well, and so well did Wulf and Wulf's son in his time, that nothing of
note ever happened there, and therefore nobody ever heard of them. No
man's house was burned by them with the owner in it. No one's cattle
were carried off to the use of the castle without just payment. No one
was killed without good cause, or what, in those days, was thought to
be good cause. So this part of England lived long in placid quiet.
There was no other castle within long marches through forest and
bogland hard to pass over; and, for all of Ulf's peacefulness, if
Thorfin, or some of his mates, wanted excitement, and thought it would
be a good day to ride out and harry the land or besiege the home of a
neighbour, someone would remember the old, old days around Sigurd's
Vik, and suggest that to-morrow would be a better day than this to
visit Ulf; the to-morrow that never came.
Daneshold they called it now; that is to say, the home, or hold of the
Danes; and since they now spoke Norman-French more often than Saxon-
English or Danish, Wulf's son was named Loup, which was pretty good
French for "wolf;" and one more generation fled away under his rule,
with nothing to record. Then came the day of his son in turn; Louis,
or as he was now called in the new fashion, Louis of Daneshold.
Now Ulf had ploughed the sea so much in his youth that he was
delighted to plough the land for the rest of his life. Wulf, as a boy,
saw quite enough of sea-life to satisfy _him._ As it happened, Loup
cared little for roaming; and the old traditions of the past were
quite forgotten. But one day young Louis of Daneshold entered the
armoury by chance, and came across a somewhat rusty old shirt of mail,
quite out of style. He knew it must date back to the time of the
vikings, and must have seen many a wild fray, and the fancy took him
to polish it up and look for scars. In those days a lad was taught to
shine up his armour as carefully as now he would be expected to polish
his boots, and it was a pleasure to Louis to sit down with sand and
buff-leather in the narrow window of the tower, and rub away at the
steel until his arm ached. Then when the sunlight trickled over the
mesh as brightly as it ever did, he began his scar-hunting. Then he
rubbed his eyes with amazement, for scar there was none! Not a link
was broken, not a dent. Only on one shoulder lay a thin shadow when
the light was right, clearly the score of a swashing blow yet too
shallow to be called a scar. What a wonderful thing was this!
He sprang up and slipped it on over his broad young shoulders. It
fitted like a glove, and the sunset glow flushed in at the window and
streamed across him in a ruddy battle-flood. In that same second he
was seized with a longing to leave all this peacefulness, this land of
lowing cattle and calm sunset, and see other lands and other ways of
living. It was in his blood. A roamer he must be, as his great-
grandfather had been before him. Then and there he made up his mind to
be in the fashion with the courtly world that stirred in the heart of
England. He would join the Crusade!
Do you know what that was?
In Palestine lies the holy city of Jerusalem, the burial-place of
Jesus. For hundreds of years men had journeyed there,--folk called
them pilgrims,--because it was such a holy place that just to visit it
was thought to make men better, and more sure of Heaven in the
eternity to come. But the way was hard and dangerous, and the journey
at last became almost impossible; for from the far East had come
Arabs, Moors, Syrians, dark races who wore turbans, whose flag was red
with a silver crescent in it, and who worshipped God in another and a
bloodier way than ours. To them, also, Jerusalem was a holy place.
Westward their armies swept until at last they captured the city, and
they hold it as a Moslem possession to this day,--though twice for a
short time it was wrested from them by the armies of the West. It
seemed to those western men a terrible thing thus to surrender the
sacred city to the "infidel." So king after king planned expeditions,
with his neighbours, and sailed away with their bravest knights and
fighting-men to recover it. These expeditions were called "crusades,"
and it was the third of these that Louis of Daneshold made up his mind
to join.
Now, if he had been a great captain he would have sailed with a small
army of fighting-men at his back, but being as he was, but a youth,
with his war days all before him, he started more modestly; for in
those times young men who had not learned by experience were content
to work their way upward in the train of some knight of renown and
wait for chances to win their names. Also, it was thought to be such a
privilege that a famous knight was likely to have in his company as
squires (as such usually well-born attendants were called) only the
sons of his own personal friends; thus the best chance that Louis
could obtain was but to be a squire in the troop of a poor knight who
was quite unknown, and who was glad indeed to have a broad-shouldered
youth along who paid his own way, and his own retainer's also, instead
of asking payment.
