Chapter6: At Walderne Castle.The watcher on the walls of Walderne Castle sees the sun sink beneath the distant downs, flooding Mount Caburn and his kindred giants with crimson light. In the great hall supper is preparing. See them all trooping in—retainers, fighting men, serving men, all taking their places at the boards placed at right angles to the high table, where the seats of Sir Nicholas de Harengod and his lady are to be seen.He enters: a bluff stern warrior, in his undress, that is, without his panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had superseded thegunnaor gown, and thecouvrechef(whence our word kerchief) on the head.The chaplain, who served the little chapel within the castle, says grace, and the company fall upon the food with little ceremony. We have so often described their manners, or rather absence of manners, that we will not repeat how the joints were carved in the absence of forks, nor how necessary the finger glasses were after meals, although they only graced the higher board.Wine, hippocras, mead, ale—there was plenty to eat and drink, and when the hunger was satisfied a palmer or pilgrim, who had but recently arrived from the Holy Land, sang a touching ballad about his adventures and sufferings in that Holy Land:Trodden by those blessed feetWhich for our salvation wereNailed unto the holy rood.He sang of the captivity of Jerusalem under her Saracen rulers; of the Holy Places, nay, of the Sepulchre itself, in the hands of the heathen. That song, and kindred songs, had already caused rivers of blood to be shed; men were now getting hardened to the tale, albeit the Lady Sybil shed tears.For she thought of her brother Roger, who had taken the Cross at that gathering at Cross-in-Hand when labouring under his sire’s dire displeasure, and who had fallen yet more deeply under the ban, owing to events with which our readers are but partially acquainted.And now, where Roger sat, she saw her own husband—well beloved—yet had he not effaced the memory of her brother. And she longed to see that brother’s son, of whom she had heard, recognised as the heir of Walderne.The palmer sang, and his song told of one, a father stern, who bade his son wash off the guilt of some grievous sin in the blood of the unbeliever—how that son went forth, full of zeal—but went forth to find his efforts blasted by a haunting, malignant fiend he had himself armed with power to blast; how at length, conquering all opposition, he had reached the holy shore, and embarked on every desperate enterprise, until he was laid out for dead, when—At this moment the chapel bell rang for the evening prayers, which were never later than curfew, for as men then rose with the sun it was well to go to bed with him, so they all flocked to the chapel. The office commonly called Compline was said, and the little sanctuary was left again vacant and dark save where the solitary lamp twinkled before the altar.But the Lady Sybil did not seek her couch. She remained kneeling in devotion before the altar, which her wealth and piety had founded. Nor was she alone. The palmer yet knelt on the floor of the sanctuary.When they had been left alone together for some minutes, and all was still save the wind which howled without she rose and said:“Tell me who thou art, O mysterious man: thy voice reminds me of one long dead.”“Dead to the world, yet living in the flesh. Sybil, I am thy brother Roger, at least what remains of him; thou hast not forgotten me.”“But why hast thou been silent so long? Thy brother in arms, the great Earl of Leicester, himself said he saw thee fall fighting gloriously against the fell Paynim.”“And he spake sooth, but he did not see me rise again. I was carried off the field for interment by the good brethren of Saint John, when, just as they were about to lower me with the dead warriors into one common grave, they perceived that there was life in me. They raised me, and restored the spirit which had all but fled, and when at last it returned, reason did not return with it. For a full year I was bereft of my senses. They kept me in the hospital at Acre, but they knew nought, and could learn nought of my kindred, until at length I recovered my reason. Then I told them I was dead to the world, and besought them to keep me, but they bade me wander, and stir up others to the rescue of the Holy Land ere I took my rest. And then, too, there was my son—”“Thy SON?”“Yes. I see I had better unfold all to thee in detail, from the beginning of my wanderings. After I had fled from my father’s wrath, I first went to sunny Provence, where I found friends in the great family of the Montforts, and won the friendship of a man who has since become famous, the Earl of Leicester. A distant kinswoman of theirs, a cousin many times removed, effaced from my heart the fickle damsel who had been the cause of my disgrace in England. Poor Eveline! Never was there sweeter face or sunnier disposition! Had she lived all had been well. I had not then gone forth, abandoned to my own sinful self. But she died in giving birth to my Hubert.”“Thy son, doth he yet live?”