. It was observed,
however, that the weapons of De Laguy were narrow, three-cornered
rapier-blades and Italian stilettoes; and it was well understood
that on the choice of the weapons depended much the result of the
encounter--De Laguy being renowned above any gentleman in the French
court for his skill in the science of defence, as practised by the
Italian masters; while his antagonist was known to excel in strength
and skill in the management of all downright soldierly weapons, in
coolness, in decision, presence of mind, and calm, self-sustained
valor, rather than in sleight and dexterity. Armand de Laguy was
dressed sumptuously--in the same garb, indeed, which he had worn at the
festival whereon the strife arose which now was on the point of being
terminated, and for ever!
A few moments were spent in deliberation between the godfathers of the
combatants, and then it was proclaimed by De Jarnac that “the wind
and sun having been equally divided between the two swordsmen, their
places were assigned, and that it remained only to decide upon the
choice of the weapons: that the choice should be regulated by a throw
of the dice, and that with the weapons so chosen they should fight
until one or other should be _hors de combat_; but that in case that
either weapon should be bent or broken, the seconds should cry, ‘Hold!’
and recourse be had to the other swords; the use of the poniard to be
optional, as it was to be used only for parrying, and not for striking;
that either combatant striking a blow or thrusting after the utterance
of the word ‘hold,’ or using the dagger to inflict a wound, should be
dragged to the block and die the death of a felon!”
This proclamation made, dice were produced, and De Nevers winning the
throw for Armand, the rapiers and stilettoes which he had selected
were produced, examined carefully, and measured, and delivered to the
kindred foemen.
It was a stern and fearful sight; for there was no bravery nor show
in their attire, nor aught chivalrous in the way of battle. They had
thrown off their coats and hats, and remained in their shirt-sleeves
and under-garments only, with napkins bound about their brows, and
their eyes fixed each on the other’s with intense and terrible
malignity.
The signal was now given, and the blades were crossed, and on the
instant it was seen how fearful was the advantage which De Laguy had
gained by the choice of weapons; for it was with the utmost difficulty
that Charles de La-Hirè avoided the incessant longes of his enemy,
who, springing to and fro, stamping, and writhing his body in every
direction, never ceased for a moment with every trick of feint, and
pass, and flourish, to thrust at limb, face, and body, easily parrying
himself with the poniard, which he held in his left hand, the less
skilful assaults of his enemy. Within five minutes the blood had
been drawn in as many different places, though the wounds were but
superficial, from the sword-arm, the face, and thigh of De La-Hirè,
while he had not as yet pricked ever so lightly his formidable enemy.
His quick eye, however, and firm, active hand, stood him in stead, and
he contrived in every instance to turn the thrusts of Armand so far at
least aside as to render them innocuous to life. As his blood, however,
ebbed away, and as he knew that he must soon become weak from the loss
of it, De Jarnac evidently grew uneasy, and many bets were offered that
Armand would kill him without receiving so much as a scratch himself.
And now Charles saw his peril, and determined on a fresh line of
action. Flinging away his dagger, he altered his position rapidly,
so as to bring his left hand toward De Laguy, and made a motion with
it as if to grasp his sword-hilt. He was immediately rewarded by a
longe, which drove clear through his left arm close to the elbow-joint,
but just above it. De Jarnac turned on the instant deadly pale, for
he thought all was over; but he erred widely, for De La-Hirè had
calculated well his action and his time, and that which threatened to
destroy him proved, as he meant it, his salvation: for as quick as
light, when he felt the wound, he dropped his own rapier, and grasping
Armand’s guard with his right hand, he snapped the blade short off in
his own mangled flesh, and bounded five feet backward, with the broken
fragment still sticking in his arm.
“Hold!” shouted each godfather on the instant; and at the same time De
La-Hirè exclaimed, “Give us the other swords, give us the other swords,
De Jarnac!”
The exchange was made in a moment: the stilettoes and the broken
weapons were gathered up, and the heavy horse-swords given to the
combatants, who again faced each other with equal resolution, though
now with altered fortunes. “Now, De La-Hirè,” exclaimed De Jarnac, as
he put the well-poised blade into his friend’s hand, “you managed that
right gallantly and well: now fight the quick fight, ere you shall
faint from pain and bleeding!”
And it was instantly apparent that such was indeed his intention. His
eye lightened, and he looked like an eagle about to pounce upon his
foe, as he drew up his form to its utmost height, and whirled the
long new blade about his head as though it had been but a feather.
Far less sublime and striking was the attitude and swordmanship of
De Laguy, though he too fought gallantly and well. But at the fifth
pass, feinting at his head, Charles fetched a long and sweeping blow
at his right leg, and, striking him below the ham, divided all the
tendons with the back of the double-edged blade; then, springing in
before he fell, plunged his sword into his body, that the hilt knocked
heavily at his breast-bone, and the point came out glittering between
his shoulders! The blood flashed out from the deep wound, from nose,
and ears, and mouth, as he fell prostrate; and Charles stood over him,
leaning on his avenging weapon, and gazing sadly into his stiffening
features. “Fetch him a priest,” exclaimed De Nevers, “for by my halydom
he will not live ten minutes!”
“If he live five,” cried the king, rising from his seat, “if he live
five, he will live long enough to die upon the block; for he lies there
a felon and convicted traitor, and by my soul he shall die a felon’s
doom! But bring him a priest quickly.”
The old monk ran across the lists, and raised the head of the dying
man, and held the crucifix aloft before his glazing eyes, and called
upon him to repent and to confess, as he would have salvation.
Faint and half-choked with blood, he faltered forth the words--“I
do--I do confess guilty--oh! doubly guilty!--Pardon, O God!--Charles!
Marguerite!”--and as the words died on his quivering lips, he sank
down, fainting with the excess of agony.
“Ho, there!--guards, headsman!” shouted Henry; “off with him--off with
the villain to the block, before he die an honorable death by the sword
of as good a knight as ever fought for glory!”
Then De La-Hirè knelt down beside the dying man, and took his hand in
his own and raised it tenderly, while a faint gleam of consciousness
kindled the pallid features--“May God as freely pardon thee as I do, O
my cousin!” Then turning to the king--
“You have admitted, sire, that I have served you faithfully and
well. Never yet have I sought reward at your hand: let this now be
my guerdon. Much have I suffered: even thus let me not feel that my
king has increased my sufferings by consigning one of my blood to the
headsman’s blow. Pardon him, sire, as I do, who have the most cause of
offence; pardon him, gracious king, as we will hope that a King higher
yet shall pardon him and us, who be all sinners in the sight of his
all-seeing eye!”
“Be it so,” answered Henry; “it never shall be said of me that a French
king refused his bravest soldier’s first claim upon his justice! Bear
him to his pavilion.”
And they did bear him to his pavilion, decked as it was for revelry and
feasting; and they laid him there, ghastly, and gashed, and gory, upon
the festive board, and his blood streamed among the choice wines, and
the scent of death chilled the rich fragrance of the flowers! An hour,
and he was dead who had invited others to triumph over his cousin’s
slaughter; an hour, and the court-lackeys shamefully spoiled and
plundered the repast which had been spread for nobles!
“And now,” continued Henry, taking the hand of Marguerite, “here is
the victor’s prize! Wilt have him, Marguerite?--’fore Heaven, but he
has won thee nobly! Wilt have her, De La-Hirè?--methinks her tears and
beauty may yet atone for fickleness produced by treasons such as his
who now shall never more betray, nor lie, nor sin, for ever!--”
“Sire,” replied De La-Hirè, very firmly, “I pardon her; I love her
yet!--but I wed not dishonor!”
“He is right,” said the pale girl, “he is right, ever right and
noble; for what have such as I to do with wedlock? Fare thee well,
Charles--dear, honored Charles! The mists of this world are clearing
away from mine eyes, and I see now that I loved thee best--thee only!
Fare thee well, noble one! forget the wretch who has so deeply wronged
thee--forget me, and be happy. For me, I shall right soon be free!”
“Not so, not so,” replied King Henry, misunderstanding her meaning;
“not so, for I have sworn it, and though I may pity thee, I may not be
forsworn. To-morrow thou must to a convent, there to abide for ever!”
“And that will not be long,” answered the girl, a gleam of her old
pride and impetuosity lighting up her fair features.
“By Heaven, I say for ever!” cried Henry, stamping his foot on the
ground angrily.
“And I reply, not long!”
CHAPTER III.
A cold and dark northeaster, had swept together a host of straggling
vapors and thin lowering clouds over the French metropolis--the course
of the Seine might be traced easily among the grotesque roofs and
Gothic towers which at that day adorned its banks, by the gray ghostly
mist which seethed up from its sluggish waters--a small fine rain was
falling noiselessly, and almost imperceptibly, by its own weight as it
were, from the surcharged and watery atmosphere--the air was keenly
cold and piercing, although the seasons had not crept far as yet
beyond the confines of the summer. The trees, for there were many in
the streets of Paris, and still more in the fauxbourgs and gardens of
the haute noblesse, were thickly covered with white rime, as were the
manes and frontlets of the horses, the clothes, and hair, and eyebrows
of the human beings who ventured forth in spite of the inclement
weather. A sadder and more gloomy scene can scarcely be conceived than
is presented by the streets of a large city in such a time as that I
have attempted to describe. But this peculiar sadness was, on the day
of which I write, augmented and exaggerated by the continual tolling
of the great bell of St. Germains Auxerrois, replying to the iron din
which arose from the gray towers of Nôtre Dame. From an early hour
of the day the people had been congregating in the streets and about
the bridges leading to the precincts of the royal palace, the Chateau
des Tournelles, which then stood--long since obliterated almost from
the memory of men--upon the Isle de Paris, the greater part of which
was covered then with the courts, and terraces, and gardens of that
princely pile.
Strong bodies of the household troops were posted here and there
about the avenues and gates of the royal demesne, and several large
detachments of the archers of the prevôt’s guard--still called so from
the arms which they had long since ceased to carry--might be seen
everywhere on duty. Yet there were no symptoms of an émeute among
the populace, nor any signs of angry feeling or excitement in the
features of the loitering crowd, which was increasing every moment
as the day waxed toward noon. Some feeling certainly there was--some
dark and earnest interest, as might be judged from the knit brows,
clinched hands, and anxious whispers which everywhere attended the
exchange of thought throughout the concourse--but it was by no means
of an alarming or an angry character. Grief, wonder, expectation, and
a sort of half-doubtful pity, as far as might be gathered from the
words of the passing speakers, were the more prominent ingredients of
the common feeling, which had called out so large a portion of the
city’s population on a day so unsuited to any spectacle of interest.
For several hours this mob, increasing as it has been described from
hour to hour, varied but little in its character, save that as the
day wore it became more and more respectable in the appearance of
its members. At first it had been composed almost without exception
of artisans and shop-boys, and mechanics of the lowest order, with
not a few of the cheats, bravoes, pickpockets, and similar ruffians,
who then as now formed a fraternity of no mean size in the Parisian
world. As the morning advanced, however, many of the burghers of the
city, and respectable craftsmen, might be seen among the crowd; and a
little later many of the secondary gentry and petite noblesse, with
well-dressed women and even children, all showing the same symptoms
of sad yet eager expectation. Now, when it lacked but a few minutes
of noon, long trains of courtiers with their retinues and armed
attendants, many a head of a renowned and ancient house, many a warrior
famous for valor and for conduct might be seen threading the mazes of
the crowded thoroughfares toward the royal palace.
A double ceremony of singular and solemn nature was soon to be enacted
there--the interment of a noble soldier, slain lately in an unjust
quarrel, and the investiture of an unwilling woman with the robes
of a holy sisterhood preparatory to her lifelong interment in that
sepulchre of the living body--sepulchre of the pining soul--the convent
cloisters. Armand de Laguy!--Marguerite de Vaudreuil!
Many circumstances had united in this matter to call forth much
excitement, much grave interest in the minds of all who had heard
tell of it!--the singular and wild romance of the story, the furious
and cruel combat which had resulted from it--and last not least, the
violent, and, as it was generally considered, unnatural resentment
of the king toward the guilty victim who survived the ruin she had
wrought.
The story was, in truth, then, but little understood. A thousand rumors
were abroad, and of course no one accurately true; yet in each there
was a share of truth, and the amount of the whole was perhaps less wide
of the mark than is usual in matters of the kind. And thus they ran:
Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been betrothed to the youngest of France’s
famous warriors, Charles de La-Hirè, who after a time fell--as it
was related by his young friend and kinsman Armand de Laguy--covered
with wounds and honor. The body had been found outstretched beneath
the survivor, who, himself desperately hurt, had alone witnessed and
in vain endeavored to prevent his cousin’s slaughter. The face of
Charles de La-Hirè, as all men deemed the corpse to be, was mangled
and defaced so frightfully as to render recognition by the features
utterly hopeless; yet, from the emblazoned surcoat which it bore, the
well-known armor on the limbs, the signet-ring upon the finger, and
the accustomed sword clinched in the dead right hand, none doubted the
identity of the body, or questioned the truth of Armand’s story.
Armand de Laguy, succeeding by his cousin’s death to all his lands
and lordships, returned to the metropolis, and mixed in the gayeties
of that gay period, when all the court of France was revelling in the
celebration of the union of the dauphin with the lovely Mary Stuart, in
after-days the hapless queen of Scotland.
He wore no decent and accustomed garb of mourning. He suffered no
interval, however brief--due to decorum at least, if not to kindly
feeling--to elapse, before it was announced that Marguerite de
Vaudreuil, the dead man’s late betrothed, was instantly to wed his
living cousin! Her wondrous beauty, her all-seductive manners, her
extreme youth, had in vain pleaded against the general censure of the
court--the world. Men had frowned on her for a while, and women sneered
and slandered; but after a little while, as the novelty of the story
wore away, the indignation against her inconstancy ceased, and she was
once again installed the leader of the court’s unwedded beauties.
Suddenly, on the very eve of her intended nuptials, Charles de La-Hirè
returned!--ransomed, as it turned out, by Brissac, from the Italian
dungeons of the prince of Parma, and making fearful charges of treason
and intended murder against Armand de Laguy. The king had commanded
that the truth should be proved by a solemn combat; had sworn to
execute upon the felon’s block whichever of the two should yield or
confess falsehood; had sworn that the inconstant Marguerite--who,
on the return of De La-Hirè, had returned instantly to her former
feelings, asserting her perfect confidence in the truth of Charles, the
treachery of Armand--should either wed the victor, or live and die the
inmate of the most rigorous convent in his realm.
The battle had been fought yesterday! Armand de Laguy fell, mortally
wounded by his wronged cousin’s hand, and with his latest breath
declared his treasons, and implored pardon from his king, his kinsman,
and his God--happy to perish by a brave man’s sword, not by a headman’s
axe. And Marguerite, the victor’s prize--rejected by the man she had
betrayed--herself refusing, even if he were willing, to wed with him
whom she could but dishonor--had now no option save death or the
detested cloister.
And now men pitied--women wept--all frowned, and wondered, and kept
silence. That a young, vain, capricious beauty--the pet and spoiled
child from her very cradle of a gay and luxurious court, worshipped
for her charms like a second Aphrodite, intoxicated with the love of
admiration--that such a one should be inconstant, fickle--should swerve
from her fealty to the dead--a questionable fealty always--and be won
to a rash second love by the falsehood and treasons of a man young,
and brave, and handsome--falsehood which had deceived wise men--that
such should be the course of events, men said, was neither strange nor
monstrous! It was a fault, a lapse, of which she had been guilty--which
might indeed make her future faith suspected, which would surely
justify Charles de La-Hirè in casting back her proffered hand--but
which at the worst was venial, and deserving no such doom as the
soul-chilling cloister.
She had, they said, in no respect participated in the guilt or shared
the treacheries of Armand. On the contrary, she, the victim of his
fraud, had been the first to denounce, to spit at, to defy him.
Moreover, it was understood that, although De La-Hirè had refused
her hand, several of equal and even higher birth than he had offered
to redeem her from the cloister by taking her to wife of their free
choice. Jarnac had claimed the beauty, and it was whispered that the
duke de Nevers had sued to Henry vainly for the fair hand of the
unwilling novice.
But the king was relentless. “Either the wife of De La-Hirè, or the
bride of God in the cloister!” was his unvarying reply. No further
answer would he give--no disclosure of his motives would he make,
even to his wisest councillors. Some, indeed, augured that the good
monarch’s anger was but feigned, and that, deeming her sufficiently
punished already, he was desirous still of forcing her to be the bride
of him to whom she had been destined, and whom she still, despite her
brief inconstancy, unquestionably worshipped in her heart; for all men
still supposed that at the last Charles would forgive the hapless girl,
and so relieve her from the living tomb that even now seemed yawning to
enclose her. But others--and they were those who understood the best
mood of France’s second Henry--vowed that the wrath was real; and felt
that, though no man could fathom the cause of his stern ire, he never
would forgive the guilty girl, whose frailty, as he swore, had caused
such strife and bloodshed.