So, while on ship and in camp, and on the journey, Louis was but one
of a multitude, and his leader little better. But when they entered
Palestine it was another story. Both were light-weights, and their
horses stood the journey better than their comrades; thus gradually
they began to be in the leading troops while on the march. The old-
style cut of Louis's armour had caused him some heartaches when he was
with his plate-armoured mates, but the very uniqueness of it caused
the leading knights to rest their eyes on him when scanning their men
for a good one to send out as a scout, and after one or two trials
they began to learn that in all their host they had no swifter
horseman, nor a keener eye for an ambush; nor, when it came to the
point, a deadlier swordsman than that same blue-eyed, fair-haired lad.
And at last there came a day when the army was in line of battle
against the Saracen; when the Knights of the Temple vied with the
knights of other orders each striving to carry their flag farthest
into that thorny jungle of flashing scimitars, and the huge arm of
King Richard the Lion-hearted hewed a red road for them all which none
could equal; for was he not the strongest man in the two entire
armies--this King who could sever an iron bar with a swordstroke? But
ever as he plunged with fresh zeal and ringing warcry into the heart
of the fray, he became aware of a knight and his squire that as surely
as his shadow, kept but a pace behind him; and the blows that were
struck in that fight under the burning sun and with the loose sand of
the desert underfoot made the day one to be remembered long by those
that lived beyond it.
At last a fresh troop of tried warriors pressed forward on the wearied
men of the West. Louder rang the shout of the turbaned men--
"Allah! Allahu!"
Backward, slowly yet surely, they drove their enemies everywhere save
in that one spot where Richard swung his mace; and even he, too, gave
place for a yard or two, leaving Louis and the other knight fighting
like wildcats, back to back. Then Louis went down--down--into
darkness. Of what happened next, how his leader for long minutes stood
above him guarding both, till with a roar the angry King burst through
the Saracens and rescued them, he knew nothing until he woke days
afterward, feeling very tired, and a little light-headed, and oddly
weak; just awake enough to wonder how he happened to be in a royal
tent, watched over by a handsome, golden-haired young man, who smiled
sunnily at him and talked to him in good French, saying that his name
was Blondel. That Richard had declared so good a squire was worth
being cared for by a king; and that Louis had but one business on
hand, which was to go to sleep again, which he presently very
contentedly did.
Now, this is not a history of King Richard. If you would like to know
more about him and what he did in England and in Palestine you can
read two of Sir Walter Scott's best books, "Ivanhoe" and "The
Talisman," and very stirring times they tell about. What we are most
concerned with is what the fragments of the Iron Star saw in their
travels, and one stout piece of its steel had now parted from its
comrades for ever. In that terrible battle, what was the value of one
sword, more or less, to the knights as they charged and fell back with
the surging of the red tide? So the sword that Louis wielded lay
uncared for where it fell.
Meanwhile, yonder in the royal tent Louis and Blondel had joyous times
together. It was delightful for the young Englishman to lie back among
his cushions, with a servant to fan him and hand him cooling drink, to
watch through the looped-up doorway the men-at-arms without,
wrestling, quoit-throwing, boxing, fencing, in the way that men of
English blood, the world over, keep their muscles sturdy and lithe,
quick to guard their heads.
It was blissful, though embarrassing, when through the tent came
Richard's stately little queen Berengaria, or her taller, more
dignified cousin Edith, two of the most beautiful of women, and
deigned to ask graciously, in the soft, low voice of pity, how he did.
It was soul-stirring when the great King himself came striding in,
perhaps full of wrath over some bit of state-craft gone wrong, perhaps
joyous with the prospect of another battle; perhaps in as happy and
more peaceful a mood, when he would seize the harp of Blondel and
sweep the strings with massive, yet practised hands, and send his
great voice rolling across the encampment in thundering song, like the
impetuous Frenchman that he was.
