"Oh! it is excellentTo have a giant's strength, but tyrannousTo use it like a giant."
"Oh! it is excellentTo have a giant's strength, but tyrannousTo use it like a giant."
"Oh! it is excellentTo have a giant's strength, but tyrannousTo use it like a giant."
"Oh! it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous
To use it like a giant."
Measure for Measure.
High up in a green, gentle valley, a lap among the hills, which, though not very lofty, were steep and abrupt with limestone crags and ledges, heaving themselves above the soil on their upper slopes and summits, perched on a small isolated knoll, or hillock, so regular in form, and so evenly scarped and rounded, that it bore the appearance of an artificial work, stood the tall Norman fortalice of Philip de Morville.
It was not a very large building, consisting principally of a single lofty square keep, with four lozenge-shaped turrets at the angles, attached to the body of the place, merlonwise, as it is termed in heraldry, or corner to corner, rising some twenty feet or more above the flat roof of the tower, which was surrounded with heavy projecting battlements widely overhanging the base, and pierced with crenelles for archery, and deep machicolations, by which to pour down boiling oil, or molten lead, upon any who should attempt the walls.
In the upper stories only, of this strong place, were there any windows, such as deserved the name, beyond mere loops and arrowslits; but there, far above the reach of any scaling-ladder, they looked out, tall and shapely, glimmering in the summer sunshine, in the rich and gorgeous hues of the stained glass—at that time the most recent and costly of foreign luxuries, opening on a projecting gallery, or bartizan, of curiously-carved stonework, which ran round all the four sides of the building, and rendered the dwelling apartments of the castellan and his family both lightsome and commodious. One of the tall turrets, which have been described, contained the winding staircase, which gave access to the halls and guard-rooms which occupied all the lower floors, and to the battlements above, while each of the others contained sleeping-chambers of narrow dimensions, on each story, opening into the larger apartments.
This keep, with the exception of the tall battlemented flanking walls, with their esplanades and turrets, and advanced barbican or gate-house, was the only genuine Norman portion of the castle, and occupied the very summit of the knoll; but below it, and for the most part concealed and covered by the ramparts on which it abutted, was a long, low, roomy stone building, which had been in old times the mansion of the Saxon thane, who had occupied the rich and fertile lands of that upland vale, in the happy days before the advent of the fierce and daring Normans, to whom he had lost both life and lands, and left an empty name alone to the inheritance, which was not to descend to any of his race or lineage.
Below the walls, which encircled the hillock about midway between the base and summit, except at one spot, where the gate-house was thrust forward to the brink of a large and rapid brook, which had been made by artificial means completely to encircle the little hill, the slopes were entirely bare of trees or underwood, every thing that could possibly cover the advances of an enemy being carefully cut down or uprooted, and were clothed only by a dense carpet of short, thick greensward, broidered with daisies pied, and silver lady's smocks; but beyond the rivulet, covering all the bottom of the valley with rich and verdant shade, were pleasant orchards and coppices, among which peeped out the thatched roofs and mud walls of the little village, inhabited by the few free laborers, and the more numerous thralls and land-serfs, who cultivated the demesnes of the foreign noble, who possessed them by right of the sword.
Through this pleasant little hamlet, the yellow road, which led up to the castle, wound devious, passing in its course by an open green, on which half a dozen sheep and two or three asses were feeding on the short herbage, with a small Saxon chapel, distinguished by its low, round, wolf-toothed arch and belfry, on the farther side; and, in singular proximity to the sacred edifice, a small space, inclosed by a palisade, containing a gallows, a whipping-post, and a pair of stocks—sad monuments of Saxon slavery, and Norman tyranny and wrong.
In one of the upper chambers of the feudal keep, a small square room, with a vaulted roof, springing from four clustered columns in the corners, with four groined ribs, meeting in the middle, from which descended a long, curiously-carved pendant of stone, terminating in a gilt iron candelabrum of several branches, two men were seated at a board, on which, though the solid viands of the mid-day meal had been removed, there were displayed several silver dishes, with wastel bread, dried fruits, and light confections, as well as two or three tall, graceful flasks of the light fragrant wines of Gascony and Anjou, and several cups and tankards of richly-chased and gilded metal, intermixed with several large-bowled and thin-stemmed goblets of purple and ruby-colored glass.
The room was a very pleasant one, lighted by two tall windows, on two different sides, which stood wide open, admitting the soft, balmy, summer air, and the fresh smell of the neighboring greenwoods, the breezy voice of which came gently in, whispering through the casement. The walls were hung with tapestries of embossed and gilded Spanish leather, adorned with spirited figures of Arab skirmishers and Christian chivalry, engaged in the stirring game of warfare; while, no unfit decoration for a wall so covered, two or three fine suits of chain and plate armor, burnished so brightly that they shone like silver, with their emblazoned shields and appropriate weapons, stood, like armed knights on constant duty, in canopied niches, framed especially to receive them.
Varlets, pages, and attendants, had all withdrawn; and the two Norman barons sat alone, sipping their wine in silence, and apparently reflecting on some subject which they found it difficult to approach without offense or embarrassment. At last, the younger of the two, Sir Philip de Morville, after drawing his open hand across his fair, broad forehead, as if he would have swept away some cloud which gloomed over his mind, and drinking off a deep goblet of wine, opened the conversation with evident confusion and reluctance.
"Well, well," he said, "it must out, Sir Yvo, and though it is not very grateful to speak of such things, I must needs do so, lest I appear to you uncourtly and ungracious, in hesitating to do to you, mine own most tried and trusty friend, to whom I owe no less than my own life, so small a favor as the granting liberty to one poor devil of a Saxon. I told you I would do it, if I might; yet, by my father's soul, I know not how to do it!"
"Where is the rub, my friend?" replied the other, kindly. "I doubt not, if we put both our heads together, we can accomplish even a greater thing than making a free English yeoman of a Saxon thrall."
