Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Rising at once, he led the way to council; and, with wild haste and disarray, the company dispersed. But as the hall grew thin, four knights remained behind in close converse--so deep, so earnest, that they were left alone, when all the rest, ladies, and cavaliers, and chamberlains, and pages, had departed, and the vast gallery, which had so lately rung with every various sound of human merriment, was silent as the grave. There was a strange and almost awful contrast between the strong and stately forms of the four barons--their deep and energetic whispers, the fiery glances of their angry eyes, the fierce gesticulations of their muscular and well-turned limbs--and the deserted splendors of that royal hall: the vacant throne, the long array of seats; the gorgeous plate, flagons, and cups, and urns of gold and marquetry; the lights still glowing, as it were, in mockery over the empty board; the wine unpoured--the harps untouched and voiceless.

“Be it so--be it so!” exclaimed, in louder tones than they had used before, one, the most striking in appearance of the group; “be it so--let us swear! Richard le Breton, Hugues de Morville, William de Traci--even as I shall swear, swear ye--by God, and by our trusty blades, and by our Norman honor!”

“We will,” cried all, “we swear! we be not recreant, nor craven, as our good swords shall witness!”

“Thus, then,” continued the first speaker, drawing his sword, and grasping a huge cup of wine, “thus, then, I, Reginald Fitz-Urse, for mine own part, and for each one and all of ye, do swear--so help me God and our good Lady!--never to touch the winecup; never to bend before the shrine; never to close the eyes in sleep; never to quit the saddle, or unbelt the brand; never to pray to God; never to hope for heaven--until the wrong we reck of be redressed!--until the insult done our sovereign be avenged!--until the life-blood of his foeman stream on our battle-swords as streams this nobler wine!”

Then, with the words--for not he only, but each one of the four, holding their long, two-handed blades extended at arms’ length before them with all their points in contact, and in the other hand grasping the brimming goblets, had gone through, in resolute, unflinching tones, the fearful adjuration--then, with the words, they all dashed down the generous liquor on the weapons, watched it in silence as it crimsoned them from point to hilt, and sheathing them, all purple as they were, hurried, not from the hall alone, but from the palace; mounted their fleetest war-steeds, and, that same night, rode furiously away toward the nearest sea.

The fifth day was in progress after King Henry’s banquet, when, at the hour of noon, four Norman knights, followed by fifty men-at-arms, sheathed cap-à-pie in mail, arrayed beneath the banner of Fitz-Urse, entered the town of Canterbury at a hard gallop. The leaders of the band alone were clad in garbs of peace, bearing no weapon but their swords, and singularly ill-accoutred for horse-exercise, being attired in doublets of rich velvet, with hose of cloth of gold or silver, as if in preparation for some high and festive meeting. Yet was it evident that they had ridden miles in that unsuitable apparel; for the rich velvet was besmeared with many a miry stain, and the hose dashed with blood, which had been drawn profusely by the long rowels of their gilded spurs.

Halting in serried order at the market-cross, the leader of the party summoned, by an equerry, the city mayor to hear the orders of the king; and, when that officer appeared--having commanded him, “on his allegiance, to call his men to arms, and take such steps as should assuredly prevent the burghers of the town from raising any tumult on that day, whate’er might come to pass”--with his three friends, and twelve, the stoutest, of the men-at-arms who followed in their train, rode instantly away to the archbishop’s palace.

The object of their deadly hatred, when the four knights arrived, was in the act of finishing his noonday meal; and all his household were assembled at the board, from which he had just risen. There was no sign of trepidation, no symptom of surprise, much less of fear or consternation, in his aspect or demeanor, as one by one his visitors stalked unannounced into the long apartment. Yet was there much indeed in the strange guise wherein they came--in their disordered habits, in the excitement visibly depicted on their brows, haggard from want of sleep, pale with fatigue and labor, yet resolute, and stern, and terse, with the resolve of their dread purpose--to have astonished, nay, dismayed the spirit of one less resolute in the defence of what he deemed the right than Thomas à-Becket. Silently, one by one, they entered, the leader halting opposite the prelate, with his arms folded on his breast, and his three comrades forming as it were in a half-circle around him. Not one of them removed the bonnet from his brow, or bowed the knee on entering, or offered any greeting, whether to the temporal rank or spiritual station of their intended victim; but gazed on him with a fixed sternness that was far more awful than any show of violence. This dumb-show, although it needs must occupy some time in the description, had lasted perhaps a minute, when the bold prelate broke the silence, addressing them in clear, harmonious tones, and with an air as dignified and placid as though he had been bidding them to share the friendly banquet.

“Fair sirs,” he said, “I bid ye welcome; although, in truth, the manner of your entrance be not in all things courteous, nor savoring of that respect which should be paid, if not to me--who am but as a worm, the meanest of HIS creatures--yet to the dignity whereunto HE has raised me! Natheless, I bid ye hail! Please ye disclose the business whereon ye now have come to me.”

Still not a word did they reply--but seated themselves all unbidden, still glaring on him with fixed eyes, ominous of evil. At length Fitz-Urse addressed him, speaking abruptly, and in tones so hoarse and hollow--the natural consequence of his extreme exertions, four days and nights having been actually passed in almost constant travel--that his most intimate associate could not have recognised his voice.

“We come,” he said, “on the king’s part, to take--and that, too, on the instant--some order with your late proceedings: to have the excommunicated presently absolved; to see the bishops, who have been suspended, forthwith re-established; and to hear what _you_ may now allege concerning your design against your sovereign lord and master!”