But now it was high noon; and forth filed from the palace-gates a
long and glittering train--Henry and all his court, with all the rank
and beauty of the realm, knights, nobles, peers and princes, damsels
and dames--the pride of France and Europe. But at the monarch’s
right walked one, clad in no gay attire--pale, languid, wounded, and
warworn--Charles de La-Hirè, the victor. A sad, deep gloom o’ercast his
large dark eye, and threw a shadow over his massy forehead. His lip
had forgot to smile, his glance to lighten; yet was there no remorse,
no doubt, no wavering in his calm, noble features--only fixed, settled
sorrow. His long and waving hair of the darkest chestnut, evenly parted
on his crown, fell down on either cheek, and flowed over the broad,
plain collar of his shirt, which, decked with no embroidery-lace, was
folded back over the cape of a plain black pourpoint, made of fine
cloth indeed, but neither laced nor passemented, nor even slashed
with velvet; a broad scarf of black taffeta supported his weapon--a
heavy, double-edged, straight broadsword--and served at the same time
to support his left arm, the sleeve of which hung open, tied in with
points of riband; his trunk-hose and nether stocks of plain black
silk, black velvet shoes, and a slouched hat, with neither feather nor
cockade, completed the suit of melancholy mourning which he wore.
In the midst of the train was a yet sadder sight--Marguerite de
Vaudreuil, robed in the snow-white vestments of a novice, with all her
glorious ringlets flowing in loose redundance over her shoulders and
her bosom, soon to be cut close by the fatal scissors--pale as the
monumental stone, and only not as rigid. A hard-featured, gray-headed
monk supported her on either hand; and a long train of priests swept
after, with crucifix, and rosary, and censer.
Scarcely had this strange procession issued from the great gates of
Les Tournelles--the death-bells tolling still from every tower and
steeple--before another train, gloomier yet and sadder, filed out from
the gate of the royal tiltyard, at the farther end of which stood
a superb pavilion. Sixteen black Benedictine monks led the array,
chanting the mournful _Miserere_. Next behind these (strange contrast!)
strode on the grim, gaunt form, clad in his blood-stained tabard, and
bearing full displayed his broad, two-handed axe--fell emblem of his
odious calling--the public executioner of Paris. Immediately in the
rear of this dark functionary, not borne by his bold captains, nor
followed by his gallant vassals with arms reversed and signs of martial
sorrow, but ignominiously supported by the grim-visaged ministers of
the law, came on the bier of Armand, the last count de Laguy.
Stretched in a coffin of the rudest material and construction, with his
pale visage bare, displaying still in its distorted lines and sharpened
features the agonies of mind and body which had preceded his untimely
dissolution, the bad but haughty noble was borne to his long home in
the graveyard of Nôtre Dame. His sword, broken in twain, was laid
across his breast, his spurs had been hacked from his heels by the base
cleaver of the scullion, and his reversed escutcheon was hung above his
head.
Narrowly saved by his wronged kinsman’s intercession from dying by the
headman’s weapon ere yet his mortal wounds should have let out his
spirit, he was yet destined to the shame of a dishonored sepulchre.
Such was the king’s decree--alas! inexorable.
The funeral-train proceeded; the king and his court followed. They
reached the graveyard, hard beneath those superb gray towers!--they
reached the grave, in a remote and gloomy corner, where, in
unconsecrated earth, reposed the executed felon. The priests attended
not the corpse beyond the precincts of that unholy spot; their solemn
chant died mournfully away; no rites were done, no prayers were said
above the senseless clay, but in silence was it lowered into the ready
pit--silence disturbed only by the deep, hollow sound of the clods that
fell fast and heavy on the breast of the guilty noble! For many a day
a headstone might be seen--not raised by the kind hands of sorrowing
friends, nor watered by the tears of kinsmen, but planted there to tell
of his disgraceful doom--amid the nameless graves of the self-slain,
and the recorded resting-places of well-known thieves and felons. It
was of dark-gray freestone, and it bore these brief words--brief words,
but in that situation speaking the voice of volumes:--
“Ci git Armand,
Le dernier Comte de Laguy.”
Three forms stood by the grave--stood till the last clod had been
heaped upon its kindred clay, and the dark headstone planted: Henry the
king; and Charles the baron de La-Hirè; and Marguerite de Vaudreuil.
And as the last clod was flattened down upon the dead--after the stone
was fixed--De La-Hirè crossed the grave to the despairing girl, where
she had stood gazing with a fixed, rayless eye on the sad ceremony, and
took her by the hand, and spoke so loud that all might hear his words,
while Henry looked on calmly, but not without an air of wondering
excitement:--
“Not that I did not love thee,” he said, “Marguerite! Not that I did
not pardon thee thy brief inconstancy, caused as it was by evil arts of
which we will say nothing now--since he who plotted them hath suffered
even above his merits, and is, we trust, now pardoned! Not for these
causes, nor for any of them, have I declined thine hand thus far; but
that the king commanded, judging it in his wisdom best for both of us.
Now Armand is gone hence; and let all doubt and sorrow go hence with
him! Let all your tears, all my suspicions, be buried in his grave for
ever! I take your hand, dear Marguerite--I take you as mine honored and
loved bride--I claim you mine for ever!”
Thus far the girl had listened to him, not blushingly, nor with a
melting eye, nor with any sign of renewed hope or rekindled happiness
in her pale features--but with cold, resolute attention. But now she
put away his hand very steadily, and spoke with a firm, unfaltering
voice.
“Be not so weak!” she said; “be not so weak, Charles de La-Hirè--nor
fancy me so vain! The weight and wisdom of years have passed above
my head since yester morning: then was I a vain, thoughtless girl;
now am I a stern, wise woman! That I have sinned, is very true--that
I have betrayed thee, wronged thee! It may be, had you spoke pardon
yesterday--it might have been all well! It may be it had been
dishonor in you to take me to your arms; but if to do so had been
dishonor yesterday, by what is it made honor now? No! no! Charles de
La-Hirè--no! no! I had refused thee yesterday, hadst thou been willing
to redeem me, by self-sacrifice, then, from the convent-walls; I had
refused thee then, with love warming my heart toward thee--in all
honor! Force me not to reject thee _now_ with scorn and hatred. Nor
dare to think that Marguerite de Vaudreuil will owe to man’s compassion
what she owes not to love! Peace, Charles de La-Hirè!--I say, peace! my
last words to thee have been spoken, and never will I hear more from
thee! And now, Sir King, hear thou--may God judge between thee and me,
as thou hast judged! If I _was_ frail and fickle, nature and God made
woman weak and credulous--but made man _not_ wise, to deceive and ruin
her. If I sinned deeply against this baron de La-Hirè, I sinned not
knowingly, nor of premeditation! If I sinned deeply, more deeply was
I sinned against--more deeply was I left to suffer--even hadst thou
heaped no more brands upon the burning! If to bear hopeless love--to
pine with unavailing sorrow--to repent with continual remorse--to
writhe with trampled pride!--if these things be to suffer, then, Sir
King, had I enough suffered without thy _just_ interposition!” As she
spoke, a bitter sneer curled her lip for a moment; but as she saw Henry
again about to speak, a wilder and higher expression flashed over all
her features: her form appeared to distend, her bosom heaved, her eye
glared, her ringlets seemed to stiffen, as if instinct with life.
“Nay!” she cried, in a voice clear as the strain of a silver
trumpet--“nay, thou shalt hear me out! And thou didst swear yesterday
I should live in a cloister-cell for ever! and I replied to thy words
then, ‘Not long!’ I have thought better now; and now I answer, ‘NEVER!’
Lo here! lo here! ye who have marked the doom of Armand--mark now the
doom of Marguerite! Ye who have judged the treason, mark the doom of
the traitress!”
And with the words, before any one could interfere, even had they
suspected her intentions, she raised her right hand on high--and all
then saw the quick twinkle of a weapon--and struck herself, as it
seemed, a quick, slight blow immediately under the left bosom! It
seemed a quick, slight blow! but it had been so accurately studied--so
steadily aimed and fatally--that the keen blade, scarcely three inches
long and very slender, of the best of Milan steel, with nearly a third
of the hilt, was driven home into her very heart. She spoke no syllable
again, nor uttered any cry!--nor did a single spasm contract her pallid
features, a single convulsion distort her shapely limbs; but she
leaped forward, and fell upon her face, quite dead, at the king’s feet!
Henry smiled not again for many a day thereafter. Charles de La-Hirè
died very old, a Carthusian monk of the strictest order, having mourned
sixty years and prayed in silence for the sorrows and the sins of that
most hapless being.
THE VASSAL’S WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
The early sun was shining on as beautiful a morning of the merry month
of May as ever lover dreamed or poet sang, over a gentle pastoral scene
in the sunny land of France. It was a little winding dale between
soft, sloping hills, covered with the tenderest spring verdure, and
dotted with small brakes and thickets of hawthorn and sweet-brier; the
former all powdered over, as if by a snowstorm, with their sweet, white
blossoms, and the others exhaling their aromatic perfume from every
dew-spangled bud and leaflet.
To the right hand the narrow dale widened gradually as it took its
way--worn, doubtless, in past days by the waters of the noisy brooklet
which flowed along its bottom over a bed of many-colored pebbles, among
thickets of willow, alder, and hazel--toward a broad and beautiful
valley, through which flowed the majestic volume of a great, navigable
river. To the left it decreased in width, and ascended rapidly between
steep banks to the spring-head of the rivulet, a clear, cold well,
covered by a canopy of Gothic architecture rudely chiselled in red
sandstone.
Above this the gorge of the ravine--for into such the dell here
degenerated--was thickly overshadowed by a grove of old tufted
oak-trees, which might well have rung to the brazen trumpets of the
Roman legions, and echoed the wild war-whoops of the barbarous Gauls
in the days of the first Cæsar. Sheltered and half-concealed by these,
there stood a very small, old-fashioned chapel, in the earliest and
rudest style of Norman architecture, exhibiting the short, massive,
clustered columns and round-headed arches of that antique style. It
had never spire or tower; but on the summit of the steep, peaked roof
there was a little crypt or vaulted canopy, supported by four columns,
and containing a bell proportioned to the dimensions of the humble
village-chapel.
The larger valley presented all the usual beauties of rural landscape
scenery at that remote and unscientific day, when lands were
principally laid down in pasture, and husbandry consisted mainly in the
tending of flocks and herds. There were wide expanses of common ground,
dotted here and there with few arable fields now green as the pastures
with their young crops of wheat and rye; there were woodlands bright
in their new greenery, and apple-orchards, glowing with their fragrant
blossoms. There were scattered farmhouses among the orchards; and an
irregular hamlet scattered along a yellow road in the foreground,
among shadowy elm-trees, all festooned with vines; and far off, on the
farthest slope on the verge of the horizon, the towers and pinnacles of
a tall, castellated building towered above the grand and solemn woods,
which probably composed the chase of some feudal seigneur.
The little dale which I have described was traversed by two separate
ways: one, a regular road, so far as any roads of the fourteenth
century could be called regular, and adapted for horses and such rude
vehicles as the age and the country required; the other, a narrow,
winding foot-path, following the bends of the rivulet, which the other
crossed by a picturesque wooden bridge, at about five hundred yards
below the well-head and the chapel.
At the moment when my tale commences, the doors of the chapel were
thrown wide open, and the little bell was tinkling with a merry chime
that harmonized well with the gay aspect of nature--the music of the
rejoicing birds which were filling the air with their glee, and the
lively ripple of the stream fretting over its pebbly bed.
As if summoned by the joyous cadence of the bells, a numerous party was
now seen coming up the foot-path by the edge of the rivulet, apparently
from the hamlet in the larger valley, wending their way toward the
chapel. It needed but a glance to discover the occasion. It was a
bridal-procession, headed by the gray-haired village priest in full
canonicals, and some of the elders of the village.
Behind these, lightly tripped six young girls, dressed in white,
with crowns of May-flowers on their heads, and garlands of the same
woven like scarfs across their bosoms. They were all singularly
pretty, having been chosen probably for their beauty from among their
playmates: they had all the rich, dark hair, flowing in loose ringlets
down their backs; the fine, expressive, dark eyes; the peach-like
bloom on the sunny cheeks, and the ripe, red lips, which constitute
the peculiar beauty which is almost characteristic of the south of
France. Each of these fair young beings carried on her arm a light
wicker basket, filled with the bright field-flowers of that sunny land
and season--the purple violet, the rich jonquil, and pale narcissus,
the many-colored crocuses from the mead, the primrose from the
hedgerow-bank, the lily of the valley from the cool, shadowy grove--and
strewed them, as they passed along, before the footsteps of the bride;
chanting, as they did so, in the quaint old Gascon tongue, the bridal
strain:--
“The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,
So fair a bride shall leave her home,
Should blossom, should bloom with garlands gay,
So fair a bride shall pass to-day!”
After these, followed by her bridesmaids, the bride stepped daintily
and demurely along, the acknowledged beauty of the village, happy, and
bright, and innocent--the young bride Marguerite.
Her hair was of the very deepest shade of brown--so dark, that at
first thought you would have deemed it black; but when you looked
again, you discovered, by the absence of the cold, metallic gloss
upon its wavy surface, and by the rich, warm hue with which it glowed
under the sunlight, what was its true color. Her forehead was not very
high, but broad and beautifully formed, and as smooth as ivory; while
her arched eyebrows showed as black as night, and as soft and smooth
as though they had been stripes of sable Genoa velvet. Her nose, if
not absolutely faultless--for it had the slight upward turn which
was so charming in Roxabara--added an arch and sprightly expression
to features which were otherwise passive and voluptuous rather than
mirthful; but her eyes, her eyes were wonderful--like to no eyes on
earth that have ever met my gaze, save thine, incomparable----, which
still shine upon my soul, though long unseen, and far away, never,
never to be forgotten!--not star-like, but like wells of living,
loving, languid lustrousness--brown of the deepest shade, filled with a
humid, rapturous tenderness, yet brighter than the brightest, but with
a soft, voluptuous, luminous brightness; not flashing, not sparkling,
but penetrating and imbuing the beholder with love at once and magic
light. They were fringed, too, with lashes so long and dark, that,
when her lids were lowered, they showed like fringes of raven-hued
silk against the delicate blush of her round cheek. Her mouth, though
perhaps rather wide, was exquisitely shaped, with the arched upper lip
and full, pouting lower lip, of the color of the ripe clove-carnation,
that woos the kiss so irresistibly; with teeth as bright as
mother-of-pearl, and a breath sighing forth sweeter than Indian summer.
Such was the face of Marguerite, the bride of that May morning; nor was
her form inferior to it. Modelled in the fullest and roundest mould
that is consistent with symmetry and grace, her figure was the very
perfection, the beau-ideal of voluptuous, full-blown, yet youthful
womanhood. The broad, falling shoulders; the fully-developed, glowing
bust, swelling into twin hills of panting snow; the round, shapely
arms, bare to the shoulder; the graceful and elastic waist; the rich
curve of the arched hips, and the wavy outlines of her lower limbs,
suggesting, by the rustling folds of her draperies as she walked the
dewy greensward like a queen, the beauty of their unseen symmetry:
these, combined with the exquisite features, the singular expression
uniting, what would appear to be incongruous and contradictory, much
roguish archness, something that was almost sensual in the wreathed
smile, and yet withal the most perfect modesty and innocence,
rendered Marguerite, the May-bride of Castel de Roche d’or, one of
the loveliest, if not the very loveliest creature that ever walked to
church with her affianced lover in that fair land of France.
She wore, like her bridesmaids--who, all pretty girls, were utterly
eclipsed by her radiant beauty--a May-wreath on her head, and a large
bouquet of fresh violets on the bosom of her low-cut white dress, which
was looped up at one side with bunches of narcissus and violets, to
show an under-skirt of pale peach-colored silk, the tints of which
showed faintly through the thin draperies of her tunic; but, unlike
them, she wore a long gauze veil, intertwined with silver threads,
floating down among her luxuriant tresses, below her shapely waist.
Never was there seen in that region a lovelier, a purer, or a happier
bride. Immediately behind the bridesmaids, supported in his turn by
an equal number of tall, sinewy, well-formed youths, dressed in their
best attire, half-agricultural, half-martial, as feudal vassals of
their lord, bound to man-service in the field, came on the stalwart
bridegroom. He was a tall, athletic, well-made man of twenty-nine or
thirty years, erect as a quarter-staff, yet showing in every motion
an elastic pliability and grace, which, although in reality the mere
result of nature, appeared to be the consequence either of innate
gentility or of long usance to the habits of the upper classes.
His complexion was that of the south--rich, sunny olive, without a
tinge of color in the clear, dark cheek; his hair black as the raven’s
wing, and his eyes of that wild, fiery shade of black which perhaps
indicates a taint of Moorish blood. His features were very regular, and
very calm in their regularity, though there was nothing pensive nor
anything very grave in their expression. It was the calmness of latent
passions, not the calmness of controlling principles--the stillness
which precedes the thunderburst, not the stillness of the subsident and
overmastered storm: for the firmly-compressed lips, the square outlines
of the hard, massive jaw, the immense muscular development of the neck,
and the deeply-indented frown between the eyebrows, intersecting a
furrow crossing the forehead from brow to brow, would have indicated
at once to the physiognomist that Maurice Champrèst was a man of
the fiercest and most fiery energy and passions, concealed but not
controlled--existing perhaps unsuspected, but utterly unchecked by any
principle--and certain to start into a blaze at the first spark that
should enkindle them.