"I never was rich, as you well know, De Taillebois; but at the time of the king's late incursion into Wales, when I was summoned to lead out my power, I had no choice but to mortgage this my fortalice, with its demesne of Waltheofstow, and all its plenishing and stock, castle and thralls, and crops and fisheries, to Abraham of Tadcaster, for nineteen thousand zecchins, to buy their outfitting, horses, and armor; and this prohibits me from manumitting this man, Kenric, although I would do so right willingly, not for that it would pleasure you only, but that he is a faithful and an honest fellow for a thrall, and right handy, both with arbalast and longbow. I know not well how to accomplish it."
"Easily, easily, Philip," answered Sir Yvo, laughing. "Never shall it be said that nineteen thousand zecchins stood between Yvo de Taillebois and his gratitude; besides, this will shoot double game with a single arrow. It will relieve our trusty Kenric from the actual bondage of a corporeal lord and master, and liberate my right good friend and brother in arms, Philip de Morville, from the more galling spiritual bondage of that foul tyrant and perilous oppressor, debt. Tush! no denial, I say," he continued, perceiving that Sir Philip was about to make some demur; "it is a mere trifle, this, and a matter of no moment. I am, as you well know, passing rich, what with my rents in Westmoreland, and my estates beyond the sea. I have even now well-nigh twice the sum that you name, lying idle in my bailiff's hands at Kendall, until I may find lands to purchase. It was my intent to have bought those border lands of Clifford's, that march with my moorlands on Hawkshead, but it seems he will not sell, and I am doubly glad that it gives me the occasion to serve you. I will direct my bailiff at once to take horse for Tadcaster and redeem your mortgage, and you can take your own time and pleasure to repay it. There is no risk, Heaven knows, for Waltheofstow is well worth nineteen thousand zecchins three times told, and, in lieu of usance money, you shall transfer the man Kenric from thee and thine to me and mine, forever. So shall my gratitude be preserved intact, and my pretty Guendolen have her fond fancy gratified."
"Be it so, then, in God's name; and by my faith I thank you for the loan right heartily; for, on mine honor! that same blood-sucker of Israel hath pumped me like the veriest horse-leech, these last twelve months, and I know not but I should have had to sell, after all. We must have Kenric's consent, however, that all may be in form; for he is no common thrall, but a serf of the soil, and may not be removed from it, nor manumitted even, save with his own free will."
"Who ever heard of a serf refusing to be free, more than of a Jew not loving ducats? My life on it, he will not be slow to consent!"
"I trow not, I trow not, De Taillebois, but let us set about it presently; a good deed can not well be done too quickly. You pass the wine cup, too, I notice. Let us take cap and cloak, and stroll down into the hamlet yonder; it is a pleasant ramble in the cool afternoon, and we can see him in his den; he will be scant of wind, I trow, and little fit to climb the castle hill this evensong, after the battering he received from that stout forester. But freedom will be a royal salve, I warrant me, for his worst bruises. Shall we go?"
"Willingly, willingly. I would have it to tell Guendolen at her wakening. 'T will be a cure to her also. She is a tender-hearted child ever, and was so from her cradle. Why, I have known her cry like the lady Niobe, that the prior of St. Albans told us of—who wept till she was changed into a chipping fountain, when blessed St. Michael and St. George slew all her tribe of children, for that she likened herself, in her vain pride of beauty, to the most holy virgin mother, St. Mary of Sienna—at the killing of a deer by a stray shaft, that had a suckling fawn beside her foot; and when I caused them to imprison Wufgitha, that was her nurse's daughter, for selling of a hundred pounds of flax that was given her to spin, she took sick, and kept to her bed two days and more, all for that she fancied the wench would pine; though her prison-house was the airiest and most lightsome turret chamber in my house at Kendal, and she was not in gyves nor on prison diet. Faith! I had no peace with her, till I gave the whole guidance of the women into her hands. They are all ladies since that day at Kendal, or next akin to it."
"Over god's forbode!" answered Philip, laughing. "It must have been a black day for your seneschal. How rules he your warders, since? My fellow, Hundibert, swears that the girls need more watching than the laziest swine in the whole Saxon herd. But come; let us be moving."
With that they descended the winding stone stairway into the great hall or guard-room, which occupied the whole of one floor of the castle—a noble vaulted room, stone-arched and stone-paved, its walls hung with splendid arms and well-used weapons,
"Old swords, and pikes, and bows,And good old shields, and targets, that had borne some stout old blows."
"Old swords, and pikes, and bows,And good old shields, and targets, that had borne some stout old blows."
"Old swords, and pikes, and bows,And good old shields, and targets, that had borne some stout old blows."
"Old swords, and pikes, and bows,
And good old shields, and targets, that had borne some stout old blows."
Thence, through an echoing archway, above which in its grooves of stone hung the steel-clinched portcullis, and down a steep and almost precipitous flight of steps, without any rail or breastwork, they reached the large court-yard, where some of the retainers were engaged in trying feats of strength and skill, throwing the hammer, wrestling, or shooting with arbalasts at a mark, while others were playing at games of chance in a cool shadowy angle of the walls, moistening their occupation with an occasional pull at a deep, black tankard, which stood beside them on the board.
After tarrying a few minutes in the court, observing the wrestlers and cross-bowmen, and throwing in an occasional word of good-humored encouragement at any good shot or happy fall, the lords passed the drawbridge, which was lowered, giving access to the pleasant country, over which the warder was gazing half-wistfully, and watching a group of pretty girls, who were washing clothes in the brook at about half a mile's distance, laughing as merrily and singing as tunefully as though they had been free maidens of gentle Norman lineage, instead of contemned and outlawed Saxons, the children, and the wives and mothers of slaves and bond-men in the to be hereafter.
"Hollo! old Stephen," cried the Knight of Morville, gayly, as he passed the stout dependent; "I thought thou wert too resolute a bachelor to cast a sheep's-eye on the lasses, and too thorough-paced a Norman to let the prettiest Saxon of them all find favor in your sight."