_For Richard I. was French!_ We are so apt to look on him as the King
of the English, and as being so very much of an Englishman as to be
the sample of the race, that we are apt to forget that although he was
born in England his mother was French, his father French by descent,
and Richard himself ruled England for the most of his reign from his
home in France--when he was not off on a Crusade away from both
countries--and carried on wars in France. All told, he did not live
twelve months on English soil. But the knights of England were so
French--Norman-French--themselves that this did not greatly matter to
them. Still less did it matter to Louis! But one day those great hands
picked up the harp more hastily than usual and with a war-song clashed
the strings; and presently there came a sharp twang or two, and the
singer looked at Blondel like a schoolboy caught in mischief for the
harp lay a wreck in his hands.
"Never mind, Blondel," laughed the royal culprit, "there is gold yet
in our coffers with which to buy another."
"That may be, your Majesty," replied Blondel, ruefully, "But all the
gold of Saladin could not buy what is not; and where to look for harp-
strings in this land of sand is beyond me!"
Then spoke up Louis from his couch right gladly,
"But I have a set! I found them packed away with my armour by some
mistake of a retainer, although I know more of sword-play than of
music."
"Time enough yet for both, lad," cried the King. "The true knight is
master of both, and knight shalt thou be when next on horse again!" A
matter which indeed came to pass; for Richard laughingly declared
that, considering that the young man already had fairly won his
knightly spurs in the field, never was a set of harp-strings so
cheaply bought before as by the exchange just ordered. But Louis lay
back on his cushions with his heart fluttering like a girl's, knowing
well that it was but a jest of the merry monarch's, and that the real
honour he meant the world to know was battle-won.
Thus he came back from Palestine "Sir Louis of Daneshold," with the
red cross of the Crusader blazoned on his shoulder, and knighted by
the King's own hand. And thus it came to pass, also, that Blondel
struck up such a friendship for the giver of the harp-strings, and
found them so wonderfully resonant, that when the expedition broke up
and all started homeward, he insisted on going with him, at least part
way. Thus they had a joyous journeying together by land and sea.
But one day, after they had parted company, word came to Blondel as he
sang at the banquet table of a castle; a word carelessly spoken by a
guest as of a matter which every one knew. And by cautious questioning
he learned that Richard of England had never reached his kingdom; that
Leopold, Duke of Austria, treacherously had made him prisoner while
crossing his dukedom, whither a shipwreck had driven him, and handed
him to an enemy of his, Emperor Henry VI., who paid sixty thousand
pounds for him and now held him chained deep in some one of the many
castles of his domain. In which one, no one knew.
Richard a captive! Blondel could hardly credit it. He sang no more
that night, nor for many nights.
Months afterward, a minstrel went roaming here and there, apparently
aimlessly, throughout Germany. Everywhere the lovely music that
breathed from his harp-strings made him welcome at the towering
castles that surmounted the cliffs along the winding Rhine. His
handsome face and joyous songs made him the favourite among the
maidens and they begged him to pass the season as their guest; but no.
For a week, perhaps, he would be with them, then like a swallow he
must on again to other resting-places, and long afterward the young
girls on the castle walls would sing at their tasks the snatches of
melody left in their memories as he passed.
One day in the town of Durrenstein the minstrel heard of an
illustrious prisoner who was held captive in the castle of Trifels,
surrounded by almost impassable crags. Much that goes on in the
fortress becomes known outside in the market town, through the gossip
of servants who come down for supplies. They like to know what is
going on in the world outside, and in payment for such news are ready
to give the little items of castle life; how Hans the man-at-arms fell
asleep on guard and got a week in the prison on bread and water in
consequence; how the Spanish envoy tried to kiss one of the maids when
he had taken too much wine, and thus had forgotten that he was a
gentleman; and what happened in consequence of his forgetfulness.
Little things, of no importance whatever to the world, yet with now
and then a grain of wheat among the chaff. Thus Blondel found his
grain of wheat.
Striking the strings of his harp he sang with a full heart the most
joyous carol that he knew, a song so bubbling over with mirth and
sheer happiness that the whole market-place seemed to wear a broad
smile and the wooden shoes of the peasants kept time with clumping
thumps in the dusty road to the rhythm of the tune.