His dress was the usual attire of a man in his station at the period,
though of finer materials than was ordinary, consisting of a dark
forest-green gambison, or short tunic of fine cloth, not very different
in form from the blouse of the modern Frenchman, gathered about his
waist by a broad belt of black leather, fastened in front by a brazen
buckle, and supporting on one side a heavy, buckhorn-hilted wood-knife,
and on the other a large pouch or purse of black cordovan, bound
with silver; his hose were of the same color with the tunic, fitting
close to the shapely thigh, and above these he wore long boots of
russet-tawny leather. His black hair fell in two heavy clubs or masses
over each ear, nearly to the collar of his doublet, from beneath the
cover of a small cap of black velvet, set jauntily on one side, and
adorned with a single white-cock’s feather.
His appearance on the whole, though he was very far inferior in regard
of personal beauty to the exquisite creature whom he was so soon to
call his wife, was manly and imposing; while the character of his
dress and equipments, as well as the decorations of Marguerite and her
attendant maidens, showed at once that they were all of a quality and
station to the serfs employed in the cultivation of the lands of the
great seigneurs, and indeed to that of the ordinary armed vassals and
feudal tenants of the day.
In truth, Maurice Champrèst was not only the richest farmer, but the
highest military vassal under the fief of Raoul de Canillac, the
marquis of Roche d’or, his ancestor having been banner-bearer to the
first lord of the name, and his people having held and cultivated the
same farm for many a century, bound only to homage and free man-service
in the field under the banner of his lord, to which in war he was held
to bring five spearsmen and as many archers in full bodynge, as it was
then technically termed, and effeyre-of-war. He was, in short, though
not noble, nor what could be exactly termed a gentleman, of the very
highest of feudal territorial vassals, not far removed from the class
which were in England designated as franklins, although with fewer
privileges and smaller real freedom, France having always been more
rigidly feudal than the neighboring island, owing to the absence of
the large admixture of Saxon blood and Saxon liberty, the latter of
which soon began to preponderate in the white-rocked isle of ocean.
His beautiful bride Marguerite, though not his equal in birth--for her
grandfather and grandmother, nay, her father himself, in his early
youth, had been serfs--was a free-born and a gently-nurtured woman;
the old people having been manumitted and presented with a few acres
of land, in consequence of the gallantry with which he had rescued
the then seigneur of Roche d’or, when unhorsed and at the mercy of
the German communes at the bloody battle of Bovines, stricken between
Philip the August and his rebellious barons.
This event had taken place years before the birth of Marguerite, and
in fact when her father was a mere stripling; and, as her mother was a
woman of free lineage, neither serf nor villeyn, she was, of course,
beyond the reach of cavil. Nay, more than this, the unusual courage
of the old man on that dreadful day, and the consideration always
manifested toward him by the then marquis and his immediate successor,
had won for him a far higher standing than was usually accorded to
manumitted serfs by the class next above them. Her family, moreover, in
both the last generations, had prospered in worldly wealth, for the old
serf was shrewd and wary, had hoarded money, and increased the extent
of his rural demesne, till Marguerite, who was an only daughter, was
not only a beauty but an heiress; and probably, with the exception of
her husband, would be, on the death of her parents, the richest person
in the hamlet. She had received, moreover, advantages at that period
very unusual indeed; for having, when a mere child, attracted the
attention of the late marchioness de Canillac by her grace, her beauty,
and the artless _naïveté_ of her manners, she had been selected to
attend, rather as a companion than a servant, on Mademoiselle de Roche
d’or, a girl a few years her senior.
The young lady had become much attached to Marguerite, and on being
sent to a convent in the principal town of the department for her
education, as was usual, had obtained permission that Marguerite
might attend her still; so that the young peasant had enjoyed all
the advantages of mental culture granted to the high-born damsel;
had profited by them to the utmost; and had parted from her orphaned
mistress only when, after the death of her parents, she was removed
with her brother, the present marquis, to the guardianship of their
next relative, the prince of Auvergne. In the meantime, while the
marquis and his sister had breathed the atmosphere of courts and large
cities, far away from their native province, Marguerite had returned
to the humble home of her parents which she had filled with happiness
by the light of her loving eyes, and the harmonies of her soft, low
voice; had expanded from the bud into the full-blown flower, admired
and beloved of all; had burst from the frail and graceful girl into the
exquisite and complete woman; and, having long been loved of Maurice
Champrèst, and bestowed upon him all the tenderness and truth of her
maiden affections, was now about to surrender her hand also to him unto
whom she had been during the whole of the last year affianced.
And now, with pipe and tabor, with the old, time-honored bridal-chorus,
with flowers scattered along the way, and garlands swinging from the
hedgerows by which she was to pass, and decorating the rude pillars and
stern arches of the old Gothic church in which she was to wed, with all
the village in her train, carolling and rejoicing at so suitable, so
sweet a bridal, Marguerite, the bride of May, was led to the ceremony
that should of the twain make one for ever and for ever, of which the
word of God himself declared that whom he hath united no man shall put
asunder.
Merrily, with louder strains and blither minstrelsey, they wound up the
little dell among the oaks, paused for a moment at the rustic fount to
cross their brows with its holy waters, and entered the low portals of
the village-chapel. The bells ceased tinkling; the brief ceremony was
performed by the old priest who had baptized them both; the hand of the
down-eyed, blushing bride, still sparkling and smiling amid her happy,
soft confusion, was placed in the ardent grasp of Maurice, and she was
now her own no longer, but a wedded wife.
She was wept over, blessed, caressed, and kissed, by half the company,
and many a fervent prayer was breathed for the happiness, the complete
and perfect bliss of Marguerite, the bride of May--alas for human hopes
and the vain prayers of mortals!--and then, while the bells struck up
a livelier, louder chiming, and the bride-maidens trolled the chorus
forth more cheerily--
“The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom,
So fair a bride shall leave her home,
Should blossom, should bloom with garlands gay,
So fair a bride shall pass to-day!”--
with many a manly voice swelling more lustily the nuptial cadence,
they passed the little green descending to the horse-road, Marguerite
clinging now to his supporting arm and looking tenderly up into his
with eyes suffused with happy tears and cheeks radiant with dimpled
smiles and rosy blushes.
But at the moment when the bridal-train was wheeling down toward the
road, and had now nearly reached the point of its intersection with
the foot-path, the loud and noisy trampling of many horses, and the
jingling clash of the harness of armed riders, was distinctly heard
above the swelling chorus of the hymenean, above the chiming of the
wedding-bells; and within a few seconds, two or three horsemen crossed
the brow of the eastern hill, at a gentle trot, and were followed by
a company of some fifty men-at-arms, under the guidance of an old
officer, whose beard and hair, as white as snow, fell down over his
gorget from beneath the small, black-velvet cap, which alone covered
his head, for his helmet hung at his saddle-bow. The troopers were all
armed point-device, in perfect steel, with long, pennoned lances in
their hands, two-handed broadswords slung across their shoulders from
the left to the right, and battle-axe and mace depending on this side
or that from the pommels of their steel-plated saddles. Their horses,
too--strong, powerful brutes of the Norman stock, crossed with some
lighter strain of higher blood--were barded, as it was termed, with
chamfronts and neck-plates, poitrels on the breast, and the bards
proper covering the loins and croup; and all were arrayed under a
broad, square banner, blazoned, as if every eye of the bridal-party
could at once distinguish, with the bearings of the lords of Castel de
Roche d’or.
No sooner had they discovered this, than they halted, and formed a line
along the edge of the road, anxious to testify their respect to their
young lord--who now, recently of age, was returning, after years of
absence, from the château of his guardian--and eager to observe the
passage of the cavalcade.
The persons who led the approaching band were three in number, two
of whom rode a few horse-lengths in advance of the third, and were
evidently of rank superior to the rest; while something seemed to
indicate, though it was indefinite, and not very obvious how far it did
so, that even between these two there subsisted no perfect equality.
He to the left was the elder by many years; a finely-formed and not
ill-favored man, of some forty-five or fifty years; magnificently
apparelled in a suit of rich half-armor, with russet-leather boots
meeting the taslets or thigh-pieces at the knee; accoutred with heavy
gilded spurs, and wearing on his head a crimson-velvet mortier, adorned
by a massive gold chain, and a lofty plume of white feathers.
And he it was, who, although in his outward show he was the more
splendid--though he bestrode his steed with an air of pride so
manifest, that you might have fancied he bestrode the universe--though
he addressed all his inferiors with intolerable haughtiness, and
appeared to look upon all his equals as inferiors--yet, by his demeanor
toward the youth who reined his Arab courser by his side, and by his
almost servile watching of his every motion, and lowering his voice at
his every word, appeared to be oppressed in his presence by a sense of
the utmost unworthiness, and scarcely to hold himself entitled to have
an opinion of his own until sanctioned by that of the young marquis de
Roche d’or.
The features of this man were certainly well-favored rather than the
reverse--for the brow, the eyes, the outlines, were all good; and yet
the expressions they assumed, as he was moved by varying passions,
were so odious and detestable, that on a nearer view, a close observer
would probably have styled him hideous, and avoided his advances.
Pride, of the haughtiest and most intolerant form, would at one time
writhe his lip and deform his every lineament; at another, it would
yield to the basest, the most abject servility. Cruelty alone sat fixed
and permanent in the thick, massive, animal jaw, the low and somewhat
receding forehead, and the oblique glances of the cold, clear, gray
eye; but sensuality, and sneering sarcasm, and utter want of veneration
or belief for anything high or holy, had left their hateful traces
in the lines about his mouth and nostrils: nor were these odious,
ineradicable signs of an atrocious character redeemed by the evident
presence of high intellect and pervading talents, for that intellect
was of a shrewd, keen, cunning caste, and was in no wise akin to
anything of an imaginative, a noble, or a virtuous type.
Such was the appearance, such the aspect, of a man renowned in his
day far and wide through France, but renowned for evil only. Such
was _Canillac le fou_--a soubriquet which he had won throughout his
province, for the insane, frantic, and unnatural vice and crime which
had marked his whole career from boyhood. Canillac the madman!--and
with good reason did the vassals of the old house of Roche d’or
shrink upon themselves, and draw instinctively one toward the other,
like wild-fowl when they see the shadow of the soaring falcon, with
a foreboding of peril near at hand, when they beheld this fierce,
voluptuous, pitiless monster--whose favorite boast it was that he had
never spared a woman in his passion, nor a man in his hatred--riding
at the bridle-rein of their young lord, as his chosen friend and
companion, and probably as the arbiter of his pleasures, instigator of
his vices!
And of a truth they had good cause to shrink and tremble, an’ had they
but then known that which was even now impending, to curse the very
hour in which he or they were born--he to inflict, they to endure the
last, worst outrages of feudal tyranny and wrong!
But they as yet knew nothing, nor, save instinctively, foreboded
anything; but he, with his keen, furtive, ever-roving glances, noted
(what none less sly, suspicious, and acute, would have suspected) the
secret and intuitive horror with which the peasantry of Castel de Roche
d’or regarded him, and vowed at once within his secret soul that they
should have good cause to curse him, and that speedily.
His comrade, the young marquis, was, to the outward eye, a very
different personage. Having barely reached his twenty-first year, he
was as graceful and finely-framed a youth as ever sat a charger. His
face, too, was very fine and regular, with the large, liquid, dark
eyes, and deep, clear, olive tint, which are so common in the south of
France. His hair was black as the raven’s wing, with the same purplish,
metallic lustre gleaming over its glossy surface, and fell in long,
wavy, uncurled masses over the collar of the quilted gambison of
rose-colored silk, which he wore under a shirt of flexible chain-mail,
polished so brilliantly, that it flashed and sparkled in the morning
sunbeams like a network of diamonds.
The ordinary expression of his countenance was grave, calm, and
melancholy; yet it was impassive and cold, rather than thoughtful and
imaginative, while there was an occasional flashing light in the sleepy
eye, and a gleam of almost fierce intelligence in all the features,
and a strange, animal curl of the pale lips, which seemed to tell that
there lurked beneath that cold exterior a volcano of fierce and fiery
passions, ready at any instant to leap into life, and consume whosoever
should oppose his will.
The keen observer of humanity would have pronounced him one cold,
rather than collected; selfish at once, and careless of the rights
and happiness of others; sluggish, perhaps, and difficult to arouse,
but, once aroused, impetuous, and of indomitable will--truly a fearful
combination!
When the company had arrived within thirty or forty paces of the
bridal-party, the villagers threw up their caps into the air, and
raised a loud and joyous exclamation--“Vive Canillac! vive Canillac!
Vive le beau marquis de Roche d’or!”--and, for the moment, the boy’s
face lighted up with a gleam of warm and honest feeling--gratification
at the welcome of his people, and something of real sympathy with their
condition.
But just as he had determined to ride forward and return their kindly
greeting with words of cheer and promise of protection, the young and
fiery Arab on which he was mounted, terrified by the shoutings, and the
caps tossed into the air, reared bolt upright, made a prodigious bound
forward, and then, wheeling round, yerked out his heels violently, and
dashed away with such fury, that before the young rider, who sat as
firmly in his saddle as though he had been a portion of the animal,
could arrest him, they were almost among the men-at-arms.
The whole passed in a minute; but that minute was of fearful import
to many there assembled, many both innocent and guilty. Even in
the point of time when the wild horse was plunging forward to the
bridal-party, the young lord’s eye, undiverted by the sense of his own
keen peril, had fallen upon the lovely face and exquisite symmetry of
the fair bride, who, moved by a timid apprehension for the safety of
the handsome cavalier, leaned forward a little way in front of her
young companions, with clasped hands and cheeks blanched somewhat by
sympathetic fear and pity.
The blood rushed in a torrent to his cheek, and remained settled
there in a red, hectic spot; a fierce, unnatural light gleamed from
his glassy eye, and his lip curled with an odious smile. A volume of
fierce passions rushed over his soul, overpowering in an instant all
his better characteristics. He was determined, in that instant, by that
one glance, to possess her, reckless what misery and madness he might
cause--reckless of all things, human or Divine!
And, whether the disembodied fiend, who, we are taught to believe, is
ever ready at such moments of temptation to urge the incipient sinner
on to deeper crime and ruin, did spur his wicked will or not--there was
a human, sneering, tempting fiend, who, as he rode beside him, read his
inmost soul in every look and gesture, and spared nothing of allurement
to excite him onward on that fell road of evil passions which should
insure his subjugation to his own sins and their readiest minister.
“Ha! what is this?” exclaimed the young man, almost angrily, as he
pulled up his violent horse, at length, beside the aged seneschal;
“what is this, Michael Rubempré--or who am I, that my villeyns and
serfs wed at their will, without my consent, or consideration of my
droits and dues?”
“So please you, beau seigneur, these be no serfs,” replied the old man,
bowing low, “but vassals of the highest class, in this your lordship
of Roche d’or--free vassals, beau sire, of the highest class. Your
consent was applied for duly, and granted, in all form, by me, as, in
your absence, by letters of instruction, your representative and agent.
The dues were all paid, and a large present above them, as a donation
to mademoiselle, your sister, on whom the young bride attended, when
she dwelt in the house of the Ursulines, in Clermont.”
Darker and darker grew the brow of the young lord, as he listened; for
he could not fail to perceive the obstacles which were opposed to the
atrocious wrong he meditated. Yet he listened sullenly to the end.
“Ha!” he replied, moodily, “no droits, only dues, and those satisfied!
The worse for them, by heaven and hell, and all who dwell therein!”
He paused a moment, with his hands clinched, and the veins upon his
brow swollen into thick, azure cords, by the rush of the hot blood; and
then resumed, in a low, hissing tone, widely different from his usually
slow and modulated voice:--
“Who be they, Michael Rubempré? I would give half my lands, they could
be proved _serfs_. Can not this be done, Michael?”
“Impossible, beau sire!” replied the old man, firmly, though there was
much of anxiety, and even of alarm, in his eye; “utterly impossible.
The forefathers of Maurice Champrèst came into the lands of Roche d’or
with the first Canillac, and he holds the same farm still, under the
first grant, by tenure of man-service, only on the field of battle. He
is your lordship’s greatest vassal, and brings five spears and as many
crossbows to the banner of Roche d’or, serving himself on horseback.”
“Ha! curses on it! curses on it! And she--who is she! By heaven, she is
the loveliest creature I ever looked upon! Who is she? ha!”
“Her grandfather, beau sire, then a serf--permitted, through the
exigency of the times, to bear arms in the field--saved the life of
your lordship’s grandsire, by taking in his breast the pike-thrust
intended for his lord. For this good deed, he was manumitted, with his
wife and son, who is now a free vassal and a large tenant of Roche
d’or, bringing six crossbows to your banner. Marguerite was selected by
the marquise to wait on Mademoiselle de Canillac de Roche d’or, and was
educated with her, almost as a friend. She is the best girl, too, in
all the village.”
“Ha! so much the worse! Curses on it--twenty thousand curses!”