"I don't know, sir; I don't know that," answered the man, with a grin, half-bashfully, and between bantering and earnest. "There's little Edith down yonder; and, bond or free, there's not a girl about the castle, or within ten miles of it, for that matter, that has got an eye to come near those blue sparklers of her's; and as for her voice, when she's singing, it would wile the birds out of heaven, let alone the wits of a poor soldier's brain-pan. Hark to her now, Sir Philip. Sang ever nightingale so sweetly as yon trill, Sir Knight?"
"Win her, Stephen. Win her, I'll grant you my permission, for your paramour; and if you do, I'll give her to you for your own. I owe you a boon of some sort, for that service you did me when you knocked that Welch churl on the head, who would have driven his long knife into my ribs, that time I was dismounted in the pass near Dunmailraise. Win her, therefore, if you may, Stephen, and yours she shall be, as surely and as steadfastly as though she were the captive of your spear."
"Small chance, Sir Philip," replied the man, slowly; "all thanks to you, natheless. But she's troth-plighted to that tall, well-made fellow, Kenric, they say, that saved the lady Guendolen from the stag this morning. They'll be asking your consent to the wedding and the bedding, one of these days, Beausire. To-morrow, as like as not, seeing this feat of the good youth's will furnish forth a sort of plea for the asking of a favor."
"That will not much concern you, warder," said Sir Yvo. "Your rival will be out of your way shortly. I have asked his freedom but now of Sir Philip, and shall have him away with me the next week, to the North country."
"I don't know that will do me much good. They say she loves him parlously, and he her; and she ever looks coldly on me."
"A little perseverance is a certain remedy for cold looks, Stephen. So, don't be down-hearted. You will have a clear field soon."
"I am not so sure of that, sir. I should not wonder if he refused to go."
"Refused to go—to be free—to be his own master, and a thrall and slave no longer!"
"Who can tell, sir?" answered the man. "Saxon or Norman, bond or free, we're all men, after all; and women have made fools of us all, since the days of Sir Adam in Paradise, and will, I fancy, to the end of all time. I'd do and suffer a good deal myself to win such a look out of Edith's blue eyes, as I saw her give yon Saxon churl, when he came to after we had thrown cold water on him. And, after all, if Sir Hercules, of Greece, made a slave of himself, and a she-slave, too, as that wandering minstrel sang to us in the hall the other day, all to win the love of the beautiful Sultana, Omphale, I don't see, for myself, why a Saxon serf, that's been a serf all his life, and got pretty well used to it by this time, shouldn't stay a serf all the rest of it, to keep the love of Edith, who is prettier a precious sight than the fair Turk, Omphale, I'll warrant. I don't know but what I would myself."
"Pshaw! Stephen; that smacks Norman—smacks of thegai science, chivalry, sentiment, and fine high romance. You'll never see a Saxon sing 'all for love,' I'll warrant you."
"Well, sir, well. We shall see. A Saxon's a man, as I said before; and a Saxon in love is a man in love; and a man in love isn't a man in his senses any more than Sir Hercules of Greece was, and when a Saxon's in love, and out of his senses, there's no saying what he'll do; only one may guess it will be nothing over wise. And so, as I said before, I should not wonder if Kenric should not part with collar, thong, and shackles, if he must needs part too with little Edith the Fair. I would not, any wise, if I were he, Beausire."
"As they sat in Englyshe wood,Under the greenwode tree,They thought they heard a woman wepe,But her they mought not see."
"As they sat in Englyshe wood,Under the greenwode tree,They thought they heard a woman wepe,But her they mought not see."
"As they sat in Englyshe wood,Under the greenwode tree,They thought they heard a woman wepe,But her they mought not see."
"As they sat in Englyshe wood,
Under the greenwode tree,
They thought they heard a woman wepe,
But her they mought not see."
Adam Bell, etc.
Leaving the warder lounging listlessly at his post, as in a well-settled district and in "piping times of peace," with no feudal enemies at hand, and no outlaws in the vicinity, none at least so numerous as to render any guard necessary, except as a matter of dignity and decorum, the two knights strolled down the sandy lane toward the village, or quarter of the serfs; who were not admitted generally to reside within the walls, partly as a precaution, lest, in case of some national affray, they might so far outnumber the Norman men-at-arms as to become dangerous, partly because they were not deemed fitting associates for the meanest of the feudal servitors.
The two gentlemen in question were excellent specimens of the Norman baron of the day, without, however, being heroes or geniuses, or in any particular—except perhaps for good temper and the lack of especial temptation toward evil—manifestly superior to others of their class, caste, and period. Neither of them was in any respect a tyrant, individually cruel, or intentionally an oppressor; but both were, as every one of us is at this day, used to look at things as we find them, through our own glasses, and to seek rather for what is the custom, than for what is right, and therefore ought to be; for what it suits us, and is permitted to us by law to do to others, than for what we should desire others to do unto us.
Reckless of life themselves, brought up from their cradles to regard pain as a thing below consideration, and death as a thing to be risked daily, they were not like to pay much regard to the mere physical sufferings of others, or to set human life at a value, such as to render it worth the preserving, when great stakes were to be won or lost on its hazard. Accustomed to set their own lives on the die, for the most fantastic whim of honor, or at the first call of their feudal suzerains, accustomed to see their Norman vassals fall under shield, and deem such death honorable and joyous, at their own slightest bidding, how should they have thought much of the life, far more of the physical or mental sufferings, of the Saxon serf, whom they had found, on their arrival in their newly-conquered England, a thing debased below the value, in current coin, of an ox, a dog, or a war-horse—a thing, the taking of whose life was compensated by a trivial fine, and whom they naturally came to regard as a dull, soulless, inanimate, stupid senseless animal, with the passions only, but without the intellect of the man. Of the two barons, Sir Yvo de Taillebois was the superior, both in intellect and culture; he was in easy circumstances also, while his far younger friend, Sir Philip de Morville, was embarrassed by theres angusta domi, and by the importunity of relentless creditors, which often drives men to do, as well as to suffer, extremes.