The man-at-arms from the castle smote his thigh till all the joints of
his armour clashed and rattled:
"And here I must back with this message without a halt, with music
like that going on down below. Why, it's enough to make our great
noble in his dungeon forget his chains! Well, duty is duty. Here's my
last coin, minstrel, for that song."
The minstrel laughed, throwing back his curly head and showing his
white and pearly teeth.
"I pity thee, man-at-arms. 'Tis better to be a bird in the bush than
in a cage. But this coin is heavy and I owe thee change. To-night,
then, if thou art on the castle walls I'll come and sing to thee."
"It's a bargain!" and homeward rode the man in armour, clanking and
clashing, and in his hoarse voice making vague shouts after bits of
the carol that still haunted him, wondering meanwhile if the minstrel
really would come.
He need not have wondered. Had not that minstrel wandered half over
Germany expressly to sing under those walls? Hardly had the moon been
up an hour, thus lighting a fearful way among those ledges, when step
by step, hand over hand, up climbed the boyish form of Blondel, by a
footpath way not by the guarded road, and with his harp upon his back.
A moment to rest, a moment to take breath and to turn with his golden
key the peg that tightened a string,--then soft, low, trembling like
the wind that sweeps aimlessly, ceaselessly through the sighing forest
branches came the throbbing melody as the slender fingers strayed
across the wires! whispering a song of love of bygone days when two
were wandering under a glad, sunny sky in a free land, where birds in
the near-by forest were nest-building, where sorrow, clouds and
darkness were unknown. Then as the moonlight shone like a star on the
steel helmet of the watcher who leaned so breathlessly over the
battlements, into the night air far below him swung the rich, resonant
voice of the musician, the words clear and cleancut, and of such a
penetrating sweetness that the ironsheathed warrior above all
unconsciously leaned still further over the stonework, and, hardened
though he was, made no pretense to stop slow tears that came to his
eyes and fell, drop by drop, to glitter like diamonds among the rough
rocks far below.
The singer ceased. But the harp still kept up its rhythmic humming;
and presently, muffled by distance and winding passages, as it seemed
out from the very stones of the rugged tower, in a voice, harsh,
strong, yet cultivated, came the second verse of that love-song, sung
with a full heart, throbbing with a newborn hope, sung as never before
had it been rendered in the old days when Blondel had taught it to
Richard in sun-scorched Palestine!
The watcher sprang up at his post, troubled, alert. What did this
portend? He leaned over to seek that minstrel who sang to prisoners,
and send an arrow through him; but the minstrel had disappeared; nor
was he heard from for weary weeks; but then came from England a demand
for release so peremptory that Henry sulkily felt compelled to accept
the ransom money and set King Richard free. Blithely the King took
leave of his surly host whose hotel bill was so high, as is somewhat
the fashion in that region to this day. The sun shone gloriously as it
seemed sun never shone before. The birds made the air ring with music.
Yet no melody that Richard ever heard again was likely to seem as
sweet to him as did that song of Blondel's when it came stealing so
helpfully through the narrow slits that served as windows in his
dungeon cell.
This is the legend. Possibly it is true. But there is another story
told about it which perhaps is the real one: for men do say that the
emperor, Henry, was so elated with his luck in having as a prisoner
the man he hated that he had to tell someone about it. The friend he
chose to tell it to was Philip, King of France, or else Philip learned
of it in some other way. At least he passed the news onward by letter
to someone else; and so in time the ransom came and Richard was
brought back again. I tell you this, because our story began in Myth,
but now, as you see, already we have got to History.
SPARK XI.
HOW THE STAR WAS PRESENT AT THE GREAT GIFT OF THE BARONS.
If you think about it for a moment you will see that we cannot stop to
tell of all the wonderful things which the Iron Star saw in its
travels, nor can we talk of an event for every year. We must do as
sometimes you see the swallows do when they go skimming across a lake,
not stopping at every wave, yet now and then making a little splash as
a beakful of water is scooped up, or perhaps a floating fly. And
possibly you are wondering just why we took that last little dip of
ours into the Crusades; but there was a reason.