And he had turned his horse’s head again, to ride on his way,
apparently convinced that for this time, at least, his wicked will
must be balked of its fulfilment; but at this moment, the voice of the
tempter, Canillac the madman--mad in his crimes alone, for his wily and
diverse intellect was clear as that of Catiline, whom he in some sort
resembled--addressed him, calm, yet cutting and sarcastic:--
“What is it that has moved you so much, beau cousin? Methinks your
people’s greeting should enliven, not depress you.”
“Tush!” the young man replied, almost savagely; “tush! You are no fool,
Canillac!”
“Not much, I think; though they do call me _Canillac le fou_! But what
then, what then, beau cousin?”
“Did you not see her? did you not see her, Canillac? As I hope to live
before God, she is the loveliest piece of woman’s flesh I ever looked
upon! I would give--I would give half my lands, half my life, that I
had droits seignorial over her; but I have dues, dues only, and they
are satisfied. She is free--a free woman of her own right, and can not
be mine.”
“Were I you, cousin, and I so desired her as you do, she _should_ be
mine, ere nightfall!”
“How so? how so?” asked the young man, sharply. “Did I not tell you she
is free--free--that I have no droits over her, and do you tell me I can
make her mine?”
“What if she be? She is but a peasant-wench--one of the mere
_canaille_. I would regard her squalling no more than a kitten’s
mewing; nay, rather I would glory in it, for I am sick to death of your
complaisant beauties. Besides, she is _not_ free, if she was born while
her father was a serf, unless she was named in the deed of manumission.”
“But she must have been born years afterward. Look at her, man: she
could not have been born in my grandfather’s time.”
“Deny that she is free. Have her up with us to the castle, now. Hold
her there as a hostage, till she be proven free. If you be not aweary
of her, ere the week is ended, I will find twenty men who shall swear
she was born in the days of Sir Noah in the ark, if it be needful.” And
he laughed scornfully.
“By Heaven, I will not weary of her in a week of years! But it is well
advised. I will essay it.”
“Essay nothing: do it! Promise to hold her in all honor. Promises cost
no man anything, nor oaths either, for that matter, which is fortunate;
for, by mine honor, she is fitter to be a prince’s paramour than a
_Jacque’s_ wife. So forward!”
And, with the word, they galloped forward, and pausing exactly in front
of the bride, who stood between her husband and the priest--shrinking
with modesty and terror from the ardent and licentious gaze which he
riveted on her glowing charms--he began to rate the latter for daring
to wed a serf-girl to a free vassal without his lord’s consent, and the
former for presuming to defraud his seigneur of his droits.
In vain the good curate explained and expostulated; in vain twenty
oaths were proffered by contemporaries of the girl’s grandsire, that
she was free; in vain the husband tendered security, and offered rich
donations; in vain the village-maidens grovelled before the young
lord’s charger’s hoofs, and clasped his knees in an agony of fruitless
supplication! The wrong was predetermined; the wronger was a strong
man, armed; and how should humble innocence prevail against the might
which makes the right, where violence is masterful, and law its abject
servitor?
To make a sad tale short, Raoul de Canillac announced his determination
to carry her up to the castle presently, and hold her there in trust,
until such time as a “court-baron” could be held to decide on the
question of her manumission. He plighted his knightly word, however,
his honor, as a peer of France, that she should be treated with all
tenderness, as one who had waited on his sister; and returned to her
husband, in all honor, should she be pronounced free: but this on the
condition only that she should render herself freely up and gently,
and go without resistance or complaint. To this he added, that, as an
act of grace and favor, and to prove that he would deal with them in
all faithfulness of honor, he would himself hold court at high noon
to-morrow, at which he cited all his vassals to appear, and enjoined
it on the priest, the parents, and the bridegroom, then and there to
produce the testimonials of her birth or manumission; or, failing that,
to remain for ever mute. Lovely as ever, if not lovelier, paler than
the white lily, and like it drooping when its fair head is surcharged
with dewdrops, and deluged with soft, silent tears, the miserable
Marguerite sank on her husband’s breast in one last, long embrace.
Fire flashed from the dark eyes of Raoul de Canillac, and the blood
literally boiled in his veins, as he saw that lovely form clasped close
by arms other than his own--those lips polluted, as he termed it, by
the kiss of a peasant!
“Enough of this!” he cried. “Set her upon the palfrey--the gray palfrey
we brought down for my sister. You, Amelot de l’Aigle, guide it,” he
continued, “but keep her in the middle of the lances.”
But the wretched girl had fainted; and they were forced to place her on
a cloak, doubled upon the bows of the demipique, in front of the page,
to whose waist she was bound by a silken scarf, to prevent her falling
to the ground. The tears stood in the eyes of the good old seneschal;
and the faces of many of the men-at-arms, who were all of the same
class with the bridegroom, and many of them his comrades and friends,
were dark and sullen. None, however, dared to remonstrate, much less to
resist the authoritative mandate of the feudal tyrant.
No words, however, can express the scene which ensued as the
cavalcade swept onward at a rapid pace, leaving behind them agony,
and desolation, and despair, where all, before their coming, had been
happiness, and innocent, quiet bliss, and hopeful peace! The stifled
wailing of the girls, the silent agony of the hopeless bridegroom,
the deep, scarcely-smothered execrations of the men--it was a scene
as terrible and heart-rending as that which preceded it had been
delightful and cheering to the soul.
At length the priest, raising his arms toward heaven, cried in a low
and plaintive voice--
“My children, let us pray; let us pray to the most high God, that he
will keep our sweet sister Marguerite in innocence and honor, and give
her back to us in happiness and peace. Let us pray!”
And every voice responded of all who heard his words; every voice, save
one, responded, “Let us pray!” and every knee was bent as they bowed
them in a sorrowing circle around their monitor and friend--every knee,
save that of Maurice Champrèst; but he stood erect, and pulled his hat
over his brows, and folded his arms across his chest, and exclaimed, as
the ravishers of his sweet wife wound through the dale into the larger
valley: “Earth has no justice, Heaven no pity! Man has no honor, God
no vengeance!”
But on rode the tyrants, onward--careless of the ruin they had wrought,
ruthless toward the innocence they had determined to destroy; confident
in the puissance of their prowess, and almost defying the thunders of
Heaven, which were even then rolling and muttering far away among the
volcanic peaks of the Mont d’or. Were these the omens of a coming storm?
They reached the esplanade before the castle-gates, and Marguerite was
still unconscious. Happy had she nevermore regained her consciousness!
But as the horses’ hoofs thundered over the echoing drawbridge, the
clang roused her from her swoon. She raised herself up, drew her hand
across her brow, as if to clear away some imaginary mist obscuring her
mental vision, and gazed wildly and hurriedly around her on the strange
objects which met her eyes, as if she had not as yet realized to
herself her condition, nor altogether knew her destination. As she was
carried, however, through the dim, resounding vault of the barbacan,
and heard the grating clang of the portcullis when it thundered down
behind her, a sense of her lost condition flashed upon her soul, and a
voice seemed to whisper in her ear those words of horrible import which
Danté, in after-days, inscribed upon the gates of hell; “On entering
here, leave every hope behind!”
Still she shrieked not, nor wept, nor craved or sympathy or pity; for
too well did she know that the hearts of those to whom she should
appeal were harder, colder than their own iron breastplates; her only
confidence was in her own strenuous virtue, her only hope in Him who
alone can save.
She was lifted from the horse, not only with some show of gentleness,
but even of respect, without receiving word or sign of intelligence
from the young lord of Roche d’or, who strode away, accompanied by
his ill-counsellor, Canillac the madman, toward the banqueting-room,
wherein the noontide meal was prepared already, and where the flower
of the knights and nobles of the province were assembled to welcome the
new-comer. Then she was conducted by the page through several long,
winding passages, to a sort of withdrawing-room, in which she found
several female-servants of the higher class, to the care of one of
whom she was consigned, with a few words of whispered orders, by her
conductor, who bowed low and retired. The girls looked at her for a
moment or two earnestly, inquiringly--eying her gay bridal-dress, so
ill-suited to the mode of her arrival, with an air between suspicion
and sympathy--until, at length, one of them seemed to recognise her,
and exclaimed: “Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! if it be not the fair Marguerite!”
And then, as pity seemed to prevail over all other feelings,
they crowded round her kindly and respectfully; and after a few
kindly-intended but little-meaning words, one of them offered
to conduct her to her appointed chamber, promising to bring her
refreshments shortly, and saying that doubtless she would prefer to
take some repose, and be alone.
Through dark, circuitous passages, vaulted with solid stone, and
ribbed as though they had been hewn out of the living rock, and up
interminable winding stairs, she led her, until her brain whirled
round and round, and her senses were almost bewildered. At length they
reached the topmost story of the huge, square tower, and, opening
a low, arched door, the hapless bride was ushered into a room so
sumptuously furnished as Marguerite had never seen or dreamed of;
and then, with a deep reverence, and a half-compassionate air, the
attendant maiden left her, a prisoner; for she heard the lock turned
from without, and her heart fell at the sound.
The sun, which had turned already toward the westward, was pouring a
rich stream of light through the oriel window, over the tapestried
walls and floor; over the velvet bed in a deep alcove; over the soft
arm-chairs, and central table covered with a splendid carpet, and
strewn with illuminated books, and rich, sculptured cups and vases. But
it was on none of these that the eyes of Marguerite dwelt meaningly;
for, as they wandered over these, half-marvelling amid her terrors at
their beauty, she discerned an oaken _prie-Dieu_, in a small niche
beside the window, with a missal on its embroidered cushion, and a
crucifix with the sacrificed Redeemer looking down from it on the
repentant sinner.
In an instant, she was on her knees before the image of her God,
pouring forth the whole of her innocent and spotless soul, in the
holiest of supplications. She prayed for aid from on high to preserve
her unstained virtue; she prayed for strength from on high to resist
temptation; she prayed for pardon from on high for her sins and errors
past, for grace that she might err no more in future; she prayed that
HE, who alone could pity human suffering--for that he had suffered as
no man suffereth--would touch the hearts of her ruthless persecutors,
through his Virgin Mother; she prayed that he would console her
sorrowing parents, and him whom she scarcely dared think of, so
terrible she knew must be his anguish; lastly, she prayed for pardon
to her persecutor, and that, if she were doomed that night to perish,
her soul might be received to grace, through the intercession of the
saints, and her, the ever-blessed, the Virgin Mother Mary!
Her prayer, if in form it were erroneous, in spirit was sincere and
fervent; and, as sincere and fervent prayers _will_ ever, surely _must_
hers have found a hearing at the throne of mercy, for she arose from
her knees confirmed, if not consoled, and strengthened in her virtuous
principles, and calm by the very strength of her resolves.
Then, opening the oriel window, she stepped out into the little
balcony, or bartizan, which projected out beyond the face of the
wall--perhaps in the hope of finding some means of escape; but, alas!
if such a hope had flattered her, it was delusive; for there was no
egress from it, nor any method of descending; and it impended far over
the broad, deep moat, a hundred feet or more above its dark, clear
waters--which, she remembered to have heard men say, were fifty feet in
depth to the bottom of their rock-hewn channel. Long, long she gazed
over the lovely sunlit valley of her birth, which all lay mapped out
in the glorious glow before her eyes; the happy home among the limes,
beneath which she was born; the happier home of promise, into which she
had hoped that day to be led by him whom she loved the best; the little
chapel in the dell, among the oaks, in which she had plighted, that
very morn, her faith for ever, until death, and death alone, should
dissolve the bonds.
“And death alone,” she exclaimed, as the thoughts swelled upon her
soul, “and death alone shall dissolve them! But I must not look upon
these things--I must not think of him--or my spirit will sink into
utter weakness!” Then she paused, and, leaning over the low breastwork
of the bartizan, looked down with a steady eye into the abyss, and
crossing herself as she rose--“May God assoil my soul, if I be driven
to do this thing, as do it of a surety I will, if otherwise I may not
save my honor!”
Then she returned into the chamber, leaving both lattices of the oriel
open; and seated herself calmly near the window, with her eyes fixed
on the effigy of her dying God, expecting that which should ensue, in
trembling and shuddering of the spirit, it is true, yet in earnest
resignation and fixed purpose.
Ere long, a step approached the door, but it was light and gentle; and,
when the lock was turned, it was the girl who had led her thither,
bearing wine and refreshments on a silver salver: but, though the
attendant pressed her kindly to take comfort and to eat, that she
might be strengthened, she refused all consolation, and only drank a
deep draught of the cold spring-water, to quench the feverish thirst
which parched her very vitals. Seeing at once that the prisoner would
not be consoled, nor enter into any conversation, the maiden bade her
“Good-night, and God speed her!” and added that she believed she would
not be disturbed that night, for the gentles were revelling furiously
in the great hall: and the feast, she believed, would efface all
thought of her.
“God grant that it may be so,” she replied, fervently; “for if I live
scatheless until to-morrow morn, I am free and happy! No court on earth
can dare decide against the testimony we shall show to-morrow.”
But, in His wisdom--we, blind wretches, can not discern, may not
conjecture wherefore--HE did not grant it.
The sunlight faded from the sky, as the great orb went down; and the
stars came out, one by one; and then the moon arose, nigh to the
full, and filled the skies with glory, and the maiden May-bride’s
heart with increasing hope on earth, and gratitude toward Heaven. But
little did she dream that he, she had that morning wedded, lay, even
now, at the verge of the moat, watching her oriel window, with agony
and desperation at his heart; yet so it was. When she stepped on the
bartizan, he had been observing the castle with an angry and jealous
eye from the skirts of the nearest woodland; and, though it was nearly
a mile distant, the lover’s glance of instinct had at once detected the
loved and lovely figure. As the shades of evening closed, and night
fell thick before the moon arose, he had crept up, pace by pace, till
he had reached the brink of the moat, unseen of the warders on the
keep and the flanking walls; and now he lay couched in the rank grass,
almost within reach of his beloved, able to hear every sound--should
sound come forth--from her gentle lips, yet powerless to succor,
impotent to save!
It was now nigh midnight, and Marguerite had begun to frame to herself
a hope that she was indeed forgotten; when suddenly the sound of feet,
coming up the winding stair, aroused her. The sounds were of the feet
of two men: the one, heavy and uncertain, as of a person who had drunk
too deeply; the other light and agile.
She rose to her feet, with her heart throbbing as though it would have
burst her boddice. “The time of my trial hath come! My God, my God, now
aid, or, if need be, forgive thy servant!”
The door flew open, and at the sight hope fled her bosom, if any hope
had so long dwelt within it.
Flushed with wine--inebriate, almost--with his doublet unbraced, and
his points unfastened--with a glowing cheek, a sparkling eye, and an
unsteady gait, Raoul de Canillac stood before her--the page Amelot
bearing a waxen torch before him, which he placed in a candelabrum near
the bed, and that done, retiring.
As the door closed, the young lord moved toward her, while she stood
gazing at him like a deer at bay, with a sad, liquid eye, and the tears
rolling down her cheeks, yet motionless and dauntless.
“Dry thy tears, sweet one,” he exclaimed, “or rather weep on, till
I kiss them from thy cheeks, and replace them by smiles of rapture.
Girl, I adore thee. Be but mine, and I will change thine every bunch of
silly-flowers for gems worth an earl’s ransom; better to be--”
“Seigneur Raoul de Canillac,” she interrupted him, in tones so calm,
that he was compelled to pause and listen--“marquis of Roche d’or,
knight of the Holy Ghost, as you are prince and noble, as you are peer
of France and belted knight, hear me, and spare me! By the soul of your
mother, who was chaste wife to your lordly father! by the honor of your
sister, who is spotless demoiselle! spare _me_, who am at once chaste
wife and spotless maiden! Conquer me you may, perchance, by brute
force; win me, by words, you never can! Nor would I yield to thee one
favor, were death itself the alternative!”
“Brute force, then, be it!” he replied, though, half-awed by her
manner, he advanced no farther; “for, conquer thee I will, if I may
not win thee, though my mother’s soul stood palpable between us, and
my sister’s honor were trampled underneath my feet, as I spring on to
seize thee!”
“False knight, your plighted honor! bad lord, your promised faith!” she
cried, so loud and clear, that her every accent reached the ear and
tore the heart of Maurice Champrèst below.
“Honor!” he shouted, sneeringly; “to the wild winds with honor! Faith!
who kept faith with a woman ever?”
And he dashed at her with a bound so sudden and unexpected, that he
cleared the space between them, and had his arms around her, in an
instant.
She thought that she was lost, and uttered one wild shriek, so long,
so shivering, so thrilling, that not one ear that heard it but felt as
if a lance had pierced it. But virtue gave her strength, as vice and
excess had robbed him of it; and, with a perfect majesty, she thrust
him from her, that he staggered and fell headlong.
One spring, and she had cleared the oriel window; another, and she
stood upon the dizzy brink. “My God, forgive mine enemy! Jesus, receive
my soul!”
She veiled her head with her bridal-veil, and, with her white arms
clasped above it, stooped herself, and plunged headlong!
