NEST
King Henry folded his hands over his paunch, leaned back and laughed
heartily.
"'Sdeath!" said he. "But I believe the salamander has perished: he could
not endure the mirth of it. Odds blood! But Bernard will be a veritable
salamander in the rude bowels of Wales."
Before him stood Nest, with fire erupting from her dark eyes.
Henry looked at her, raised his brows, settled himself more easily in
his chair, but cast aside the pillows on which his arms had rested. "Ha!
Nest, I had forgotten thy presence. Hast caught me a bluebottle? My
trouble is not so acute just now. How fares our boy, Robert?"
She swept the question aside with an angry gesture of the hand.
"And what sort of housekeeping do you have with Gerald?" he asked.
Again she made a movement of impatience.
"Odds life!" said he. "When here it was ever with thee Wales this, and
Wales that. We had no mountains like thy Welsh Mynyddau--that is the
silly word, was it not? And no trees like those in the Vale of Towy, and
no waters that brawled and foamed like thy mountain brooks, and no music
like the twanging of thy bardic harps, and no birds sang so sweet, and
no flowers bloomed so fair. Pshaw! now thou art back among them all
again. I have sent thee home--art content?"
"You have sent me back to blast and destroy my people. You have coupled
my name with that of Gerald, that the curses of my dear people when they
fall on him may fall on me also."
"Bah!" said the King. "Catch me a bluebottle, and do not talk in such
high terms."
"Henry," she said, in thrilling tones, "I pray you----"
"You were forever praying me at one time to send you back to Wales. I
have done so, and you are not content."
"I had rather a thousand times have buried my head--my shamed, my
dishonored head"--she spoke with sternness and concentrated wrath--"in
some quiet cloister, than to be sent back with a firebrand into my own
land to lay its homesteads in ashes."
"You do pretty well among yourselves in that way," said Henry
contemptuously. "When were you ever known to unite? You are forever
flying at each other's throats and wasting each other's lands. Those who
cannot combine must be broken."
Nest drew a long breath. She knitted her hands together.
"Henry," she said, "I pray you, reconsider what Gerald has advised, and
withhold consent."
"Nay, it was excellent counsel."
"It was the worst counsel that could be given. Think what has been done
to my poor people. You have robbed them of their corn-land and have
given it to aliens. You have taken from them their harbors, and they
cannot escape. You have driven away their princes, and they cannot
unite. You have crushed out their independence, and they cease to be
men. They have but one thing left to them as their very own--their
Church. And now you will plunder them of that--thrust yourselves in
between them and God. They have had hitherto their own pastors, as they
have had their own princes. They have followed the one in war and the
other in peace. Their pastors have been men of their own blood, of their
own speech, men who have suffered with them, have wept with them, and
have even bled with them. These have spoken to them when sick at heart,
and have comforted them when wounded in spirit. And now they are to be
jostled out of their places, to make room for others, aliens in blood,
ignorant of our language, indifferent to our woes; men who cannot advise
nor comfort, men from whom our people will receive no gift, however
holy. Deprived of everything that makes life endurable, will you now
deprive them of their religion?"
She paused, out of breath, with flaming cheek, and sparkling
eyes--quivering, palpitating in every part of her body.
"Nest," said the King, "you are a woman--a fool. You do not understand
policy."
"Policy!" she cried scornfully. "What is policy? My people have their
faults and their good qualities."
"Faults! I know them, I trow. As to their good qualities, I have them to
learn." He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
"You know their faults alone," pursued Nest passionately, "because you
seek to find them that you may foster and trade on them. That is policy.
Policy is to nurture the evil and ignore the good. None know better
their own weaknesses than do we. But why not turn your policy to helping
us to overcome them and be made strong?"
"It is through your own inbred faults that we have gained admission into
your mountains. Brothers with you cannot trust brothers----"
"No more than you or Robert can trust each other, I presume," sneered
Nest. "An arrow was aimed at you from behind. Who shot it? Not a
Welshman, but Robert, or a henchman of Robert. On my honor, you set us a
rare example of fraternal affection and unity!"
Henry bit his lips.
"It is through your own rivalries that we are able to maintain our hold
upon your mountains."
"And because we know you as fomenters of discord--doers of the devil's
work--that is why we hate you. Give up this policy, and try another
method with us."
"Women cannot understand. Have done!"
"Justice, they say, is figured as a woman; for Justice is pitiful
towards feebleness and infirmity. But with you is no justice at all,
only rank tyranny--tyranny that can only rule with the iron rod, and
drive with the scourge."
"Be silent! My salamander is moving again."
But she would not listen to him. She pursued--
"My people are tender-hearted, loving, loyal, frank. Show them trust,
consideration, regard, and they will meet you with open arms. We know
now that our past has been one of defeat and recoil, and we also know
why it has been so. Divided up into our little kingdoms, full of
rivalries, jealousies, ambitions, we have not had the wit to cohere. Who
would weave us into one has made a rope of sand. It was that, not the
superior courage or better arms of the Saxon, that drove us into
mountains and across the sea. It is through playing with, encouraging
this, bribing into treachery, that you are forcing your way among us
now. But if in place of calling over adventurers from France and boors
from Flanders to kill us and occupy our lands, you come to us with the
olive branch, and offer us your suzerainty and guarantee us against
internecine strife--secure to us our lands, our laws, our
liberties--then we shall become your devoted subjects, we shall look up
to you as to one who raises us, whereas now we regard you as one who
casts us down to trample on us. We have our good qualities, and these
qualities will serve you well if you will encourage them. But your
policy is to do evil, and evil only."
Henry Beauclerk, with a small mallet, struck a wooden disk, and an
attendant appeared.
"Call Gerald Windsor back," said he; then, to himself, "this woman is an
offense to me."
"Because I utter that which you cannot understand. I speak of justice,
and you understand only tyranny."
"Another word, Nest, and I shall have you forcibly removed."
She cast herself passionately at the King's feet.
"I beseech thee--I--I whom thou didst so cruelly wrong when a poor
helpless hostage in thy hands--I, away from father and mother--alone
among you--not knowing a word of your tongue. I have never asked for
aught before. By all the wrongs I have endured from thee--by thy hopes
for pardon at the great Day when the oppressed and fatherless will be
righted--I implore thee--withhold thy consent."
"It is idle to ask this," said Henry coldly, "Leave me. I will hear no
more." Then taking the ewer, he began again to pour water into the
basin, and next to ladle it back into the vessel whence he had poured
it.
"Oh, you beau clerk!" exclaimed Nest, rising to her feet. "So skilled in
books, who knowest the qualities of the porcupine through Plinius, and
how to draw forth a salamander, as instructed by Galen! A beau clerk
indeed, who does not understand the minds of men, nor read their hearts;
who cannot understand their best feelings, whose only thought is that of
the churl, to smash, and outrage, and ruin. A great people, a people
with more genius in its little finger than all thy loutish Saxons in
their entire body, thou wilt oppress, and turn their good to gall, their
sweetness to sour, and nurture undying hate where thou mightest breed
love."
"Begone! I will strike and summon assistance, and have thee removed."
"Then," said Nest, "I appeal unto God, that He may avenge the injured
and the oppressed. May He smite thee where thou wilt most painfully feel
the blow! May He break down all in which thou hast set thy hopes, and
level with the dust that great ambition of thine!" She gasped. "Sire,
when thou seest thy hopes wrecked and thyself standing a stripped and
blasted tree--then remember Wales!"