You will remember that one of the first things that our Star did was
to travel, and the boy and girl of that day travelled with it, thus
seeing things which they never would have seen had they stayed at
home. So now, the Crusades were the cause of many a young Englishman's
starting off for a new land, and such of them as came back brought
with them new ideas and memories of many strange bits of knowledge to
talk about in the long evenings. To a land of wool and leather they
brought back silks and other luxuries, and they had discovered that
there were good things to eat in the world besides beef and mutton or
wild venison; and the dignified manners and stately speech of the Arab
chiefs, whom they met in moments of truce, had their effect as models
in spite of race hatred. These were not bad matters for England to
know about.
Unfortunately, in such a time the best and bravest men are apt to be
among the first to go, while those who stay at home are more likely to
be of the less worthy. Prince John, who stayed at home, so proved
himself. First, when King Richard was away fighting, and his mother,
Queen Eleanor, was regent--that is to say, was ruling the land for him
until he returned--John lived in England like a prince, and a very bad
prince at that. He ran in debt, he lived fast, and by his example he
set such a wicked fashion for his friends to imitate that, outside of
his set, no one could live and be safe and happy, the prince acting
very much as though he were already king. When it was reported that
Richard was a prisoner, instead of planning how to help him, John said
to himself,
"Hurrah! now I will be king for myself, not king for my brother!" and
plotted to do evil with his new power. In "Ivanhoe" it is stated that
he even tried to have his brother killed when at last he reached home
from his prison beyond the seas. It is very likely, as you will see
from what did happen later.
A large part of what is now France in those days still was under
English rule; or, more correctly, England was ruled by the king of
that part of France and by the warriors who had come from there.
Richard and John, _both Frenchmen_ by descent, had a young nephew
named Arthur, who ruled over Normandy, Aquitaine, Bretagne and other
French land, and this land John had long desired to add to his own
private farm. One day Richard was killed while attacking a rebellious
castle, and John at once said to himself,
"Now is my chance!"
He promptly made a prisoner of boy Arthur, and shut him up in a great
tower. Very piteous tales are told of what happened next. Some say
that John ordered a hardhearted servant to burn out Arthur's beautiful
blue eyes with a hot iron. What John himself said was that "the boy
died in prison," and that to him as next of kin belonged those fair
lands of Aquitaine beyond the English Channel.
But what the world said, and especially the Pope, who at that time was
the all-powerful ruler of all Christian men in matters of right and
religion, was,
"You murdered him for his lands; but it shall profit you nothing, for
not one penny of his wealth shall come to you. Another man shall be
the heir." And it was so.
This made John very angry, but that did not give him the money for
which he had so deeply sinned. We in our day wonder that he himself
was not put in prison and killed in punishment for the deed. But kings
had great powers in those days. They could condemn a man to death if
they would; if it was not done too often, the rest of the world felt
to make sure that more heads were not loose on their shoulders, and
were too grateful to find them safe to murmur about the fate of other
heads, lest a worse thing befall.
Perhaps, when things became _too_ bad, some revengeful man who had
been deeply injured would try to meet evil with evil by murdering
the king, or by getting up a war against him. In either case, many
innocent men had to suffer from the evils that grew out of it.
But one day a better way was found. Louis of Daneshold was now a
grave, broadshouldered, powerful man. The Crusades had knit together
the knights and barons of England into a close brotherhood, and for
the king to harm one was likely to arouse the wrath of all. The young
men who had faced the Saracens and fought shoulder to shoulder in
Palestine were now in England the men of mark, whose words had to be
listened to and heeded by all who would keep out of trouble. Hotheaded
John was not one to put a check on his tongue when it would be wise to
do so, and hardly was Richard buried when John found himself at odds
with Louis and his comrades. They would not submit to his evil doings
as king. They would not permit him to take for his own use the lands,
cattle, money which they had earned by hard fighting. And finally,
when he had a war of his own on his hands in Flanders, fighting French
nobles, the English lords flatly refused to follow him across the
water, since they had neither love for him as a king nor confidence in
him as a leader; and as to the war itself it was king against baron,
and they sided with the baron. As a consequence, John came back to
England again, well beaten; and he did not love those barons!