It was no hardness of nature or cruelty of disposition, therefore, which led either of these noble men—for they were noble, not in birth only, but in sentiment and soul, according to the notions of their age, which were necessarilytheirnotions, and to the lights vouchsafed to them—to speak concerning the Saxon serfs, and act toward them, ever as if they were beasts of burden, worthy of care, kindness, and some degree of physical consideration, rather than like men, as themselves, endowed with hearts to feel and souls to comprehend. Had they been other than they were, they had been monsters; as it was, they were excellent men, as men went then, and go now, fully up to the spirit of their own times, and to the strain of morality and justice understood thereby, but not one whit above it. Therefore, Sir Yvo de Taillebois, finding himself indebted for his daughter's life to the hardihood and courage of the Saxon serf, whom he regarded much as he would have done his charger or his hound, desired, as a point of honor, rather than of gratitude, to secure to the serf an indemnity from toil, punishment, or want, during the rest of his life, just as he would have assigned a stall, with free rack and manger, to the superannuated charger which had saved his own life in battle; or given the run of kitchen, buttery, and hall, to the hound which had run the foremost of his pack. The sensibilities of the Saxon were as incomprehensible to him as those of the charger or the staghound, and he thought no more of considering him in his social or family relations, than the animals to which, in some sort, he likened him.
He would not, it is true, if asked as a philosophical truth, whether the life of a Saxon serf and of an Andalusian charger were equivalent, have replied in the affirmative; for he was, according to his lights, a Christian, and knew that a Saxon had a soul to be saved; nor would he have answered, that the colt of the high-bred mare, or the whelp of the generous brach, stood exactly in the same relation as the child of the serf to its human parent; but use had much deadened his perceptions to the distinction; and the impassive and stolid insensibility of the Saxon race, imbruted and degraded by ages of serfdom, caused him to overlook the faint and rarely seen displays of human sensibilities, which would have led him less to undervalue the sense and sentiment of his helpless fellow-countrymen. As it was, he would as soon have expected his favorite charger or best brood mare to pine hopelessly, and grieve as one who could not be consoled, at being liberated from spur and saddle, and turned out to graze at liberty forever in a free and fertile pasture, while its colts should remain in life-long bondage, as he would have supposed it possible for the Saxon serf to be affected beyond consolation by the death, the deportation, or the disasters of his family.
Nor, again, did he regard liberty or servitude in an abstract sense, apart from ideas of incarceration, torture, or extreme privation, as great and inherent right or wrong.
The serf owed him absolute service; the free laborer, or villeyn, service, in some sort, less absolute; his vassals, man-service, according to their degree, either in the field of daily labor, the hunting-field, or the battle-field; he himself owed service to his suzerain; his suzerain to the King. It was all service, and the difference was but in the degree; and if the service of the serf was degraded, it was a usual, a habitual degradation, to which, it might be presumed, he was so well accustomed, that he felt it not more than the charger his demipique, or the hawk his bells and jesses; and, for the most part, he did not feel it more, nor regret it, nor know the lack of liberty, save as connected with the absence of the fetters or the lash.
And this, indeed, is the great real evil of slavery, wheresoever and under whatsoever form it exists, that it is not more, but less, hurtful to the slave than to the master, and that its ill effects are in a much higher and more painful degree intellectual than physical; that, while it degrades and lowers the inferiors almost to the level of mere brutes, through the consciousness of degradation, the absence of all hope to rise in the scale of manhood, and the lack of every stimulus to ambition or exertion, it hardens the heart, and deadens the sensibilities of the master, and renders him, through the strange power of circumstance and custom, blind to the existence of wrongs, sufferings, and sorrows, at the mere narration of which, under a different phase of things, his blood would boil with indignation.
Such, then, was in some considerable degree, the state of mind, arising from habit and acquaintance with the constitution of freedom and slavery, intermingled every where in the then world, any thing to the contrary of which they had never seen nor even heard of, in which the two Norman lords took their way down the village street, if it could be so called, being a mere sandy tract, passable only to horsemen, or carts and vehicles of the very rudest construction, unarmed, except with their heavy swords, and wholly unattended, on an errand, as they intended, of liberality and mercy.
The quarter of the serfs of Sir Philip de Morville was, for the most part, very superior to the miserable collection of huts, liker to dog-houses than to any human habitation, which generally constituted the dwellings of this forlorn and miserable race; for the knight was, as it has been stated, an even-tempered and good-natured, though common-place man; and being endowed with rather an uncommon regard for order and taste for the picturesque, he consequently looked more than usual to the comfort of his serfs, both in allotting them small plots of garden-ground and orchards, and in bestowing on them building materials of superior quality and appearance.
All the huts, therefore, rudely framed of oak beams, having the interstices filled in with a cement of clay and ruddle, with thatched roofs and wooden lattices instead of windows, were whole, and for the most part weather-proof. Many of the inhabitants had made porches, covered with natural wild runners, as the woodbine and sweet-brier; all had made gardens in front, which they might cultivate in their hours of leisure, when the day's task-work should be done, and which displayed evidently enough, by their orderly or slovenly culture, the character and disposition of their occupants.
The few men whom the lords met on their way, mostly driving up beasts laden with fire-wood or forage to the cattle, for the day was not yet far spent, nor the hours devoted to toil well-nigh passed, were hale, strong, sturdy varlets, in good physical condition, strong-limbed, and giving plentiful evidences in their appearance of ample coarse subsistence; they were well-dressed, moreover, although in the plainest and coarsest habiliments, made, for the most part, of the tanned hides of beasts with the hair outward, or in some cases of cheap buff leather, their feet protected by clumsy home-made sandals, and their heads uncovered, save by the thick and matted elf-locks of their unkempt and dingy hair.
They louted low as their lord passed them by, but no gleam of recognition, much less any smile of respectful greeting, such as passes between the honored superior and the valued servant, played over their stolid and heavy countenance, begrimed for the most part with filth, and half-covered with disordered beards and unshorn mustaches.
Neither in form, motion, nor attire, did they show any symptom of misusage; there were no scars, as of the stripes, the stocks, or the fetters, on their bare arms and legs; they were in good physical condition, well-fed, warmly-lodged, sufficiently-clad—perhaps in the best possible condition for the endurance of continuous labor, and the performance of works requiring strength and patience, rather than agility or energetic exertion.