“I left him in the care of Simon de Montfort, and went forward to the rendezvous of the crusaders, the Isle of Malta, where, being grievously insulted by a Frenchman—during a truce of God, which had been proclaimed to the whole army—forgot all but my hot blood, struck him, thereby provoked a combat, and slew him, for which I was expelled the host, and forbidden to share in the holy war.“So I sailed thence to Sicily—in deep dejection, repenting, all too late, my ungovernable spirit.“It was in the Isle of Sicily that an awful judgment befell me, which has pursued me ever since, until it has blanched my locks with gray, and hollowed out these wrinkles on my brow.“I had taken up my quarters at an inn, and was striving in vain to drown my remorse in utter recklessness, in wine and mirth, when one night, as I lay half unconscious in bed, I heard the door open. I started up and laid my hand on my sword, but melted into a sweat of fear as I saw the ghost of him I had slain, standing as if in life, his hand upon the wound my blade had made.“‘Nay,’ said he, ‘mortal weapons harm me not now, but see that thou fulfil for me the vow I have made. Carry my sword in person or by proxy to Jerusalem, and lay it on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre. Then I forgive thee my death.’“The vision disappeared, but left me impressed with a sense that it was real and no dream. Hence I dared to return to Malta, and telling my story begged, but begged in vain, to be allowed to carry the sword of the man I had slain through the campaign.“I could not even obtain the sword. It had been sent back to hang by the side of the rusty weapons his ancestors had once borne, in the hall of their distant Chateau de Fievrault.“I returned to Provence, revisited the tomb of my Eveline, saw my boy, sought absolution, made many prayers, but could not shake off the phantom. It was on a Friday I slew my foe, and on each Friday night he appeared. The young Simon de Montfort was about to form another band of crusaders, and he allowed me to accompany him, with the result I have described. During my stay in the monastery at Acre the phantom troubled me not, and as I have already said, I would fain have remained there, but when they heard my tale they bade me return and fulfil my duties to my kindred, and stir up others to come to the aid of the Holy Land, since I was physically incapable of ever bearing arms again.“But I shall even yet fulfil my vow, and the vow of the man I slew, through my boy, when he has gained his spurs. My sinful steps are not permitted to press that soil, once trodden by those blessed feet, nailed for our salvation to the holy rood. Hubert will live and bear the sword of the slain Sieur de Fievrault,sans peur et sans reproche. Then I may lay me down in peace and take my rest.”“Will thou not see my husband?”“I cannot reveal myself here in this castle to any one but thee, and as my tormentor pays his visits again, I will betake me to the Priory of Lewes.”“And must thou leave thy ancestral halls, and bury thyself again, my brother?”“I must. My task is done. I came but to feast my eyes with the sight of thee, and to tell thee that thy nephew, the true heir of Walderne, lives, satisfied that thou wilt not now allow him to be defrauded of his rights.”“Why not reveal thyself to my husband?”“I cannot—at least not in this house; but in the morn, after I have parted for Lewes, tell him all.”“And what proofs shall I give if he ask them?”“Let him seek me at Lewes or, better still, refer to Simon de Montfort, who is the guardian of the boy, and has him in safe keeping at Kenilworth.”“Sybil,” cried a voice.“It is my husband. I must go. Farewell, dearly loved, unhappy brother.”And she departed, leaving him alone in the chapel.Hours had passed by, the inmates of the castle at Walderne all slept, still as the sleeping woods around, save only the watchman on the walls, for in those days of nightly rapine and daily violence no castle or house of any pretensions dispensed with such a guard.Save only the watcher on the walls, and a lonelier watcher in the chapel. For there, in the sanctuary his sister had erected, knelt the returned prodigal, unknown to all save that sister. His heart was full of deep emotion, as well it might be. And thus he mused:“This chapel was not here in my father’s time. There were few lessons to be learnt then, save those of strife and violence. What wonder that when he set me the example, my young blood ran too hotly in my veins, and that I finished my career of violence and riot by slaying the rival who stood in my path? Yet was it done, not in cold blood but in fair fight. Still, he was my cousin, a favourite of my sire, who never forgave me, but drove me from home to make reparation in the holy wars. Then on the way to the land of expiation I must needs again stain my sword with Christian blood, and that on a day when it was sacrilege to draw sword.“But I repent, I repent. O Lord, let the Blood which flowed on that very day down the Holy Rood blot out my sins, atone for my transgressions.“Nay, he appears, as oft before, and stands before me as when I transfixed him on the quay at Malta.“Avaunt, unquiet spirit. My feet have pressed the soil hallowed by the Sacred Blood. Avaunt, for I appeal from thy malice to God. Was it not thou who didst provoke, and wouldst fain have slain me? What was my act but one of self defence, defence first of honour, then of life?”Here he paused, as if listening.