For one second, there was seen by every eye, within eye-shot, a long,
white gleam, glancing downward through the misty moonlight--
For one second, there was heard by every ear, within ear-shot, a
dreadful, hurtling sound--
And then a sudden plash, and the waters of the moat flashed upward in
the serene moonlight, and closed over the head of chaste, unspotted
Marguerite!
But another plunge followed instantly; and, within one second, she was
drawn forth and clasped in her husband’s arms, shattered and stunned,
and beyond all hope of life, yet still not wholly dead.
A few long minutes passed--minutes as long as years--and then, warmed
into life by the pressure of that fond breast, she revived; her dying
eyes looked into his; she knew him--she was blest!--
“Maurice--I am thine--in death, as in life--thine own, thine own, pure
Marguerite--kiss--kiss me! I am gone--hus-husband!”
And she died, happy--died, may we not trust, forgiven!--
And he howled out a hideous curse against the castle, and against
its lord, and against all whom its guilty walls protected; and then,
bearing his dead bride in his arms, away through the darkness of the
night--away, with a speed mocking the fleet pursuit of horses!
The sunrise of the morrow shone down upon the corpse of Marguerite,
clad in her bridal-veil and marriage-garments, dripping and soiled with
moisture, outstretched upon the very altar before which the preceding
dawn had seen her wedded.
But years elapsed ere Maurice Champrèst was seen again in the hamlet of
Castel de Roche d’or; and, when he was seen there, it was a sorry sight
to many a noble eye, and the very stones cried “Wo!” when the Vassal’s
Wife was avenged on her destroyer.
CHAPTER II.
They were dark and dismal days in the fair land of France. Foreign
invasion was triumphant, domestic insurrection was rife.
The terrible and fatal field of Poictiers, the field of the Black
Prince, had stricken down at a single stroke the might of a great, a
glorious nation; her king a captive in a foreign dungeon; one third of
the best and bravest nobles dead on the field of honor, or languishing
in English fetters; a weak and nerveless regent on her throne; and
Charles, the bad king of Navarre, the counsellor, the nearest to his
ear.
Half of the realm at least was held directly under English sway, with
garrisons of English archers in the towns, and the red-cross banner of
St. George floating above her vanquished towers; and in the provinces,
still nominally French, armies of free companions sweeping the fields
of their harvests far and near, plundering the cottage, pillaging
the castle, levying contributions on open towns, storming by force
strongholds--English, Gascons, and Normans--led for the most part by
men of name and renown--bastards, in many cases, of great and noble
houses, such as the bourg de Maulion, and the bourg de Keranlouet, and
a hundred others of scarcely inferior fame--had subjected the country
scarcely less effectually than it had been done elsewhere by open,
honorable warfare.
To this appalling state of things a fresh horror was now added, where
horror was least needed--and that the most tremendous of all horrors,
a servile insurrection--the sudden, and spontaneous, and victorious
outbreak of ignorant, down-trodden, vicious, cruel, frenzied, and
brutal slaves!
The nobles themselves--who, had they been combined, and acted promptly
and in unison, could have crushed the life out of the insurrection
in a week--divided into hostile parties, dispirited by the wonderful
successes of the victorious English, intimidated and crest-fallen--held
themselves aloof the one from the other; and, attempting to defend
their isolated fortresses singly, without either concert or system,
allowed themselves to be surprised in detail, and butchered upon their
own hearth-stones, by the infuriated serfs.
All horrors, all atrocities that can be conceived, were perpetrated
by the victors, maddened by long years of servitude and suffering, by
deprivation of all the rights and decencies which belong of nature
to every living man, and by the enforcement of droits so infamous
and unnatural, that it is only wonderful how men should have so
long endured them! Not the least galling of these was that feudal
right which permitted the seigneur to compel the virgin bride on her
wedding-day to his own bed, and then return her dishonored to the arms
of her impassive husband--a right which not merely existed in abeyance,
or, as in latter days, was compounded by a fine, but which was an
every-day occurrence, a usage of the land--to enforce which was no
more considered cruel or tyrannical than to collect rents, or tithes,
or any other feudal dues--and which was not finally abolished until
the reign of Louis XIV., when it was at length suppressed in those
memorable assizes, known as the _grands jours d’Auvergne_, when many of
the noblest of the land died by the hands of the common executioner for
tyranny and persecution.
When, therefore, crimes like these, and worse, were perpetrated
daily under the sanction and authority of feudal law; when they had
been endured for years--not, indeed, without feelings of the direst
bitterness and rage, but without loud complaint or general resistance,
by all the serfs and villeyns of the land--what wonder was it that
these miserable, trampled wretches, scarcely human, save in form, from
the squalid wretchedness of their condition, and the studious care
of their oppressors to prevent their progress or improvement--what
wonder, I say, was it, that, seeing at length their opportunity, when
their lords were distracted by foreign conquests, by the devastations
of robber-bands, and by their own political dissensions or social
feuds, they should have sprung to arms everywhere--their cry, “War to
the castle, peace to the cottage!”--seeking redress or revenge, and
braving death willingly, as less intolerable than the wrongs they had
been so long enduring in sullen desperation? What wonder was it, that,
when victorious, they, who never had been spared, should have shown
themselves unsparing; that they, whose hearths had been to them no
safeguards for any sanctity of domestic life, no asylums for any age or
sex, should have wreaked upon the dwellers of the castles the wrongs
which for ages had been the inheritance of the inmates of the cottages;
that they, whose wives and daughters had never found protection from
worse than brutish violence in tender years, in innocence of unstained
virtue, in the weakness of imploring beauty, should have requited,
on the wives and daughters of their tyrants, pollution by pollution,
infamy, and death?
Such, such, alas! is human nature; and rare it is indeed that suffering
at the hands of man teaches man moderation to the sufferers when it
becomes his turn to suffer. Injustice hardens, not melts, the heart;
and we have it, from no less an authority than the word of Him who can
not lie, that “persecution maketh wise men mad”--but, of a surety, the
wretched serfs and _Jacquerie_ were far enough removed from wisdom,
however they might be deemed mad, nor were many of their actions very
far removed from madness. Knights crucified above the altars of their
own castle-chapels, while their wives were dishonored, tortured, and
slain, with all extremities of cruelty, before their eyes; infants
tossed upon pikes, or burnt alive, in the presence of their frantic
mothers; women compelled to eat the flesh of their own husbands,
roasted at their own kitchen-grates ere yet life was extinct; the whole
land filled with blood and ruin, and the smoke of conflagration going
up night and day to the indignant and polluted heavens--these were the
signs of those dark and awful times, these were the first fruits of the
conquered liberty of the emancipated helots of the feudal system!
And when, nerved at length by the very extremity of peril, the nobles
took up arms to make common cause against the common enemy, they
found themselves isolated and hemmed in on all sides, unable to draw
together so as to make head against the countless numbers of the enemy,
which, like the waters of an inundation, increased hourly, and waxed
wider, deeper, stronger, as it rolled onward. Large bodies could not
be collected; small bodies were cut off; till at length so completely
were the proud and warlike nobles of the most warlike land in Europe
cowed and disheartened by the triumph of their despised and degraded
slaves, that fifty men, armed cap-à-pie, and mounted on their puissant
destriers, who would, six months before, have couched their lances
confidently, and ridden scatheless through thousands of the skinclad
Jacquery--trampling them at leisure under the hoofs of their barded
horses, and, invulnerable themselves, spearing them at their will from
their lofty demipiques--now felt their proud hearts tremble at the mere
blast of a peasant’s horn, and fled ingloriously before an equal number
of undisciplined and half-armed serfs!
About the period, however, of which I write, several encounters had
taken place, especially in Touraine, in the Beauvoisis, and the country
about the Seine, between the chivalry and their insurgent villeyns, in
which the former had been worsted, not so much by superior forces as by
superior courage, discipline, and skill. And it came to be rumored far
and near that there was one band, and that the fiercest and most cruel
of all--consisting of above a thousand foot, spears, and crossbow-men,
and led by a powerful man-at-arms, before whose lance everything was
said to go down--at the head of nearly a hundred fully equipped lances,
which was in no respect unequal to the best arrays of the nobility with
their feudal vassals.
What was at first mere rumor, soon came to be accredited--soon came to
be undoubted truth; for, emboldened by their successes from attacking
the parties of chivalry in detail, as they fell upon them traversing
the country in the vain hope of combinations, this great band now began
to sit down before strong towns and fortified holds, to besiege them in
due form of war, and were in every instance successful.
Their numbers, too, increased with their success, for every knight
or man-at-arms who fell, or was taken prisoner, mounted and armed a
peasant; and it was singular to observe with what skill and judgment
the leader apportioned his best spoils to his best men: so that,
developing his resources slowly--never admitting any man to enter his
cavalry who had not approved himself a soldier, who could not ride
well, and charge a lance fearlessly, nor enrolling any one among his
footmen who was not well armed with a corslet or shirt-of-mail, and
steel cap or sallet, with sword, dagger, and pike, or crossbow--he
was soon at the head of two thousand excellent foot, and above three
hundred lances, admirably mounted, who fought under his own immediate
orders.
Who he was, no one knew, or conjectured. It was reported that his own
men were unacquainted with his name, and that his face, when the vizor
of his helmet was raised, was covered by a sable mask. How much of
truth or falsehood there might be in these vague rumors, no man seemed
to know; but it is certain that a mysterious and almost supernatural
terror attached to the “Black Rider,” as he was universally termed,
whenever he was spoken of--a terror which perhaps he took a secret
pleasure in augmenting, either from motives of policy or of pride.
The strong suit of knight’s armor which he wore, of the best Milan
steel, was black as night from the crest to the spur, without relief of
any kind, or device on the shield, or heraldric crest on the burgonet.
The plume which he wore on his casque was similar to those affixed in
modern days to hearses; and another, its counterpart, towered between
the ears of his charger, which was a coal-black barb, without one white
hair in its glossy hide, barded with chamfront, poitrel, neck-plates,
and bard proper, all of black steel, with funeral-housings of black
cloth.
Such was the man who alone of the leaders of the Jacquerie seemed
to make war on a system, acting according to the dictates of the
soundest judgment rather than, like the others, by wantonness or whim;
permitting no license, nor promiscuous individual pillaging, but
causing all plunder to be brought together for the common weal--thus
making war support war, according to the prescribed plan of the
greatest of modern conquerors--and subsisting his men on the spoils of
the powerful and rich, without trespassing in any wise on the property
of the poor, whose favor it was his object to conciliate.
It came, too, to be understood, ere long, that his cruelty was no less
systematic than his plundering. No wanton barbarity, no torturing,
roast, crucifying, or the like, was ever perpetrated by his band; and
of himself, it was notorious that, except in open warfare or in the
heat of battle, he had never dealt a blow against a man, or laid a rude
hand on a woman, of the hated caste of nobles. Still, neither man nor
woman ever escaped his rancorous and premeditated vengeance.
Every male noble, of whatever age--gray-haired, or full-grown man,
stripling, or child, or infant in the cradle--no sooner was he taken
than he was hanged on the next tree if in the open field, or from the
pinnacles of his own castle if within stone walls.
Every female of noble birth--and to these, though he never looked
on them himself, nor was tempted by the charms of the fairest--was
delivered at once to the mercies of his men, subjected to the last
dishonor; and then, when life was intolerable to them, and death
welcome, they were drowned in the nearest stream or lake, if in the
open country, or cast from the battlements into the moat, if captured
within the precincts of a fortalice.
So rigidly did he adhere to this last mode of execution, often carrying
his victims along with the band for several days until he could find
a suitable place for drowning them, that it was soon determined that
he must have some secret motive, or strong vow, binding him to this
strange course--the rather that there were many reasons for believing
him to be a man naturally of a feeling and generous temper, hardened by
circumstances into this vein of cold and adamantine cruelty.
Though he had never been known to relent, tears had been known to
fall fast through the bars of his avantaille, as he repulsed the
outstretched arms and rejected the passionate entreaties of some
lovely, innocent maiden, imploring death itself as a boon, so she might
save her honor.
At such times, it was affirmed--and they were of no unusual
occurrence--when he seemed on the point of relenting, he needed only to
clasp in his mailed fingers a long, heavy tress of female hair--once
of the loveliest shade of dark brown, verging almost upon black, but
now bleached by exposure to the summer sun and the wintry storm--which
he wore among the black plumes of his casque, when he became on the
instant cold, iron, and impenetrable, as the proof-harness which he
wore; and the words would come from his lips slow, stern, irrevocable,
speaking the miserable creature’s doom, so that even she would plead
no longer!--
“Away with her! away! For _she_, too, was beautiful, and innocent, and
good; and which of these availed her, that she should not perish? Away
with her, I say, and do your will with her; but let me not look on her
any more!”
Up to this time, the insurrection had been confined to the northeast of
France, and more especially to the Beauvoisis and the regions adjacent
to the capital, the armed commons of which appeared ready to encourage
and assist, if not openly to join them; but, at the period when my
tale commences, it began to spread like a conflagration, and rapidly
extended itself in all directions.
Auvergne still continued, however, free from disturbance, and the
knights and nobles whose demesnes lay within that fair province
went about their ordinary avocations and amusements, unmolested and
unsuspicious of danger, without any more display of military force than
was usual in those dark and dangerous times, and with no more than
ordinary trains of feudal dependants and retainers.
This, however, was now brought to a sudden and alarming conclusion by
the occurrence of an incident so terrible and hideous in its character,
that it struck a panic-terror into every heart that heard tell of it,
and that it still survives, though centuries have elapsed, as clear
and distinct as if it had but just occurred, in the memories of the
peasantry of Auvergne.
It was a beautiful morning in the latter part of June, when the whole
face of the country was overspread by a garb of the richest summer
greenery, when the skies were glowing with perfect and cloudless azure,
and when the atmosphere was perfumed with the breath of flowers and
vocal with the melody of birds. It was a morning when all nature seemed
to be at peace, the bridal, as are old pock-words of the earth and
sky--when even the angry passions of man, the great destroyer, seem to
be at rest, and when it is difficult to believe in the existence or
commission of any violence or wrong.
It was on such a morning that a gay cavalcade of knights and ladies
issued from the gates of the castle of Roche d’or, with a numerous
train of half-armed retainers; with grooms, and foresters, and
falconers; with hounds, gazehounds, and spaniels, fretting in their
leashes; and goss-hawks, jer-falcons, peregrines, and marlins, horded
upon their wrists, or cast upon frames suspended by thongs about the
waists of the varlets who carried them.
At the head of this gallant company rode a finely-formed man of
stately presence, and apparelled in the rich garments of a person of
distinction in an age when every station and rank of life had its
distinctive garb, and when the sumptuary laws were enforced with
much strictness, rendering it highly penal for one class to assume
the dress of the station next above it. Velvet, and rich furs, and
ostrich-plumes, rustled and waved in the garb of this puissant noble,
and many a gem of rare price flashed from the hilts of his weapons,
and even from the accoutrements of his splendid Andalusian charger.
On either hand of him rode a lady, beautiful both of them, and young,
but in styles of beauty utterly dissimilar: for one was dark-browed
and black-haired, with the complexion of a clear-skinned brunette,
suffused with a rich, sunny color, and large, languid black eyes; while
the other had a skin as white as snow, with the slightest possible
tinge of rose on the soft, rounded cheeks--eyes of the hues of the dewy
violet--and long, streaming tresses of warm, golden brown.
In the dark-haired lady it was easy to trace a resemblance, of both
outline and complexion, to the gentleman who rode between them, and
it would not have needed a very keen observer to discover at a glance
that they were brother and sister. And such was the truth: for the
personages were Raoul de Canillac, the marquis of Roche d’or; Louise
de Canillac, his lovely sister; and Clemente, his late-wedded wife,
formerly Clemente Isaure de Saint Angely, who was the wonder of the
country for beauty, and its idol for her charity and goodness.
Next this lady, on the outer side, there rode one who was as much
and as deservedly detested by the neighborhood as she was admired
and beloved--a strange compound of all the foul and hideous vices
which can render humanity detestable, unredeemed by one solitary
virtue, if bravery be excepted, which was a quality so general and
necessary--being, in fact, almost unavoidable, from the peculiar
nature of chivalrous institutions--that it must be regarded rather
as a virtue of the age and military caste of nobles, than of this or
that individual. He had earned himself a fearful reputation, and how
well he had deserved no one could doubt who looked upon his face, all
scathed and furrowed by the lines stamped on it by habitual indulgence
in every hateful vice, habitual surrender to every fiery passion. A
cousin of the marquis, and his nearest male relative, he had done much
to deprave and corrupt his mind; and though an accomplished and gallant
gentleman, honorable, and affable, and companionable to his own caste,
a fond husband, a kind brother, and a warm friend, he had succeeded in
rendering him as cruel and unmerciful an oppressor of all beneath him
as a feudal seigneur in those days could be, if his power was equalled
by his will to do evil. He also was Canillac, the reproach and disgrace
of an old and noble name, and was known far and wide, for his furious
and frantic crimes--which seemed, so perfectly unprovoked were they
at times and devoid of meaning, to arise from actual insanity--by
the soubriquet of _Canillac le fou_, the madman--a title of which,
so shameless was he in his infamous renown, he actually appeared to
glory, signing it as a portion of his name, or an honorable title of
distinction.