But so also were the mules, oxen, or horses, which they were employed in driving, and which, in all these respects, were fully equal to their drivers, while they had this manifest advantage over them, that they were rubbed down and curry-combed, and cleaned, and showed their hides glossy and sleek, and their manes free from scurf and burrs, which is far more than could be stated of their human companions, who looked for the most part as if their tanned and swart complexions were as innocent of water as were their beards and elf-locks of brush or currycomb.
In addition, however, to their grim and sordid aspect, and their evident ignorance, or carelessness, of their base appearance, there was a dull, sullen, dogged expression on all their faces—a look not despairing, nor even sorrowful, but perfectly impassive, as if they had nothing to hope for, or regret, or fear; the look of a caged bear, wearied and fattened out of his fierceness, not tamed, civilized, or controlled by any human teaching.
The stature and bearing, even of the freeborn and noble Saxon, in the day when his fair isle of Albion was his own, and he trod the soil its proud proprietor, had never been remarkable for its beauty, grace, or dignity. He was, for the most part, short, thick-set, sturdy-limbed, bull-necked, bullet-headed; a man framed more for hardihood, endurance, obstinate resolve, indomitable patience to resist, than for vivid energy, brilliant impulsive vigor, or ardor, whether intellectual or physical; but these men, though they neither lounged nor lagged behind, plodded along with a heavy, listless gait, their frowning brows turned earthward, their dull gray eyes rolling beneath their light lashes, meaningless and spiritless, and the same scowl on every gloomy face.
The younger women, a few of whom were seen about the doors or gardens, busied in churning butter, making cheese, or performing other duties of the farm and dairy, were somewhat more neatly, and, in some few cases, even tastefully attired. Some were of rare beauty, with a profusion of auburn, light brown, or flaxen hair, bright rosy complexions, large blue eyes, and voluptuous figures; and these bore certainly a more cheerful aspect, as the nature of woman is more hopeful than that of man, and a more gentle mood than their fellows; yet there were no songs enlivening their moments of rest or alleviating their hours of toil—no jests, no romping, as we are wont to see among young girls of tender years, occupied in the lighter and more feminine occupations of agricultural life.
Some one or two of these, indeed, smiled as they courtesied to their lord, but the smile was wan and somewhat sickly, nor seemed to come from the heart; it gave no pleasure, one would say, to her who gave—no pleasure to him who received it.
The little children, however, who tumbled about in the dust, or built mud-houses by the puddles in the road, were the saddest sight of all. Half-naked, sturdy-limbed, filthy little savages, utterly untaught and untamed, scarcely capable of making themselves understood, even in their own rude dialect; wild-eyed, and fierce or sullen-looking as it might, subject to no control or correction, receiving no education, no culture whatsoever—not so much even as the colt, which is broken at least to the menage, or the hound-puppy, which is entered at the quarry which he is to chase; ignorant of every moral or divine truth—ignorant even that each one of them was the possessor of a mortal body, far more of an immortal soul!
But not a thought of these things ever crossed the mind of the stately and puissant Normans. No impression such as these, which must needs now strike home to the soul of every chance beholder, had ever been made on their imaginations, by the sight of things, which, seeing every day, they had come to consider only as things which were customary, and were, therefore, right and proper—not the exception even to the rule, but the rule without exception.
So differently, indeed, did the circumstances above related strike Sir Yvo de Taillebois, that he even complimented his friend on the general comfort of his villenage, and the admirable condition of his people, the air of capacity of his men, and the beauty of his women; nay! he commented even upon the plump forms and brawny muscles of the young savages, who fled diverse from before their footsteps, shrieking and terrified at the lordly port and resounding strides of their masters, as indicative of their future strength, and probable size and stature.
And Philip replied, laughing, "Ay! ay! they are a stout and burly set of knaves and good workers on the main. The hinges of the stocks are rusted hard for want of use, and the whipping-post has not heard the crack of the boar's hide these two years or better; but then I work them lightly and feed them roundly, and I find that they do me the more work for it, and the better; besides, the food they consume is all of their own producing, and I have no use for it. They raise me twice as much now as I can expend, on this manor. Now I work my folk but ten hours to the day, and give them meat, milk, and cheese, daily, and have not flogged a man since Martinmas two twelvemonths; and I have thrice the profit of them that my friend and neighbor, Reginald Maltravers, has, though his thralls toil from matin to curfew, with three lenten days to the week, and the thong ever sounding. It is bad policy, I say, to over-do the work or under-do the feeding. Besides, poor devils, they have not much fun in life, and if you fill their bellies, you fill them with all the pleasure and contentment they are capable of knowing. But, hold! here is Kenric's home—the best cabin in the quarter, as the owner is the best man. Let us go in."
"And carry him a welcome cure for his aching bones," said Sir Yvo, as they entered the little gate of a pretty garden, which stretched from the door down to a reach of the winding stream, overshadowed by several large and handsome willows. "By my faith! he must needs be a good man," resumed the speaker—"why, it is as neat as a thane's manor, and neater, too, than many I have seen."
But as he spoke, the shrill and doleful wail of women came from the porch of the house. "Ah, well-a-day! ah, well-a-day! that I should live to see it. Soul of my soul, Kenric, my first-born and my best one—thou first borne in, almost a corpse; and then, my darling and delight—my fair-haired Edgar's son dead of this doleful fever. Ah, well-a-day! ah, well-a-day! Would God that I were dead also, most miserable that I am, of women!"
And then the manly voice of Kenric replied, but faint for his wounds and wavering for the loss of blood; "Wail not for me, mother," he said; "wail not for me, for I am strong yet, and like to live this many a day—until thy toils are ended, and then God do to me as seems him good. But, above all, I say to thee, wail not for Adhemar the white-haired. His weakness and his innocence are over, here on earth. He has never known the collar or the gyves—has never felt how bitter and how hard a thing it is to be the slave of the best earthly master! His dream—his fever-dream of life is over; he is free from yoke and chain; he has awoken out of human servitude, to be the slave of the everlasting God, whose strictest slavery is perfect liberty and perfect love."