“What dost thou say? I give thee rest. Let my son take the sword from thy ancestral hall, and wield it in the holy war in thy name. Then thy vow will be fulfilled, and thou wilt cumber earth no longer.“Well, we shall see! But can I send him to that distant land? He may suffer as I.“No! no! Son of my love! It may not be.“Ah, thou departest. It is well. Avaunt thee, poor ghost! Avaunt thee.”So the night sped away, and when the gates of the castle opened at sunrise, the palmer passed through them and took the road for Lewes.We need hardly say that, in the course of the day after the ill-fated Roger had departed for Lewes, to bury his sorrows and his sins within the hallowed walls of the Priory of Saint Pancras, the Lady Sybil made a full revelation of all the circumstances of his visit to her husband, Sir Nicholas Harengod.There was not a moment’s doubt in the mind of that worthy knight as to the proper course to be pursued. Roger must be left to carry out his own decision—as the most convenient to all parties concerned—and the son must at once be brought home and acknowledged as the true heir of Walderne, cum Icklesham, cum Dene, and I wot not what else. As for poor Drogo, he must be content with the patrimony of Sir Nicholas—the manor of Harengod.So Sir Nicholas first sought an interview with his brother-in-law, Roger, at the priory. He found him on the point of being admitted to the novitiate, and then started post haste across the country—northward for Kenilworth—where he arrived in due course, and was soon closeted with the mighty earl, to whom he revealed the whole story of the resurrection of Sir Roger of Walderne.It was indeed a resurrection. At first the earl hardly credited its possibility; but anon with joy received it, and gave his full consent for Sir Nicholas to take Hubert away for a time, that he might make acquaintance with the home of his ancestors, and seek his father at Lewes.Much more conversation passed between the knight and the earl, but we shall have occasion to develop its results as our narrative proceeds.So we shall leave our readers to picture the delight and wonder of Hubert, the jealousy of Drogo, and much besides, while we go to Oxford to see Martin.
The watcher on the walls of Walderne Castle sees the sun sink beneath the distant downs, flooding Mount Caburn and his kindred giants with crimson light. In the great hall supper is preparing. See them all trooping in—retainers, fighting men, serving men, all taking their places at the boards placed at right angles to the high table, where the seats of Sir Nicholas de Harengod and his lady are to be seen.
He enters: a bluff stern warrior, in his undress, that is, without his panoply of armour and arms, in the long flowing robe affected by his Norman kindred at the festal board. She, with the comely robe which had superseded thegunnaor gown, and thecouvrechef(whence our word kerchief) on the head.
The chaplain, who served the little chapel within the castle, says grace, and the company fall upon the food with little ceremony. We have so often described their manners, or rather absence of manners, that we will not repeat how the joints were carved in the absence of forks, nor how necessary the finger glasses were after meals, although they only graced the higher board.
Wine, hippocras, mead, ale—there was plenty to eat and drink, and when the hunger was satisfied a palmer or pilgrim, who had but recently arrived from the Holy Land, sang a touching ballad about his adventures and sufferings in that Holy Land:
Trodden by those blessed feetWhich for our salvation wereNailed unto the holy rood.
He sang of the captivity of Jerusalem under her Saracen rulers; of the Holy Places, nay, of the Sepulchre itself, in the hands of the heathen. That song, and kindred songs, had already caused rivers of blood to be shed; men were now getting hardened to the tale, albeit the Lady Sybil shed tears.
For she thought of her brother Roger, who had taken the Cross at that gathering at Cross-in-Hand when labouring under his sire’s dire displeasure, and who had fallen yet more deeply under the ban, owing to events with which our readers are but partially acquainted.
And now, where Roger sat, she saw her own husband—well beloved—yet had he not effaced the memory of her brother. And she longed to see that brother’s son, of whom she had heard, recognised as the heir of Walderne.
The palmer sang, and his song told of one, a father stern, who bade his son wash off the guilt of some grievous sin in the blood of the unbeliever—how that son went forth, full of zeal—but went forth to find his efforts blasted by a haunting, malignant fiend he had himself armed with power to blast; how at length, conquering all opposition, he had reached the holy shore, and embarked on every desperate enterprise, until he was laid out for dead, when—
At this moment the chapel bell rang for the evening prayers, which were never later than curfew, for as men then rose with the sun it was well to go to bed with him, so they all flocked to the chapel. The office commonly called Compline was said, and the little sanctuary was left again vacant and dark save where the solitary lamp twinkled before the altar.