On the other side, next to Louise de Roche d’or, rode a tall and
handsome youth, wearing the belt and spurs of knighthood, and gazing
at times into the face of the beautiful girl with eyes full of deep,
ardent affection, and speaking to her in those low, earnest tones which
denote so certainly the existence of strong and pervading interest
and affection. The knight, already famous far beyond his years, for
deeds of dauntless daring, was Sir Louis de Montfauçon, a puissant
baron of Auvergne, whose bands marched with those of Castel de Roche
d’or, and the affianced husband of the young and fair Louise. Pages
and equerries, with the usual attendants, followed, and the courtyard
rang and re-echoed with the clang of hoofs, the neighing of coursers,
the deep baying of the bloodhounds, and the screams of the frightened
falcons.
They issued from the castle-gates; wound through the open park, and the
dense woodland chase beyond it; swept down a steep descent into a broad
and fertile valley, watered by a great, clear river, which they crossed
by a wooden bridge: traversed the narrow, sandy street of the village
of Castel de Roche d’or, and, turning off short to the right, entered
a little dell, through which a bright, clear rivulet murmured over its
pebbly bed, on its way to join the larger river in the valley.
The lower part of this little dell was principally open pasturage,
dotted here and there with brakes and solitary bushes of hawthorn; and
along the margin of the rivulet there ran a fringe of willow and alder
thickets, but a little higher up it degenerated into a mere gorge or
ravine, thickly overshadowed by the gnarled arms and dense, verduous
umbrage of huge, immemorial oaks, the outskirts and advanced guard,
as it were, of a vast oak-forest, which covered leagues on leagues of
rough and broken country, to which this dell formed the readiest means
of access.
Just in the jaws of this pass, overhung by the oaks, stood a small,
gray, rustic chapel, supported on four clustered columns, with groined
arches intersecting each other resting upon them, a small, arched
canopy containing a bell on the summit of its steep, slated roof, and
a low-browed door, with a round arch, decorated with the wolf-toothed
carvings of the earliest Norman style. Immediately in front of the
door, the little rivulet which watered the dell burst out of the other
in a strong, gushing spring, which had been blessed by some saint
of old, and, being surmounted by a vaulted canopy, was held to be
peculiarly holy by the superstitious rustics of the region.
This lovely spot, however, peaceful as it showed, and calm in its
tranquil and sequestered security, had been the scene, some two or
three years before, of a fearful and cruel crime: had witnessed the
violent seizure of a sweet, innocent, and rarely lovely bride, fresh
from the marriage benediction, by this very Raoul de Canillac; and the
girl had escaped pollution only by self-immolation.
It was a cursed deed--and cursed was the vengeance it provoked!
Just as the company I have described wheeled into the lower end of
the little dell, conversing joyously together, and enjoying the sweet
influences of the season and the place, they were saluted by the long,
keen blast of a bugle, well and clearly winded, in that peculiarly
note known at that period as the _mort_, being the call that announced
the death of the game, whatever it was, which might be the object of
pursuit.
This call came from the oaks above the chapel, although no performer
was seen, nor was there any baying of hounds or clamor of hunters, such
as usually accompanies the termination of a chase.
There was no privilege at that time more highly regarded by the nobles
than the rights of the chase, nor was there any crime more jealously
pursued and punished more vindictively than the infraction of the
forest-laws; so much so, indeed, that the death of a stag or wild-boar
by unlicensed hands was visited with a far deeper meed of vengeance
than the murder of a man!
It was with a face, therefore, inflamed by the fiercest ire, a flashing
eye, and a knitted brow, that Raoul de Canillac unsheathed his sword,
and spurred his horse into a gallop, calling upon his men with a
vehement and angry oath to follow him, for there were of a surety
villeyns in the wood slaughtering the deer.
The ladies of the party checked their horses on the instant in
affright, while the men rushed forward in confusion, drawing their
weapons, and casting loose the hounds and hawks which they had led or
carried, in order to wield their arms with more advantage; and between
the shouts of the feudal retainers, the deep baying of the released
bloodhounds, and the wild screams of the hawks, all that calm and
peaceful solitude was transformed on the instant into a scene of the
wildest turmoil and confusion. At this moment, just as the lord of
Roche d’or spurred his horse up the slight eminence toward the little
church, a man of great height and powerful frame stepped slowly forward
from among the oaks, clad in a full suit of knightly armor, of plain,
unornamented black steel, with no device or bearing on his shield, and
no crest on his casque, which was overshadowed by an immense plume of
black ostrich-feathers. He had a two-handed sword slung across his
shoulders, and carried a ponderous battle-axe in his right hand.
Startled by this unexpected apparition, Raoul de Canillac checked his
horse suddenly, exclaiming: “Treason! fy! treason! Ride, ladies, for
your lives!--ride! ride!”
But this warning came too late: for, simultaneously with the appearance
of the leader, above five hundred crossbow-men and lancers poured out
from the wood on either flank, with their weapons ready; and a body
of fifty or sixty mounted men-atarms drew out from behind a spur of
the hills at the entrance of the gorge, and effectually cut off their
retreat. Entirely surrounded, escape was impossible, and resistance
hopeless, so great was the numerical superiority of the enemy, and
so perfectly were they armed and accoutred for offence and defence,
while the retainers of the lords had no defensive arms whatever, nor
any weapons except their swords and hunting-staves, and a few bows and
arbalasts.
The leader of the Jacquerie--for it needed not a second glance to
inform Raoul de Canillac into whose hands he had fallen--waved his axe
on high as a signal, and instantly a single crossbow was discharged;
and the bolt, striking the horse of the seigneur full in the centre of
the chest, he went down on the instant: and before he could recover his
feet, the marquis was seized by a dozen stout hands, and bound securely
hand and foot with stout hempen cords.
On perceiving this, the elder nobleman, Canillac the madman, with the
desperate and reckless fury for which he was so conspicuous, dashed
forward, sword in hand, with his paternal war-cry, followed by a dozen
or two of the armed servitors, as if to rescue his kinsman. Perhaps he
perceived the hopelessness of their condition, and preferred selling
his life dearly to surrendering only to be slaughtered in cold blood:
and if such was his notion, he was not all unwise.
Again the battle-axe was waved, and this time a close and well-aimed
volley followed, the bolts taking effect fatally on the bodies of the
old lord and several of his followers, three of whom with their chief
were slain outright, while several others staggered back more or less
severely wounded.
With this, all resistance ended, the men throwing down their arms,
and crying for quarter, which--as they were all, with the exception
of two pages and an esquire, men of low birth--was granted, and they
were discharged without further condition. To those of gentle origin,
however, no such clemency was extended. The pages and esquire were
stripped of their costly garb, and immediately hanged up by the necks
from the oak-trees, together with the young knight affianced to
Mademoiselle Roche d’or, in spite of the entreaties and supplications
of his beautiful betrothed.
The ladies were then compelled to dismount, and their arms being bound
behind their backs, were tied with ropes to the tails of their captors’
horses; and, together with Raoul de Canillac, whose feet were now
released from their fetters, were dragged in painful and disgraceful
procession back to the gates of the feudal fortalice from which they
had so lately issued free and happy!
On the first summons of the leader of the Jacques--seeing their lord
and the ladies captive, weak in numbers, dispirited, and without a
leader--the garrison immediately surrendered: the portcullis was drawn
up, the pontlevis lowered, and, with their wretched prisoners, the
fierce marauders entered the walls, which, by their massive strength,
might otherwise have long defied them.
Meantime, not one word had been uttered by the leader of the party, who
indicated his demands to his men merely by the wafture of his hand or
the gesture of his head, which were promptly understood and implicitly
obeyed. In compliance with a sign, the prisoners were now led after him
into their own magnificent abode, and carried through long, winding
passages, and up an almost interminable stairway, to an apartment in
the summit of a huge, square tower, overlooking the castle-moat, from
a battlemented balcony, at the height of above a hundred feet. A dread
foreboding shook the breast of Raoul de Canillac, as he was brought
into that chamber, the scene of his outrageous cruelty to the lovely
Marguerite in past years, and now to be the scene of its as cruel
retribution.
The black warrior raised the vizor of his helmet, and gazed into the
face of his former lord with the fixed, resolute, determined scowl
of Maurice Champrèst, while the bad, bold oppressor shook before his
captor with a visible, convulsive air.
“Ay! tremble, murderer and tyrant--tremble!” thundered the fierce
avenger; “tremble! for thy time is at hand: and, Marguerite--lovely and
beloved Marguerite--right royally shalt thou be now avenged! Away with
these! away with them! their doom is spoken!”
And a scene of more than fiendish cruelty and violence ensued. Those
innocent and lovely women, subjected to the last dishonor before the
eyes of the husband and brother--tortured with merciless ingenuity when
their violators were satiate of their beauties--and then cast headlong
from the bartizan into the moat which had received the corpse of the
Vassal’s Wife! Raoul de Canillac, scourged till the flesh was literally
torn from his bones, was plunged headlong after them!
Such was the Vassal’s Vengeance!--and when he fell, shortly
afterward, before the walls of Meaux, by the lance of the renowned
Captal de Buch, his last words were: “I care not--I care not to live
longer. My task was ended, my race won, when thou wert avenged,
Marguerite--Marguerite!” and he perished with her name on his tongue.
His crimes were great, but was not his temptation greater? Pray we,
that we be not tempted!
TRUE LOVE’S DEVOTION:
A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LOUIS QUINZE.
PART I.
There was a mighty stir in the streets of Paris, as Paris’s streets
were in the olden time. A dense and eager mob had taken possession, at
an early hour of the day, of all the environs of the Bastile, and lined
the way which led thence to the Place de Grève in solid and almost
impenetrable masses.
People of all conditions were there, except the very highest; but the
great majority of the concourse was composed of the low populace, and
the smaller bourgeoisie. Multitudes of women were there, too, from the
girl of sixteen to the beldam of sixty, nor had mothers been ashamed
to bring their infants in their arms into that loud and tumultuous
assemblage.
Loud it was and tumultuous, as all great multitudes are, unless they
are convened by purposes too resolutely dark and solemn to find any
vent in noise. When that is the case, let rulers beware, for peril is
at hand--perhaps the beginning of the end.
But this Parisian mob, although long before this period it had learned
the use of barricades, though noisy, turbulent, and sometimes even
violent in the demonstrations of its impatience, was anything but angry
or excited.
On the contrary, it seemed to be on the very tip-toe of pleasurable
expectation, and from the somewhat frequent allusions to _notre bon
roi_, which circulated among the better order of spectators, it would
appear that the government of the Fifteenth Louis was for the moment in
unusually good odor with the good folks of the metropolis.
What was the spectacle to which they were looking forward with so much
glee--which had brought forth young delicate girls, and tender mothers,
into the streets at so early an hour--which, as the day advanced toward
ten o’clock of the morning, was tempting forth laced cloaks, and
rapiers, and plumed hats, and here and there, in the cumbrous carriages
of the day, the proud and luxurious ladies of the gay metropolis?
One glance toward the centre of the Place de Grève was sufficient to
inform the dullest, for there uprose, black, grisly, horrible, a tall
stout pile of some thirty feet in height, with a huge wheel affixed
horizontally to the summit.
Around this hideous instrument of torture was raised a scaffold hung
with black cloth, and strewd with saw-dust, for the convenience of the
executioners, about three feet lower than the wheel which surmounted it.
Around this frightful apparatus were drawn up two companies of the
French guard, forming a large hollow-square facing outward, with
muskets loaded, and bayonets fixed, as if they apprehended an attempt
at rescue, although from the demeanor of the people, nothing appeared
at that time to be further from their thoughts than anything of the
kind.
Above was the executioner-in-chief, with two grim, truculent-looking
assistants, making preparations for the fearful operation they were
about to perform, or leaning indolently on the instruments of slaughter.
By and by, as the day wore onward, and the concourse kept still
increasing both in numbers and in the respectability of those who
composed it, something of irritation began to show itself, mingled
with the eagerness and expectation of the populace, and from some
murmurs, which ran from time to time through their ranks, it would seem
that they apprehended the escape of their victim.
By this time the windows of all the houses which overlooked the
precincts of that fatal square on which so much of noble blood has been
shed through so many ages, were occupied by persons of both sexes, all
of the middle, and some even of the upper classes, as eager to behold
the frightful and disgusting scene, which was about to ensue, as the
mere rabble in the open streets below.
The same thing was manifest along the whole line of the thoroughfare by
which the fatal procession would advance, with this difference alone,
that many of the houses in that quarter belonging to the high nobility,
and all with few exceptions being the dwellings of opulent persons, the
windows, instead of being let like seats at the opera, to any who would
pay the price, were occupied by the inhabitants, coming and going from
their ordinary avocations to look out upon the noisy throng, when any
louder outbreak of voices called their attention to the busy scene.
Among the latter, in a large and splendid mansion, not far from the
Porte St. Antoine, and commanding a direct view of the Place de la
Bastille, with its esplanade, drawbridge, and principal entrance, a
group was collected at one of the windows, nearly overlooking the gate
itself, which seemed to take the liveliest interest in the proceedings
of the day, although that interest was entirely unmixed with anything
like the brutal expectation, and morbid love of horrible excitement
which characterized the temper of the multitude.
The most prominent persons of this group was a singularly noble-looking
man, fast verging to his fiftieth year, if he had not yet attained it.
His countenance, though resolute and firm, with a clear, piercing eye,
lighted up at times, for a moment, by a quick, fiery flash, was calm,
benevolent, and pensive in its ordinary mood, rather than energetical
or active. Yet it was easy to perceive that the mind, which informed
it, was of the highest capacity both of intellect and imagination.
The figure and carriage of this gentleman would have sufficiently
indicated that, at some period of his life he had borne arms and led
the life of a camp--which, indeed, at that day was only to say that he
was a nobleman of France--but a long scar on his right brow, a little
way above the eye, losing itself among the thick locks of his fine
waving hair, and a small round cicatrix in the centre of his cheek,
showing where a pistol ball had found entrance, proved that he had been
where blows were falling thickest, and that he had not spared his own
person in the _melée_.
His dress was very rich, according to the fashion of the day, though
perhaps a fastidious eye might have objected that it partook somewhat
of the past mode of the regency, which had just been brought to a
conclusion as my tale commences, by the resignation of the witty and
licentious Philip of Orleans.
If, however, this fine-looking gentleman was the most prominent, he
certainly was not the most interesting person of the company, which
consisted, besides himself, of an ecclesiastic of high rank in the
French church, a lady, now somewhat advanced in years, but showing the
remains of beauty which, in its prime, must have been extraordinary,
and of a boy in his fifteenth or sixteenth year.
For notwithstanding the eminent distinction, and high intellect of the
elder nobleman, the dignity of the abbé, not unsupported by all which
men look for as the outward and visible signs of that dignity, and the
grace and beauty of the lady, it was upon the boy alone that the eye
of every spectator would have dwelt, from the instant of its first
discovering him.
He was tall of his age, and very finely made, of proportions which
gave promise of exceeding strength when he should arrive at maturity,
but strength uncoupled to anything of weight or clumsiness. He was
unusually free, even at this early period, from that heavy and
ungraceful redundance of flesh which not unfrequently is the forerunner
of athletic power in boys just bursting into manhood; for he was
already as conspicuous for the thinness of his flanks, and the shapely
hollow of his back, as for the depth and roundness of his chest, the
breadth of his shoulders, and the symmetry of his limbs.
His head was well set on, and his whole bearing was that of one who
had learned ease, and grace, and freedom, combined with dignity of
carriage, in no school of practice and mannerism, but from the example
of those with whom he had been brought up, and by familiar intercourse
from his cradle upward with the high-born and gently nurtured of the
land.
His long rich chestnut hair fell down in natural masses undisfigured as
yet by the hideous art of the court hair-dresser, on either side his
fine broad forehead, and curled, untortured by the crisping-irons, over
the collar of his velvet jerkin. His eyes were large and very clear,
of the deepest shade of blue, with dark lashes, yet full of strong,
tranquil light. All his features were regular and shapely, but it was
not so much in the beauty of their form, or in the harmony of their
coloring, that the attractiveness of his aspect consisted, as in the
peculiarity and power of his expression.
For a boy of his age, the pensiveness and composure of that expression
were indeed almost unnatural, and they combined with a calm firmness
and immobility of feature, which promised, I know not what of
resolution and tenacity of purpose. It was not gravity, much less
sternness, or sadness, that lent so powerful an expression to that
young face; nor was there a single line which indicated coldness or
hardness of heart, or which would have led to a suspicion that he had
been schooled by those hard monitors, suffering and sorrow. No, it was
pure thoughtfulness, and that of the highest and most intellectual
order, which characterized the boy’s expression.
Yet, though it was so thoughtful, there was nothing in the aspect
whence to forebode a want of the more masculine qualifications. It was
the thoughtfulness of a worker, not of a dreamer--the thoughtfulness
which prepares, not unfits a man for action. If the powers portrayed
in that boy’s countenance were not deceptive to the last degree, high
qualities were within and a high destiny before him.
But who, from the foreshowing and the bloom of sixteen years, may augur
of the finish and the fruit of the threescore-and-ten, which are the
sum of human toil and sorrow?