But still the woman wailed—"Ah, well-a-day! ah, well-a-day! would God that I were dead, most miserable of mothers that I am!"
And the Norman barons stood unseen and silent, smitten into dumbness before the regal majesty of the slave's maternal sorrow, perhaps awakened to some dim vision of the truth, which never had dawned on them until that day, in the serf's quarter.
"And I'll be true to thee, Mary,As thou'lt be true to me;And I never will leave thee, never, Mary,As slave man or as free;For we're bound forever and ever, Mary,Till death shall set us free—Free from the chain of the flesh, Mary,Free from the devil's chain—Free from the collar and gyves, Mary,And slavery's cursed pain;And then, when we're free in heaven, Mary,We'll pray to be bound again."
"And I'll be true to thee, Mary,As thou'lt be true to me;And I never will leave thee, never, Mary,As slave man or as free;For we're bound forever and ever, Mary,Till death shall set us free—Free from the chain of the flesh, Mary,Free from the devil's chain—Free from the collar and gyves, Mary,And slavery's cursed pain;And then, when we're free in heaven, Mary,We'll pray to be bound again."
"And I'll be true to thee, Mary,As thou'lt be true to me;And I never will leave thee, never, Mary,As slave man or as free;For we're bound forever and ever, Mary,Till death shall set us free—Free from the chain of the flesh, Mary,Free from the devil's chain—Free from the collar and gyves, Mary,And slavery's cursed pain;And then, when we're free in heaven, Mary,We'll pray to be bound again."
"And I'll be true to thee, Mary,
As thou'lt be true to me;
And I never will leave thee, never, Mary,
As slave man or as free;
For we're bound forever and ever, Mary,
Till death shall set us free—
Free from the chain of the flesh, Mary,
Free from the devil's chain—
Free from the collar and gyves, Mary,
And slavery's cursed pain;
And then, when we're free in heaven, Mary,
We'll pray to be bound again."
Old English Song.
It was with grave and somewhat downcast brows, and nothing of haughtiness or pride of port or demeanor, that the lord and his friend entered under the lowly roof, invested for the moment with a majesty which was not its own, by the strange sacredness of grief and death.
There never probably, in the whole history of the world, has been a race of men, which entertained in their own persons a more boundless contempt of death, or assigned less value to the mere quality of life, than the warlike Normans. Not a man of them, while in the heyday of life and manhood, would have hesitated for a moment in choosing a death under shield, a death of violence and anguish, winning renown and conferring deathless honor, to the gentlest decay, the most peaceful dissolution. Not a man would have shed a tear, or shown a sign of sorrow, had he seen his favorite son, his most familiar friend, his noblest brother in arms, felled from his saddle in the mêlée, and trampled out of the very form of humanity beneath the hoofs of the charging cavalry. Not a man but would have ridden over a battlefield, gorged with carcasses and drunk with gore, without expressing a thought of terror, a sentiment beyond the victory, the glory, and the gain. But such is the sovereignty of death, in the silence and solitude of its natural gloom, stripped of the pomp and paraphernalia of funereal honors, and unadorned by the empty braveries of human praise and glory—such is the empire of humble, simple, overruling sorrow, that, as they entered the low-roofed, undecorated chamber, where lay the corpse of the neglected, despised serf—the being, while in life, scarce equal to the animals of the chase—with his nearest of kin, serfs likewise, abject, ignorant, down-trodden, and debased—in so far as man can debase God's creations—mourning in Christian sorrow over him, the nobles felt, for a moment, that their nobility was nothing in the presence of the awful dead; and that they, too, for all their pride of antique blood, for all their strength of limb and heaven-daring valor, for all their lands and lordships, must be brought down one day to the dust, like the poor slave, and go forth, as they entered this world, bearing nothing out, before one common Lord and Master, who must in the end sit in universal judgment.
Such meditations are not, perhaps, very common to the great, the powerful, and the fortunate of men, in any time or place, so long as the light of this world shine about, and their ways are ways of pleasantness; but if rare always, and under all ordinary circumstances, with the chivalrous, high-hearted, and hot-headed knights of the twelfth century, they were assuredly of the rarest.
Yet now so powerfully did they come over the strong minds of the two grave nobles, that they paused a moment on the threshold before entering; and Yvo de Taillebois, who was the elder man, and of deeper thoughts and higher imagination than his friend, raised his plumed bonnet from his brow, and bowed his head in silence.
It was a strange and moving scene on which they looked. The room, which was the ordinary dwelling-place of the family, was rather a large, dark parallelogram, lighted only through the door and a couple of narrow latticed windows, which, if closed, would have admitted few half-intercepted rays, but which now stood wide open, to admit the fresh and balmy air, so that from one, at the western end of the cottage, a clear ruddy beam of the declining sun shot in a long pencil of light, bringing out certain objects in strong relief against the surrounding gloom.
The door, at which the two knights stood, chanced to be so placed under the shadow of one of the great trees which overhung the house, that there was little light for them to intercept. Hence, those who were within, occupied by their own sad and bitter thoughts, did not at first so much as observe their presence. Facing the entrance, a large fire-place, with great projecting jambs, inclosing on each side a long oaken settle, occupied one half the length of the room; and on one of these, propped up with some spare bedding and clothing, lay the wounded man, Kenric, to whom the Baron de Taillebois owed his beloved child's life, half recumbent, pale from the loss of blood, yet chafing with annoyance, that he should be thus bedridden, when his strength might have been of avail to others, feebler and less able to exert themselves almost than he, bruised though he was, and gored from the rude encounter.
A little fire was burning low on the hearth, with a pot simmering over it—for, in their bitterest times of anguish and desolation, the very poor must bestir themselves, at least, to house service—and from the logs, which had fallen forward on the hearth, volumes of smoke were rolling up and hanging thick about the dingy rafters, and the few hams and flitches which, with strings of oat-cakes garnished the roof, its only ornament.