But the Lady Sybil did not seek her couch. She remained kneeling in devotion before the altar, which her wealth and piety had founded. Nor was she alone. The palmer yet knelt on the floor of the sanctuary.
When they had been left alone together for some minutes, and all was still save the wind which howled without she rose and said:
“Tell me who thou art, O mysterious man: thy voice reminds me of one long dead.”
“Dead to the world, yet living in the flesh. Sybil, I am thy brother Roger, at least what remains of him; thou hast not forgotten me.”
“But why hast thou been silent so long? Thy brother in arms, the great Earl of Leicester, himself said he saw thee fall fighting gloriously against the fell Paynim.”
“And he spake sooth, but he did not see me rise again. I was carried off the field for interment by the good brethren of Saint John, when, just as they were about to lower me with the dead warriors into one common grave, they perceived that there was life in me. They raised me, and restored the spirit which had all but fled, and when at last it returned, reason did not return with it. For a full year I was bereft of my senses. They kept me in the hospital at Acre, but they knew nought, and could learn nought of my kindred, until at length I recovered my reason. Then I told them I was dead to the world, and besought them to keep me, but they bade me wander, and stir up others to the rescue of the Holy Land ere I took my rest. And then, too, there was my son—”
“Thy SON?”
“Yes. I see I had better unfold all to thee in detail, from the beginning of my wanderings. After I had fled from my father’s wrath, I first went to sunny Provence, where I found friends in the great family of the Montforts, and won the friendship of a man who has since become famous, the Earl of Leicester. A distant kinswoman of theirs, a cousin many times removed, effaced from my heart the fickle damsel who had been the cause of my disgrace in England. Poor Eveline! Never was there sweeter face or sunnier disposition! Had she lived all had been well. I had not then gone forth, abandoned to my own sinful self. But she died in giving birth to my Hubert.”
“Thy son, doth he yet live?”
“I left him in the care of Simon de Montfort, and went forward to the rendezvous of the crusaders, the Isle of Malta, where, being grievously insulted by a Frenchman—during a truce of God, which had been proclaimed to the whole army—forgot all but my hot blood, struck him, thereby provoked a combat, and slew him, for which I was expelled the host, and forbidden to share in the holy war.
“So I sailed thence to Sicily—in deep dejection, repenting, all too late, my ungovernable spirit.
“It was in the Isle of Sicily that an awful judgment befell me, which has pursued me ever since, until it has blanched my locks with gray, and hollowed out these wrinkles on my brow.
“I had taken up my quarters at an inn, and was striving in vain to drown my remorse in utter recklessness, in wine and mirth, when one night, as I lay half unconscious in bed, I heard the door open. I started up and laid my hand on my sword, but melted into a sweat of fear as I saw the ghost of him I had slain, standing as if in life, his hand upon the wound my blade had made.
“‘Nay,’ said he, ‘mortal weapons harm me not now, but see that thou fulfil for me the vow I have made. Carry my sword in person or by proxy to Jerusalem, and lay it on the altar of the Holy Sepulchre. Then I forgive thee my death.’
“The vision disappeared, but left me impressed with a sense that it was real and no dream. Hence I dared to return to Malta, and telling my story begged, but begged in vain, to be allowed to carry the sword of the man I had slain through the campaign.
“I could not even obtain the sword. It had been sent back to hang by the side of the rusty weapons his ancestors had once borne, in the hall of their distant Chateau de Fievrault.
“I returned to Provence, revisited the tomb of my Eveline, saw my boy, sought absolution, made many prayers, but could not shake off the phantom. It was on a Friday I slew my foe, and on each Friday night he appeared. The young Simon de Montfort was about to form another band of crusaders, and he allowed me to accompany him, with the result I have described. During my stay in the monastery at Acre the phantom troubled me not, and as I have already said, I would fain have remained there, but when they heard my tale they bade me return and fulfil my duties to my kindred, and stir up others to come to the aid of the Holy Land, since I was physically incapable of ever bearing arms again.
“But I shall even yet fulfil my vow, and the vow of the man I slew, through my boy, when he has gained his spurs. My sinful steps are not permitted to press that soil, once trodden by those blessed feet, nailed for our salvation to the holy rood. Hubert will live and bear the sword of the slain Sieur de Fievrault,sans peur et sans reproche. Then I may lay me down in peace and take my rest.”