It was now nearly noon, when the outer drawbridge of the Bastile was
lowered, and its gate opened; and forth rode, two abreast, a troop
of the musquetaires or lifeguard, in the bright steel casques and
cuirases, with the musquetoons, from which they derived their name,
unslung and ready for action. As they issued into the wider space
beyond the bridge, the troopers formed themselves rapidly into a sort
of hollow column, the front of which, some eight file deep, occupied
the whole width of the street, two files in close order composing each
flank, and leaving an open space in the centre completely surrounded by
the horsemen.
Into this space, without a moment’s delay, there was driven a low,
black cart, or hurdle as it was technically called, of the rudest
construction, drawn by four powerful black horses--a savage-faced
official guiding them by the ropes which supplied the place of reins.
On this ill-omened vehicle there stood three persons--the prisoner,
and two of the armed wardens of the Bastile--the former ironed very
heavily, and the latter bristling with offensive weapons.
Immediately in the rear of this car followed another troop of the
lifeguard, which closed up in the densest and most serried order around
and behind the victim of the law, so as to render any attempt at rescue
useless.
The person, to secure whose punishment so strong a military force had
been produced, and to witness whose execution so vast a multitude
was collected, was a tall, noble-looking man of forty or forty-five
years, dressed in a rich mourning-habit of the day, but wearing neither
hat nor mantle. His dark hair, mixed at intervals with thin lines of
silver, was cut short behind, contrary to the usage of the times, and
his neck was bare, the collar of his superbly-laced shirt being folded
broadly back over the cape of his pourpoint.
His face was very pale, and his complexion being naturally of the
darkest, the hue of his flesh, from which all the healthful blood had
receded, was strangely livid and unnatural in its appearance. Still
it did not seem that it was fear which had blanched his cheeks, and
stolen all the color from his compressed lip, for his eye was full of a
fierce, scornful light, and all his features were set and steady with
an expression of the calmest and most iron resolution.
As the fatal vehicle which bore him made its appearance on the
esplanade without the gates of the prison, a deep hum of satisfaction
ran through the assembled concourse, rising and deepening gradually
into a savage howl like that of a hungry tiger.
Then, then blazed out the haughty spirit, the indomitable pride of the
French noble! Then shame, and fear, and death itself, which he was
looking even now full in the face, were all forgotten, all absorbed, in
his overwhelming scorn of the people!
The blood rushed in a torrent to his brow, his eye seemed to lighten
forth actual fire, as he raised his right hand aloft--loaded although
it was with such a mass of iron as a Greek athlete might have shunned
to lift--and shook it at the clamorous mob, with a glare of scorn and
fury that showed how, had he been at liberty, he would have dealt with
the revilers of his fallen state.
“_Sacré canaille!_” he hissed through his hard-set teeth--“back to your
gutters and your garbage; or follow, if you can, in silence, and learn,
if ye lack not courage to look on, how a man should die!”
The reproof told: for, though at the contemptuous tone and fell insult
of the first words, the clamor of the rabble-rout waxed wilder, there
was so much true dignity in the last sentiment he uttered, and the fate
to which he was going was so hideous, that a key was struck in the
popular heart, and thenceforth the tone of the spectators was changed
altogether.
It was the exultation of the people over the downfall and disgrace of
a noble, that had found tongue in that savage conclamation; it was the
apprehension that his dignity, and the interest of his great name,
would win him pardon from the partial justice of the king, that had
rendered them pitiless and savage: and now that their own cruel will
was about to be gratified, as they beheld how dauntlessly the proud
lord went to a death of torture, they were stricken with a sort of
secret shame, and followed the dread train in sullen silence.
As the black car rolled onward, the haughty criminal turned his eyes
upward--perchance from a sentiment of pride, which rendered it painful
to him to meet the gaze, whether pitiful or triumphant, of the Parisian
populace; and as he did so, it chanced that his glance fell on the
group which I have described as assembled at the windows of a mansion
which he knew well, and in which, in happier days, he had passed gay
and pleasant hours. Every eye of that group, with but one exception,
was fixed upon himself, as he perceived on the instant; the lady alone
having turned her head away, as unable to look upon one in such a
strait, whom she had known under circumstances so widely different.
There was nothing, however, in the gaze of all these earnest eyes
that seemed to embarrass, much less to offend, the prisoner. Deep
interest, earnestness, perhaps horror, was expressed by one and all;
but that horror was not, nor in anywise partook of, the abhorrence
which appeared to be the leading sentiment of the populace below.
As he encountered their gaze, therefore, he drew himself up to his
full height, and, laying his right hand upon his heart, bowed low
and gracefully to the windows at which his friends of past days were
assembled.
The boy turned his eye quickly toward his father, as if to note what
return he should make to that strange salutation. If it were so, he did
not remain in doubt a moment, for that nobleman bowed low and solemnly
to his brother-peer with a very grave and sad aspect; and even the
ecclesiastic inclined his head courteously to the condemned criminal.
The boy perhaps marvelled, for a look of bewilderment crossed his
ingenuous features; but it passed away in an instant, and, following
the example of his seniors, he bent his ingenuous brow and sunny locks
before the unhappy man, who never was again to interchange a salute
with living mortal.
It would seem that the recipient of that last act of courtesy was
gratified beyond the expectation of those who offered it, for a faint
flush stole over his livid features, from which the momentary glow of
indignation had now entirely faded, and a slight smile played upon his
pallid lip, while a tear--the last he should ever shed--twinkled for an
instant on his dark lashes. “True,” he muttered to himself approvingly;
“the nobles are true ever to their order!”
The eyes of the mob likewise had been attracted to the group above, by
what had passed, and at first it appeared as if they had taken umbrage
at the sympathy showed to the criminal by his equals in rank; for there
was manifested a little inclination to break out again into a murmured
shout, and some angry words were bandied about, reflecting on the pride
and party spirit of the proud lords.
But the inclination was checked instantly, before it had time to render
itself audible, by a word which was circulated, no one knew whence or
by whom, through the crowded ranks--“Hush! hush! it is the good lord
of St. Renan!” And therewith every voice was hushed--so fickle is the
fancy of a crowd--although it is very certain that four fifths of those
present knew not nor had ever heard the name of St. Renan, nor had the
slightest suspicion what claims he who bore it had on either their
respect or forbearance.
The death-train passed on its way, however, unmolested by any further
show of temper on the part of the crowd; and the crowd itself,
following the progress of the hurdle to the place of execution, was
soon out of sight of the windows occupied by the family of the count de
St. Renan.
“Alas! unhappy Kerguelen!” exclaimed the count, with a deep and painful
sigh, as the fearful procession was lost to sight in the distance. “He
knows not yet half the bitterness of that which he has to undergo.”
The boy looked up into his father’s face with an inquiring glance,
which he answered at once, still in the same subdued and solemn voice
which he had used from the first.
“By the arrangement of his hair and dress I can see that he imagines
he is to die as a nobleman, by the axe. May Heaven support him when he
sees the disgraceful wheel.”
“You seem to pity the wretch, Louis,” cried the lady, who had not
hitherto spoken, nor even looked toward the criminal as he was passing
by the windows--“and yet he was assuredly a most atrocious criminal. A
cool, deliberate, cold-blooded poisoner! Out upon it! out upon it! The
wheel is fifty times too good for him!”
“He was all that you say, Marie,” replied her husband gravely; “and
yet I do pity him with all my heart, and grieve for him. I knew him
well, though we have not met for many years, when we were both young,
and there was no braver, nobler, better man within the limits of fair
France. I know, too, how he loved that woman, how he trusted that
man--and then to be so betrayed! It seems to me but yesterday that he
led her to the altar, all tears of happiness, and soft maiden blushes.
Poor Kerguelen! he was sorely tried.”
“But still, my son, he was found wanting. Had he submitted him as a
Christian to the punishment the good God laid upon him--”
“The world would have pronounced him a spiritless, dishonored slave,
father,” said the count, answering the ecclesiastic’s speech before it
was yet finished, “and gentlemen would have refused him the hand of
fellowship.”
“Was he justified then, my father?” asked the boy eagerly, who had been
listening with eager attention to every word that had yet been spoken.
“Do you think, then, that he was in the right; that he could not do
otherwise than to slay her? I can understand that he was bound to kill
the man who had basely wronged his honor--but a woman!--a woman whom
he had once loved too!--that seems to me most horrible; and the mode,
by a slow poison! living with her while it took effect! eating at the
same board with her! sleeping by her side! that seems even more than
horrible, it was cowardly!”
“God forbid, my son,” replied the elder nobleman, “that I should
say any man was justified who had murdered another in cold blood;
especially, as you have said, a woman, and by a method so terrible
as poison. I only mean exactly what I said, that he was tried very
fearfully, and that under such trial the best and wisest of us here
below can not say how he would act himself. Moreover, it would seem,
that mistaken as he was perhaps in the course which he seems to have
imagined that honor demanded at his hands, he was more mistaken in the
mode which he took of accomplishing his scheme of vengeance. It was
made very evident upon his trial that he did nothing, even to that
wretched traitress, in rage or revenge, but all as he thought in honor.
He chose a drug which consumed her by a mild and gradual decay, without
suffering or spasm; he gave her time for repentance, nay, it is clearly
proved that he convinced her of her sin, reconciled her to the part
he had taken in her death, and exchanged forgiveness with her before
she passed away. I do not think myself that to commit a crime himself
can clear one from dishonor cast upon him by another’s act, but at
the same time I can not look upon Kerguelen’s guilt as of that brutal
and felonious nature which calls for such a punishment as this--to be
broken alive on the wheel, like a hired stabber--much less can I assent
to the stigma which is attached to him on all sides, while that base,
low-lived, treacherous, cogging miscreant, who fell too honorably by
his honorable sword, meets pity--God defend us from such justice and
sympathy!--and is entombed with tears and honors, while the avenger is
crushed, living, out of the very shape of humanity by the hands of the
common hangman.”
The churchman’s lips moved for a moment, as if he were about to speak
in reply to the false doctrines which he heard enunciated by that
upright and honorable man, and good father, but, ere he spoke, he
reflected that those doctrines were held at that time, throughout
Christian Europe, unquestioned, and confirmed by prejudice and pride
beyond all the power of argument or of religion to set them aside, or
invalidate them. The law of chivalry, sterner and more inflexible than
that Mosaic code requiring an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,
which demanded a human life as the sacrifice for every rash word, for
every wrongful action, was the law paramount of every civilized land in
that day, and in France perhaps most of all lands, as standing foremost
in what was then deemed civilization. And the abbé well knew that
discussion of this point would only tend to bring out the opinions of
the count de St. Renan, in favor of the sanguinary code of honor, more
decidedly, and consequently to confirm the mind of the young man more
effectually in what he believed himself to be a fatal error.
The young man, who was evidently very deeply interested in the matter
of the conversation, had devoured every word of his father, as if he
had been listening to the oracles of a God; and, when he ceased, after
a pause of some seconds, during which he was pondering very deeply on
that which he had heard, he raised his intelligent face and said in an
earnest voice--
“I see, my father, all that you have alleged in palliation of the
count’s crime, and I fully understand you--though I still think it the
most terrible thing I ever have heard tell of. But I do not perfectly
comprehend wherefore you ransack our language of all the deepest
terms of contempt which to heap upon the head of the chevalier de la
Rochederrien? He was the count’s sworn friend, she was the count’s
wedded wife; they both were forsworn and false, and both betrayed him.
But in what was the chevalier’s fault the greater or the viler?”
Those were strange days, in which such a subject could have been
discussed between two wise and virtuous parents and a son, whom it
was their chiefest aim in life to bring up to be a good and honorable
man--that son, too, barely more than a boy in years and understanding.
But the morality of those times was coarser and harder, and, if there
was no more real vice, there was far less superficial delicacy in the
manners of society, and the relations between men and women, than there
is now-a-days.
Perhaps the course lies midway; for certainly if there was much
coarseness then, there is much cant and much squeamishness now, which
could be excellently well dispensed with.
Beside this, boys were brought into the great world much earlier at
that period, and were made men of at an age when they would have been
learning Greek and Latin, had their birth been postponed by a single
century.
Then, at fifteen, they held commissions, and carried colors in the
battle’s front, and were initiated into all the license of the court,
the camp, and the forum.
So it came that the discussion of a subject such as that which I
have described, was very naturally introduced even between parents
and a beloved and only son by the circumstances of the day. Morals,
as regards the matrimonial contract, and the intercourse between the
sexes, have at all times been lower and far less rigid among the
French, than in nations of northern origin; and never at any period of
the world was the morality of any country, in this respect, at so low
an ebb as was France under the reign of the Fifteenth Louis.
The count de St. Renan replied, therefore, to his son with as little
restraint as if he had been his equal in age, and equally acquainted
with the customs and vices of the world, although intrigue and crime
were the topics of which he had to treat.
“It is quite true, Raoul,” replied the count, “that so far as the
unhappy lord of Kerguelen was concerned, the guilt of the chevalier de
la Rochederrien was, as you say, no deeper, perhaps less deep than that
of the miserable lady. He was, indeed, bound to Kerguelen by every tie
of friendship and honor; he had been aided by his purse, backed by his
sword, nay, I have heard and believe, that he owed his life to him. Yet
for all that he seduced his wife; and to make it worse, if worse it
could be, Kerguelen had married her from the strongest affection, and
till the chevalier brought misery, and dishonor, and death upon them,
there was no wedded couple in all France so virtuous or so happy.”
“Indeed, sir!” replied Raoul, in tones of great emotion, staring with
his large, dark eyes as if some strange sight had presented itself to
him on a sudden.
“I know well, Raoul, and if you have not heard it yet, you will soon do
so, when you begin to mingle with men, that there are those in society,
_those_ whom the world regards, moreover, as honorable men, who affect
to say that he who loves a woman, whether lawfully or sinfully, is
at once absolved from all considerations except how he most easily
may win--or in other words--ruin her; and consequently such men would
speak slightly of the chevalier’s conduct toward his friend, Kerguelen,
and affect to regard it as a matter of course, and a mere affair of
gallantry! But I trust you will remember this, my son, that there is
nothing _gallant_, nor can be, in lying, or deceit, or treachery of any
kind. And further, that to look with eyes of passion on the wife of a
friend, is in itself both a crime, and an act of deliberate dishonor.”
“I should not have supposed, sir,” replied the boy, blushing very
deeply, partly it might be from the nature of the subject under
discussion, and partly from the strength of his emotions, “that any
cavalier could have regarded it otherwise. It seems to me that to
betray a friend’s honor is a far blacker thing than to betray his
life--and surely no man with one pretension to honor would attempt to
justify that.”
“I am happy to see, Raoul, that you think so correctly on this point.
Hold to your creed, my dear boy, for there are who shall try ere long
to shake it. But be sure that it is the creed of honor. But, although I
think La Rochederrien disgraced himself even in this, it was not for
this only that I termed him, as I deem him, the very vilest and most
infamous of mankind. For when he had led that poor lady into sin; when
she had surrendered herself up wholly to his honor; when she had placed
the greatest trust--although a guilty trust, I admit--in his faith
and integrity that one human being can place in another, the base dog
betrayed her. He boasted of her weakness, of Kerguelen’s dishonor, of
his own infamy.”
“And did not they to whom he boasted of it,” exclaimed the noble boy,
his face flushing fiery red with excitement and indignation, “spurn him
at once from their presence, as a thing unworthy and beyond the pale of
law.”
“No, Raoul, they laughed at him, applauded his gallant success, and
jeered at the lord of Kerguelen.”
“Great heaven! and these were gentlemen!”
“They were called such, at least; gentlemen by name and descent they
were assuredly, but as surely not right gentlemen at heart. Many of
them, however, in cooler moments, spoke of the traitor and the braggart
with the contempt and disgust he merited. Some friend of Kerguelen’s
heard what had passed, and deemed it his duty to inform him. The most
unhappy husband called the seducer to the field, wounded him mortally,
and--to increase yet more his infamy--even in the agony of death the
slave confessed the whole, and craved forgiveness like a dog. Confessed
the _woman’s crime_--you mark me, Raoul!--had he died mute, or died
even with a falsehood in his mouth, as I think he was bound to do in
such extremity, affirming her innocence with his last breath, he had
saved her, and perhaps spared her wretched lord the misery of knowing
certainly the depth of his dishonor.”
The boy pondered for a moment or two without making any answer; and
although he was evidently not altogether satisfied, probably would not
have again spoken, had not his father, who read what was passing in
his mind, asked him what it was that he desired to know further.
Raoul smiled at perceiving how completely his father understood him,
and then said at once, without pause or hesitation:--
“I understand you to say, sir, that you thought the wretched man of
whom we spoke was bound, under the extremity in which he stood, to die
with a falsehood in his mouth. Can a gentleman ever be justified in
saying the thing that is not? Much more, can it be his bounden duty to
do so?”