But, wholly unconscious of the ill-odored reek, though it streamed up close under his very eyes, and seeing nothing of the chevaliers, who were watching not six paces from him, Kenric lay helpless, straining his nerveless eyes toward the spot where the ruddy western sunlight fell, like a glory, on the pale, quiet features of the dead child, and on the cold, gray, impassive head of the aged mourner, aged far beyond the ordinary course of mortal life, who bent over the rude bier; and, strange contrast, on the sunny flaxen curls, and embrowned ruddy features of two or three younger children, clustered around the grandam's knee, silent through awe rather than sorrow, for they were too young as yet to know what death meant, or to comprehend what was that awful gloom which had fallen upon hearth and home.
Every thing in that humble and poor apartment was scrupulously clean and tidy; a white cloth was on the table, with two or three platters and porringers of coarse earthenware, as if the evening meal had been prepared when death had entered in, and interposed his awful veto—some implements of rustic husbandry, an ax or two, several specimens of the old English bill and Sheffield whittle; and one short javelin, with a heavy head, hung on the walls, with all the iron work brightly polished and in good order; fresh rushes were strewn on the floor, a broken pitcher, full of newly-gathered field-flowers, adorned the window-sill; and what was strange indeed at that age, and in such a place, two or three old, much tattered, dingy manuscripts graced a bare shelf above the chimney corner.
The aged woman had ceased from the wild outbreak of grief with which she had bewailed the first sign of death on the sick boy's faded brow, and was now rocking herself to and fro above the body, with a dull, monotonous murmur, half articulate, combining fragments of some old Saxon hymn with fondling epithets and words of unmeaning sorrow, while the tears slowly trickled down her wan cheeks, and fell into her lap unheeded. Kenric was silent, for he had no consolation to offer, even if consolation could have been availing, in that
The first dark hour of nothingness,The last of danger and distress.
The first dark hour of nothingness,The last of danger and distress.
The first dark hour of nothingness,The last of danger and distress.
The first dark hour of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress.
Such was the spectacle which met the eyes of those high-born men, who had come down from their high place into the lowly village, with the intention of bestowing happiness and awakening gratitude, and who now found themselves placed front to front with one far mightier than themselves, whose presence left no room for joy, even with those the least used to such emotion.
It is, however, I fear, but too much the case even with the more refined and better nurtured classes of the present century, while they are compassionating the sorrows and even endeavoring to alleviate the miseries of their poorer and less-cultivated brethren, to undervalue the depth of their sensations, to fancy that the same events harrow not up their less vivid sensibilities, and inflict not on their coarser and less intellectual natures the same agonies, which they effect upon their own. But, although it may be true that, in the very poor, the necessity of immediate labor, of all-engrossing occupation, rendering thought and reflection on the past impossible, sooner removes from them the pressure of past grief, than from those who can afford to brood over it in indolent despair, and indulge in morbid and selfish woe, there can be no doubt that, in the early moments of a new bereavement, the agony is as acute to the dullest and heaviest as to the loftiest and most imaginative intellect. Since it is the heart itself, that is touched in the first instance; and, though in after hours imagination may assume its share, so that the most imaginative minds dwell longest on the bygone suffering, the heart is the same in the peasant as in the peer, and that of the wisest of the sons of men bleeds neither more nor less profusely than that of the rudest clown.
And so, perchance, in some sort it was now. For, after pausing and looking reverently on the sad picture, until it was evident that they were entirely overlooked, if not unseen, Sir Philip de Morville took a step or two forward into the cottage, his sounding tread at once calling all eyes toward his person, in a sort of half-stupid mixture of alarm and astonishment.
For in those days, the steps of a Norman baron rarely descended to the serf's quarters, unless they were echoed by the clanking strides of armed subordinates, and too often followed by the clash of shackles or the sound of the hated scourge. Sir Philip was indeed, as it has been observed, an even-tempered and just master, as things went in those times; that is to say, he was neither personally cruel nor exacting of labor; nor was he niggardly in providing for his people; nor did he, when it came before his eyes, tolerate oppression, or permit useless severity on the part of subordinates, who were often worse tyrants and tormentors than the lords. Still, his kindliest mood amounted to little more than bare indifference; and he certainly knew and studied less concerning any thing beyond the mere physical wants and condition of his thralls and bondsmen, than he did of the nurture of his hawks or hounds.
All the inmates, therefore, looked up in wonder, not altogether unmixed with fear, as, certainly for the first time in his life, the castellan entered the humble tenement of the serf of the soil.
But all idea of fear passed away on the instant; for the knight's face was open and calm, though grave, and his voice was gentle, and even subdued, as he spoke.
"Soh!" he said, "what is this, Kenric, which causes us, in coming down to see if we might not heal up thy heart and cheer thy spirits by good tidings, to find worse sorrow, for which we looked not, nor can reverse it by any mortal doing. Who is the boy?"
"Pardon that I rise not, beausire, to reply to you," answered the serf, "but this right leg of mine will not bear me; and when the hand of sickness hold us down, good will must make shift in lieu of good service. It is my nephew Adhemar, Sir Philip, the only son of my youngest brother Edgar, who was drowned a year since in the great flood of the Idle."
"In striving to rescue my old blind destrier Sir Roland, ah! I remember him; a stout and willing lad! But I knew not, or forgot, that he was thy brother. And so this is his son," he added, striding up to the side of the rude bier, and laying his broad hand upon his brow. "He is young," he said, musingly, "very young to die. But we must all die one day, Kenric; and who knows but it is best to die young?"
"At least, the ancient Greeks and Romans said so," interposed Yvo de Taillebois, speaking for the first time. "They have a proverb, that, whomsoever the gods love, dies young."
"I think itisbest, beausire," answered the serf; "it is never cold in the grave, in the dreariest storms; nor sultry in the scorching August. And they are never hungry there, nor sorefooted, nor weary unto death. I think it is best to die young, before one has tasted overmuch sorrow here on earth to burden his heart and make him stubborn and malicious. It was this I was saying to old Bertha, as your noblenesses entered; but she has never held her head up since my brother, Edgar, died; he was her favorite, since she always held that he had most favor of our grandfather."
"She is very old?" said Sir Philip, half questioning, half musing. "She is very old?"