“Will thou not see my husband?”
“I cannot reveal myself here in this castle to any one but thee, and as my tormentor pays his visits again, I will betake me to the Priory of Lewes.”
“And must thou leave thy ancestral halls, and bury thyself again, my brother?”
“I must. My task is done. I came but to feast my eyes with the sight of thee, and to tell thee that thy nephew, the true heir of Walderne, lives, satisfied that thou wilt not now allow him to be defrauded of his rights.”
“Why not reveal thyself to my husband?”
“I cannot—at least not in this house; but in the morn, after I have parted for Lewes, tell him all.”
“And what proofs shall I give if he ask them?”
“Let him seek me at Lewes or, better still, refer to Simon de Montfort, who is the guardian of the boy, and has him in safe keeping at Kenilworth.”
“Sybil,” cried a voice.
“It is my husband. I must go. Farewell, dearly loved, unhappy brother.”
And she departed, leaving him alone in the chapel.
Hours had passed by, the inmates of the castle at Walderne all slept, still as the sleeping woods around, save only the watchman on the walls, for in those days of nightly rapine and daily violence no castle or house of any pretensions dispensed with such a guard.
Save only the watcher on the walls, and a lonelier watcher in the chapel. For there, in the sanctuary his sister had erected, knelt the returned prodigal, unknown to all save that sister. His heart was full of deep emotion, as well it might be. And thus he mused:
“This chapel was not here in my father’s time. There were few lessons to be learnt then, save those of strife and violence. What wonder that when he set me the example, my young blood ran too hotly in my veins, and that I finished my career of violence and riot by slaying the rival who stood in my path? Yet was it done, not in cold blood but in fair fight. Still, he was my cousin, a favourite of my sire, who never forgave me, but drove me from home to make reparation in the holy wars. Then on the way to the land of expiation I must needs again stain my sword with Christian blood, and that on a day when it was sacrilege to draw sword.
“But I repent, I repent. O Lord, let the Blood which flowed on that very day down the Holy Rood blot out my sins, atone for my transgressions.
“Nay, he appears, as oft before, and stands before me as when I transfixed him on the quay at Malta.
“Avaunt, unquiet spirit. My feet have pressed the soil hallowed by the Sacred Blood. Avaunt, for I appeal from thy malice to God. Was it not thou who didst provoke, and wouldst fain have slain me? What was my act but one of self defence, defence first of honour, then of life?”
Here he paused, as if listening.
“What dost thou say? I give thee rest. Let my son take the sword from thy ancestral hall, and wield it in the holy war in thy name. Then thy vow will be fulfilled, and thou wilt cumber earth no longer.
“Well, we shall see! But can I send him to that distant land? He may suffer as I.
“No! no! Son of my love! It may not be.
“Ah, thou departest. It is well. Avaunt thee, poor ghost! Avaunt thee.”
So the night sped away, and when the gates of the castle opened at sunrise, the palmer passed through them and took the road for Lewes.
We need hardly say that, in the course of the day after the ill-fated Roger had departed for Lewes, to bury his sorrows and his sins within the hallowed walls of the Priory of Saint Pancras, the Lady Sybil made a full revelation of all the circumstances of his visit to her husband, Sir Nicholas Harengod.
There was not a moment’s doubt in the mind of that worthy knight as to the proper course to be pursued. Roger must be left to carry out his own decision—as the most convenient to all parties concerned—and the son must at once be brought home and acknowledged as the true heir of Walderne, cum Icklesham, cum Dene, and I wot not what else. As for poor Drogo, he must be content with the patrimony of Sir Nicholas—the manor of Harengod.
So Sir Nicholas first sought an interview with his brother-in-law, Roger, at the priory. He found him on the point of being admitted to the novitiate, and then started post haste across the country—northward for Kenilworth—where he arrived in due course, and was soon closeted with the mighty earl, to whom he revealed the whole story of the resurrection of Sir Roger of Walderne.
It was indeed a resurrection. At first the earl hardly credited its possibility; but anon with joy received it, and gave his full consent for Sir Nicholas to take Hubert away for a time, that he might make acquaintance with the home of his ancestors, and seek his father at Lewes.
Much more conversation passed between the knight and the earl, but we shall have occasion to develop its results as our narrative proceeds.
So we shall leave our readers to picture the delight and wonder of Hubert, the jealousy of Drogo, and much besides, while we go to Oxford to see Martin.