“Unquestionably, as a rule of general conduct, he can not. Truth is
the soul of honor; and without truth, honor can not exist. But this
is a most intricate and tangled question. It never can arise without
presupposing the commission of one guilty act--one act which no good
or truly moral man would commit at all. It is, therefore, scarcely
worth our while to examine it. But I do say, on my deliberate and grave
opinion, that if a woman, previously innocent and pure, have sacrificed
her honor to a man, that man is bound to sacrifice everything--his life
without a question, and I think his truth also--in order to preserve
her character, so far as he can, unscathed. But we will speak no more
of this; it is an odious subject, and one of which I trust you, Raoul,
will never have the sad occasion to consider.”
“Oh, never, father, never I!” cried the ingenuous boy; “I must first
lose my senses, and become a madman.”
“All men are madmen, Raoul,” said the churchman--who stood in the
relation of maternal uncle to the youth--“who suffer their passions
to have the mastery of them. You must learn, therefore, to be their
tyrant; for if you be not, be well assured that they will be yours--and
merciless tyrants they are to the wretches who become their subjects.”
“I will remember what you say, sir,” answered the boy, “and, indeed,
I am not like to forget it, for altogether this is the saddest day I
ever have passed; and this is the most horrible and appalling story
that I have ever heard told. It was but just that the lord of Kerguelen
should die, for he did a murder; and since the law punishes that in a
peasant, it must do so likewise with a noble. But to break him upon the
wheel!--it is atrocious! I should have thought all the nobles of the
land would have applied to the king to spare him that horror.”
“Many of them did apply, Raoul; but the king, or his ministers in his
name, made answer that during the regency the count Horn was broken
on the wheel for murder, and therefore that to behead the lord of
Kerguelen for the same offence, would be to admit that the count was
wrongfully condemned.”
“Out on it! out on it! what sophistry! Count Horn murdered a banker,
like a common thief, for his gold; and this unhappy lord hath done the
deed for which he must suffer in a mistaken sense of honor, and with
all tenderness compatible with such a deed. There is nothing similar
or parallel in the two cases; and if there were, what signifies it now
to Count Horn, whether he were condemned rightfully or not? Are these
men heathen, that they would offer a victim to the offended manes of
the dead? But is there no hope, my father, that his sentence may be
commuted?”
“None whatever. Let us trust, therefore, that he has died penitent, and
that his sufferings are already over; and let us pray, ere we lay us
down to sleep, that his sins may be forgiven to him, and that his soul
may have rest.”
“Amen!” replied the boy, solemnly, at the same moment that the
ecclesiastic repeated the same word--though he did so, as it would
seem, less from the heart, and more as a matter of course.
Nothing further was said on that subject, and in truth the conversation
ceased altogether. A gloom was cast over the spirits of all present,
both by the imagination of the horrors which were in progress at that
very moment, and by the recollection of the preceding enormities of
which this was but the consummation; but the young viscount Raoul was
so completely engrossed by the deep thoughts which that conversation
had awakened in his mind, that his father, who was a very close
observer, and correct judge of human nature, almost regretted that he
had spoken, and determined, if possible, to divert him from the gloomy
revery into which he had fallen.
“Viscount,” said he, after a silence which had endured now for many
minutes, “when did you last wait upon Mademoiselle Melanie d’Argenson?”
Raoul’s eyes brightened at the name, and again the bright blush, which
I noticed before, crossed his ingenuous features; but this time it was
pleasure, not embarrassment, which colored his young face so vividly.
“I called yesterday, sir,” he answered, “but she was abroad with the
countess, her mother. In truth, I have not seen her since Friday last.”
“Why, that is an age, Raoul! Are you not dying to see her again by this
time? At your age, I was far more gallant.”
“With your permission, sir, I will go now and make my compliments to
her.”
“Not only my permission, Raoul, but my advice to make your best haste
thither. If you go straightways, you will be sure to find her at home,
for the ladies are sure not to have ventured abroad with all this
uproar in the streets. Take Martin the equerry with you, and three of
the grooms. What will you ride--the new Barb I bought for you last
week! Yes! as well him as any; and, hark you, boy, tell them to send
Martin to me first: I will speak to him while you are beautifying
yourself to please the _beaux yeux_ of Mademoiselle Melanie.”
“I am not sure that you are doing wisely, Louis,” said the lady--as her
son left the saloon, her eye following him wistfully--“in bringing
Raoul up as you are doing.”
“Nor I, Marie,” replied her husband, gravely; “we poor, blind mortals
can not be sure of anything, least of all of anything the ends of which
are incalculably distant. But in what particular do you doubt the
wisdom of my method?”
“In talking to him as you do, as though he were a man already; in
opening his eyes so widely to the sins and vices of the world; in
discussing questions with him such as those you spoke of with him but
now. He is a mere boy, you will remember, to hear tell of such things!”
“Boys hear of such things early enough, I assure you--far earlier than
you ladies would deem possible. For the rest, he must hear of them one
day; and I think it quite as well that he should hear of them, since
hear he must, with the comments of an old man, and that old man his
best friend, than find them out by the teachings and judge of them
according to the light views of his young and excitable associates.
He who is forewarned is fore-weaponed. I was kept pure, as it is
termed--or, in other words, kept ignorant of myself and of the world I
was destined to live in--until one fine day I was cut loose from the
apron-strings of my lady-mother, and the tether of my abbé-tutor, and
launched head-foremost into that vortex of temptation and iniquity,
the world of Paris, like a ship without a chart or a compass. A
precious race I ran in consequence, for a time; and if I had not been
so fortunate as to meet you, Marie--whose bright eyes brought me out,
like a blessed beacon, safe from that perilous ocean--I know not but I
should have suffered shipwreck, both in fortune, which is a trifle, and
in character, which is everything. No, no; if that is all in which you
doubt, your fears are causeless.”
“But that is not all. In this you may be right--I know not; at all
events, you are a fitter judge than I! But are you wise in encouraging
so very strongly his fancy for Melanie d’Argenson?”
“I’ faith, it is something more than a fancy, I think: the boy loves
her!”
“I see that, Louis, clearly; and you encourage it.”
“And wherefore should I not? She is a good girl--as good as she is
beautiful!”
“She is an angel!”
“And her mother, Marie, was your most intimate, your bosom friend.”
“And now a saint in heaven!”
“Well, what more? She is as noble as a De Rohan or a Montmorency; she
is an heiress with superb estates adjoining our own lands of St. Renan;
she is, like our Raoul, an only child; and what is the most of all,
I think, although it is not the mode in this dear France of ours to
attach much weight to that, it is no made-up match, no cradle-plighting
between babes--to be made good, perhaps, by the breaking of hearts--but
a genuine, natural, mutual affection between two young, sincere,
innocent, artless persons; and a splendid couple they will make. What
can you see to alarm you in that prospect?”
“Her father.”
“The sieur d’Argenson! Well, I confess, he is not a very charming
person; but we all have our own faults or weaknesses: and, after all,
it is not he whom Raoul is about to marry.”
“I doubt his good faith, very sorely.”
“I should doubt it too, Marie, did I see any cause which should lead
him to break it. But the match is in all respects more desirable for
him than it is for us; for, though Mademoiselle d’Argenson is noble,
rich, and handsome, the viscount de Douarnenez might be well justified
in looking for a wife far higher than the daughter of a simple sieur of
Bretagne. Besides, although the children loved before any one spoke of
it--before any one saw it, indeed, save I--it was D’Argenson himself
who broke the subject. What, then, should induce him to play false?”
“I do not know; yet I doubt--I fear him.”
“But that, Marie, is unworthy of your character--of your mind.”
“Louis, she is _too_ beautiful!”
“I do not think Raoul will find fault with her on that score.”
“Nor would one greater than Raoul.”
“Whom do you mean?” cried the count, now for the first time startled.
“I have seen eyes fixed upon her in deadly admiration, which never
admire but they pollute the object of their admiration.”
“The king’s, Marie?”
“The king’s!”
“And then--?”
“And then I have heard it whispered that the baron de Beaulieu has
asked her hand of the sieur d’Argenson.”
“The baron de Beaulieu! and who the devil is the baron de Beaulieu,
that the sieur d’Argenson should doubt for the nine hundredth part of
a minute between him and the viscount de Douarnenez for the husband of
his daughter?”
“The baron de Beaulieu, count, is the very particular friend, the
right-hand man, and most private minister, of his most Christian
majesty King Louis XV.”
“Ha! is it possible? Do you mean that--”
“I mean even _that_--if, by that, you mean all that is most infamous
and loathsome on the part of Beaulieu, all that is most licentious on
the part of the king. I believe--nay, I am well-nigh sure--that there
is such a scheme of villany on foot against that sweet, unhappy child;
and therefore would I pause ere I urged too far my child’s love toward
her, lest it prove most unhappy and disastrous.”
“And do you think D’Argenson capable--” exclaimed her husband--
“Of anything,” she answered, interrupting him, “of anything that may
serve his avarice or his ambition.”
“Ah! it may be so. I will look to it, Marie; I will look to it
narrowly. But I fear that, if it be as you fancy, it is too late
already; that our boy’s heart is devoted to her entirely; that any
break now, in one word, would be a heart-break!”
“He loves her very dearly, beyond doubt,” replied the lady; “and she
deserves it all, and is, I think, very fond of him likewise.”
“And can you suppose for a moment that she will lend herself to such a
scheme of infamy?”
“Never! She would die sooner.”
“I do not apprehend, then, that there will be so much difficulty as
you seem to fear. This business which brought all of us Bretons up
to Paris, as claimants of justice for our province, or courters of
the king’s grace, as they phrase it, is finished happily; and there
is nothing to detain any of us in this great wilderness of stone and
mortar any longer. D’Argenson told me yesterday that he should set out
homeward on Wednesday next; and it is but hurrying our own preparations
a little to travel with them in one party. I will see him this evening,
and arrange it.”
“Have you ever spoken with him concerning the contract, Louis?”
“Never, directly, or in the form of a solemn proposal. But we have
spoken oftentimes of the evident attachment of the children, and he has
ever expressed himself gratified, and seemed to regard it as a matter
of course. But hush! here comes the boy: leave us a while, and I will
speak with him.”
Almost before his words were ended the door was thrown open, and young
Raoul entered, splendidly dressed, with his rapier at his side, and his
plumed hat in his hand--as likely a youth to win a fair maid’s heart as
ever wore the weapon of a gentleman.
“Martin is absent, sir. He went out soon after breakfast, they tell me,
to look after a pair of fine English carriage-horses for the countess
my mother, and has not yet returned. I ordered old Jean François to
attend me, with the four other grooms.”
“Very well, Raoul. But look you--your head is young, and your blood
hot. You will meet, it is very like, all this canaille returning from
the slaughter of poor Kerguelen. Now mark me, boy, there must be no
vaporing on your part, or interfering with the populace; and even if
they should, as very probably they may, be insolent, and utter outcries
and abuse against the nobility, even bear with them. On no account
strike any person, nor let your servants do so, nor encroach upon their
order; unless, indeed, they should so far forget themselves as to throw
stones, or to strike the first blow.”
“And then, my father?”
“Oh, then, Raoul, you are at liberty to let your good sword feel the
fresh air, and to give your horse a taste of those fine spurs you wear.
But even in that case, I should advise you to use your edge rather
than your point. There is not much harm done in wiping a saucy burgher
across the face to mend his manners, but to pink him through the body
makes it an awkward matter. And I need not tell you by no means to
fire, unless you should be so beset and maltreated that you can not
otherwise extricate yourself; yet you must have your pistols loaded. In
these times it is necessary always to be provided against all things. I
do not, however, tell you these things now because you are likely to be
attacked; but such events are always possible, and one can not provide
against such too early.”
“I will observe what you say, my father. Have I your permission now to
depart?”
“Not yet, Raoul; I would speak with you first a few words. This
Mademoiselle Melanie is very pretty, is she not?”
“She is the most beautiful lady I have ever seen,” replied the youth,
not without some embarrassment.
“And as amiable and gentle as she is beautiful?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. She is all gentleness and sweetness, yet is full
of mirth, too, and graceful merriment.”
“In one word, then, she seems to you a very sweet and lovely creature.”
“Doubtless she does, my father.”
“And I beseech you tell me, viscount, in what light do you appear in
the eyes of this very admirable young lady?”
“Oh, sir!” replied the youth, now very much embarrassed, and blushing
actually from shame.
“Nay, Raoul, I did not ask the question lightly, I assure you, or in
the least degree as a jest. It becomes very important that I should
know on what terms you and this fair lady stand together. You have been
visiting her now almost daily, I think, during these three months last
past. Do you conceive that you are very disagreeable to her?”
“Oh! I hope not, sir. It would grieve me much if I thought so!”
“Well, I am to understand, then, that you think she is not blind to
your merits, sir?”
“I am not aware, my dear father, that I have any merits which she
should be called to observe.”
“Oh, yes, viscount! That is an excess of modesty which touches a
little, I am afraid, on hypocrisy. You are not altogether without
merits. You are young, not ill-looking, nobly born, and will, in God’s
good time, be rich. Then you can ride well, and dance gracefully, and
are not generally ill-educated or unpolished. It is quite as necessary,
my dear son, that a young man should not undervalue himself, as that
he should not think of his deserts too highly. Now, that you have some
merits, is certain--for the rest, I desire frankness of you just now,
and beg that you will speak out plainly. I think you love this young
girl: is it not so, Raoul?”
“I do love her sir, very dearly--with my whole heart and spirit!”
“And do you feel sure that this is not a mere transient liking--that it
will last, Raoul?”
“So long as life lasts in my heart, so long will my love for her last,
my father!”
“And you would wish to marry her?”
“Beyond all things in this world, my dear father.”
“And do you think that, were her tastes and views on the subject
consulted, she would say likewise?”
“I hope she would, sir. But I have never asked her.”
“And her father--is he gracious when you meet him?”
“Most gracious, sir, and most kind; indeed, he distinguishes me above
all the other young gentlemen who visit there.”
“You would not, then, despair of obtaining his consent.”
“By no means, my father, if you would be so kind as to ask it.”
“And you desire that I should do so?”
“You will make me the happiest man in all France, if you will!”
“Then go your way, sir, and make the best you can of it with the young
lady. I will speak myself with the sieur d’Argenson to-night; and I
do not despair any more than you do, Raoul. But look you, boy, you do
not fancy, I hope, that you are going to church with your lady-love
to-morrow or the next day! Two or three years hence, at the earliest,
will be all in very good time. You must serve a campaign or two first,
in order to show that you know how to use your sword.”
“In all things, my dear father, I shall endeavor to fulfil your wishes,
knowing them to be as kindly as they are wise and prudent. I owe you
gratitude for every hour since I was born, but for none so much as for
this, for indeed you are going to make me the happiest of men.”
“Away with you then, Sir Happiness! Betake yourself on the wings of
love to your bright lady; and mind the advice of your favorite, Horace,
to pluck the pleasures of the passing hour, mindful how short is the
sum of mortal life!”
The young man embraced his father gayly, and left the room with a quick
step and a joyous heart; and the jingling of his spurs, and the quick,
merry clash of his scabbard on the marble staircase, told how joyously
he descended its steps.
A moment afterward his father heard the clear, sonorous tones of his
fine voice calling to his attendants, and yet a few seconds later the
lively clatter of his horse’s hoofs on the resounding pavement.
“Alas for the happy days of youth, which are so quickly flown!”
exclaimed the father, as he participated in the hopeful and exulting
mood of his noble boy; “and alas for the promise of mortal happiness,
which is so oft deceitful and a traitress!” He paused for a few
moments, and seemed to ponder, and then added, with a confident and
proud expression: “But I see not why one should forebode aught but
success and happiness to this noble boy of mine. Thus far, everything
has worked toward the end as I would wish it. They have fallen in
love naturally and of their own accord, and D’Argenson, whether he
like it or not, can not help himself. He must needs accede proudly
and joyfully, to my proposal; he knows his estates to be in my power
far too deeply to resist. Nay, more--though he be somewhat selfish,
and ambitious, and avaricious, I know nothing of him that should
justify me in believing that he would sell his daughter’s honor, even
to a king, for wealth or title! My good wife is all too doubtful
and suspicious.--But, hark! here comes the mob, returning from that
unfortunate man’s execution! I wonder how he bore it?”
And with the words he moved toward the window, and, throwing it open,
stepped out upon the spacious balcony. Here he learned speedily, from
the conversation of the passing crowd, that, although dreadfully
shocked and startled by the first intimation of the death he was to
undergo, which he received from the sight of the fatal wheel, the lord
of Kerguelen had died as becomes a proud, brave man, reconciled to the
church, forgiving his enemies, without a groan or a murmur, under the
protracted agonies of that most horrible of deaths, the breaking on the
wheel!
Meanwhile the day passed onward; and when evening came, and the last
and most social meal of the day was laid on the domestic board, young
Raoul had returned from his visit to the lady of his love, full of high
hopes and happy anticipations. Afterward, according to his promise, the
count de St. Renan went forth and held debate until a late hour of the
night with the sieur d’Argenson. Raoul had not retired when he came
home, too restless in his youthful ardor even to think of sleep. His
father brought good tidings: the father of the lady had consented, and
on their arrival in Bretagne the marriage-contract was to be signed in
form.
That was to Raoul an eventful day; and never did he forget it, or the
teachings he drew from it. That day was his fate.