"Above ninety years, Sir Philip, I have heard Father Eadbald say, who died twenty years since, at the abbey, come next Michaelmas. It should have been he who married her. Her mother was the last free woman of our race. We had three hydes of land, I've heard her tell, in those days, down by the banks of Idle, held of old Waltheof, who gave his name to this your noble castle. But they are all gone before us, and we must follow them when our day comes. And then, as I tell Bertha, we shall be free, all, if not equal; for the most virtuous must befirstthere, as Father Engelram tells us. May Mary and the saints be about us!"
"Come, Kenric," said De Morville, cheeringly, "thou talkest now more like to a gray brother, than to the stout woodman who struckest yon brave blow but a while since, and saved Sir Yvo's fair lady, Guendolen. Faith! it was bravely done, and well; and well shall come of it to you, believe me. It is to speak of that to thee that we came hither, but this boy's death hath put it from our minds. But, hark ye, boy! I will send down some wenches hither from the castle, with ale and mead for his lykewake, and linen for a shroud; and Father Engelram shall see to the church-service; and there shall be a double dole to the poor at the abbey; and I myself will pay ten marks, in masses for his soul. If he died a serf, he shall be buried as though he were a freeman, and a franklin's son; and all for thy sake, and for the good blow thou struckest but three hours agone."
Kenric's brow flushed high, whether it was with gratification, or gratitude, or from wounded pride; but he stuttered confusedly, as he attempted to thank his lord, and only found his tongue as he related to his grandmother, in his native language, the promises and goodly proffers of the castellan; and she, for a moment, spoke eagerly in reply, but then seemed to forget, and was silent. A word or two passed in French between the nobles, Yvo de Taillebois urging that the time was inopportune for speaking of the matter on which they had come down; for that it was not well to mingle great joys with great sorrows; but Sir Philip insisted, declaring that there was no so good way to cure a past grief as by the news of a coming joy.
"So, hark you, Kenric," he said; "the cure we came to bring you for your bruised bones, and the guerdon for your gallant deed, in two words, is this—I may not, as you may have heard tell, liberate my serfs, under condition, but I maysell; and I have sold thee to mine ancient friend and brother in arms, Yvo de Taillebois."
"Not to hold in thrall," exclaimed Yvo de Taillebois, eagerly, as he saw the face of the wounded man flush fiery red, and then grow pale as ashes. "Not to hold in thrall, but to liberate; but to make thee as free as the birds of the wildest wing—a freeman; and, if thou wilt follow me, a freeholder on my lands beyond the lakes, in the fair shire of Westmoreland."
"I am a serf of the soil, Beausire de Morville, and I may not be sold from the soil, unless legally convicted of felony. I know no felony that I have done, Sir Philip."
"Felony, man!" exclaimed Sir Philip; "art thou mad? We would reward thee for thy good faith and valor. We would set thee free. Of course, thou canst not be sold, but with thine own consent. But thou hast only to consent, and be free as thy master."
"Sir Philip," replied the man, turning even paler than before, and trembling, as if he had a fit of palsy, "would I could rise to bless you, on my bended knee! May the great God of all things bless you! but I can not consent—think me not ungrateful—but I can not be free!"
"Not free!" exclaimed both nobles in a breath; and Sir Yvo gazed on him wistfully, as if he but partially understood; but Philip de Morville turned on his heel, superciliously. "Come, Sir Yvo," he said; "it skills not wasting time, or breath, on these abjects. Why, by the light of heaven! had I been fettered in a dungeon, with a ton of iron at my heels, I had leaped head-high to know myself once more a freeman; and here this slave, By 'r lady! I can not brook to speak his name! can not consent, forsooth! can not consent to be free! Heaven's mercy! Let him rot a slave, then! unless, perchance, thou wouldst crave him for thy sake, and the Virgin Mother's sake, to take good counsel and be free. Out on it! out on it! I am sick to the soul at such baseness!"
And he left the cottage abruptly, in scorn and anger. But Sir Yvo de Taillebois stood still, gazing compassionately and inquiringly on the man, over whose face there had fallen a dark, gray, death-like shadow, as he lay with his teeth and hands clinched like vices.
"Can this be? I thought not that on earth there lived a man who might be free, and would not. Dost not love liberty, Kenric?"
"Ask the wild eagle in his place of pride! Ask the wild goat on Pennigant or Ingleborough's head; and when they come down to the cage and chain, believe, then, that I love it not. Freedom! freedom! To be free but five minutes, I would die fifty deaths of direst torture. And yet it can not be—it can not be! Peace, tempter, peace; you can not stir my soul. Slave I was born, slave I must die, and only in the grave shall be a slave no longer. Leave me, beausire; but think me not ungrateful. I never looked to owe so much to living man, and least of all to living man of your proud race, as I owe you to-day. But leave me, noble sir; you can not aid us. So go your way, and leave us to our sorrow, and may the God of serfs and seigneurs be about you with his blessing."
"Passing strange! This is passing strange!" said De Taillebois, as he turned to go likewise; "I never saw a beast that would not leave his cage when the door was open."
"But I have!" answered Kenric; "when the beast's brood were within, and might not follow him. But I amnota beast, Sir Knight; but though a serf, a man—a Saxon, not a Norman, it is true; but a man, yet,a man! There may be collar on my neck, and gyves on wrist and ankle, but my soul wears no shackles. It is as free as thine, and shall stand face to face with thine, one day, before the judgment seat. I am a man, I say, Sir Yvo de Taillebois; there sits old Bertha, surnamed the Good, a serf herself, mother of serfs, and grandmother; there lies my serf-brother's boy, himself a serf no longer; there sprawl unconscious on the hearth his baby brethren, serfs from the cradle to the grave; and here comes," he added, in a deeper, sterner, lower tone, as the beautiful Saxon slave-girl entered, whom they had seen near the drawbridge, washing in the stream—"here comes—look upon her, noble knight and Norman!—here comes my plighted bride, my Edith the fair-haired! I am a man, Norman! Should I be man, or beast, if, leaving these in bondage, I were to fare forth hence, alone, into dishonored freedom?"