“It is not I,” Thomas replied, still calmer and more dignified than the fierce spirits who addressed him, “it is not I who have done this. It is the sovereign pontiff, God’s own supreme vicegerent, who, of his own will, excommunicated my late brother of York. He alone, therefore, can absolve him. I have no power in’t. As for the rest, let them but make submission, and straightway shall they be restored!”

“From whom, then,” Reginald Fitz-Urse demanded, “from whom, then, hold you your archbishopric--from England’s king, or from the pope of Rome?”

“My spiritual rights, of God and of the pope--my temporal privileges, of the king,” was the prompt answer.

“The king, then, gave you _not_?” the baron asked again. “Beware, I warn you, beware how you do answer me: the king, I say, gave you _not_ ALL that you enjoy?”

“He did not,” answered Becket, without moving a single muscle of his composed but haughty countenance; although, at the reply, the fiery temper of his unwelcome visiters was made more clearly manifest, as a deep, angry murmur burst simultaneously from all their lips, and they wrung with fierce gestures their gloved hands, as if it was with difficulty they restrained themselves from violence more open in its character.

“Ye threaten me, I well believe,” exclaimed the stately prelate, “but it is vain and useless. Were all the swords in England brandished against my head, ye should gain nothing, nothing from me.”

“We will do more than threaten,” answered Fitz-Urse; and rising from his seat, rushed out of the apartment, followed by his companions, crying aloud, even before they crossed the threshold, “To-arms, Normans, to-arms!”

The doors were closed behind them, and barred instantly with the most jealous care; while Reginald and the conspirators, meeting the guard whom they had left without, armed themselves cap-à-pie in the courtyard before the palace-gates, as if for instant battle, with helmet, hood-of-mail, and hauberk; their triangular steel-plated shields hanging about their necks; their legs protected by mail-hose, fitting as closely and as flexible as modern stockings; their huge two-handed swords belted about them in such fashion, that their cross-guarded hilts came over their left shoulders, while their points clanked against the spur on their right heels.

There was no pause; for, snatching instantly an axe from the hands of a carpenter who chanced to be at work in the courtyard, Fitz-Urse assailed the gate. Strong as it was, it creaked and groaned beneath the furious blows, and the long corridors within rolled back the threatening sounds in deep and hollow echoes. Within the palace all was confusion and dismay, and every face was pale and ghastly, save his alone who had the cause for fear.

“Fly! fly, my lord!” cried the assistants, breathless with terror; “fly to the altar! There, there, at least, shall you be safe!”

“Never!” the prelate answered, his bold spirit as self-possessed and calm in that most imminent peril as though he had been bred from childhood upward to the performance of high deeds and daring; “never will I turn back from that which I have set myself to do! God, if it be his pleasure, shall preserve me from yet greater straits than these; and if it be not so his will to do, then God forbid I should gainsay him!” Nor would he stir one foot, until the vesper-bell, rung by the sacristan, unwitting of his superior’s peril, began to chime from the near walls of the cathedral. “It is the hour,” he quietly observed, on hearing the sweet cadence of the bells, “it is the hour of prayer; my duty calls me. Give me my vestments--carry my cross before me!” And, attiring himself as though nothing of unusual moment were impending, he traversed, with steps even slower than his wont, the cloister leading from his dwelling to the abbey; though, ere he left the palace, the din of blows had ceased, and the fierce shout of the assailants gave token that the door had yielded. Chiding his servitors for their excess of terror, as unworthy of their sacred calling, he still walked slowly onward, while the steel-shod footsteps of his foemen might be heard clashing on the pavement but a few yards behind him. He reached the door of the cathedral; entered without casting so much as one last glance behind; passed up the nave, and going up the steps of the high altar, separated from the body of the church by a slight rail of ornamental iron-work, commenced the service of the day.

Scarcely had he uttered the first words, when Reginald, sheathed, as has been heretofore described, in complete panoply, with his two-handed sword already naked, rushed into the cathedral.

“To me!” he cried, with a fierce shout, “to me, valiant and loyal servants of the king!” while close behind him followed, in like array, with flashing eyes, and inflamed visages, and brandished weapons, his sworn confederates; and without the gates their banded men-at-arms stood in a serried circle, defying all assistance from the town. Again his servitors entreated Becket to preserve himself, by seeking refuge in the dark crypts beneath the chancel, where he might rest concealed in absolute security until the burghers should be aroused to rescue; or by ascending the intricate and winding turret-stairs to the cathedral-roof, whence he might summon aid ere he could possibly be overtaken: but it was all in vain. Confiding in the goodness of his cause, perhaps expecting supernatural assistance, the daring prelate silenced their prayers by a contemptuous refusal; and even left the altar, to prevent one of the monks from closing the weak, trellised gates, which marked the holiest precincts. Meanwhile, unmoved in their fell purpose, the Normans were at hand.

“Where is the traitor?” cried Fitz-Urse, but not a voice replied; and the unwonted tones were vocal yet beneath the vaulted roof in lingering echoes, when he again exclaimed, “Where--where is the archbishop?”

“Here stands he,” Becket answered, drawing his lofty person up to its full height, and spreading his arms forth with a gesture of perfect majesty. “Here stands he, but no traitor! What do ye in God’s house in such apparel? what is your will, or purpose?”

“That you die, presently!” was the reply, enforced by the uplifted weapon and determined features of the savage baron.

“I am resigned,” returned the prelate, the calm patience of the martyr blent with a noble daring that would have well become a warrior on the battle-field. “Ye shall not see me fly before your swords! But in the name of the all-powerful God, whom ye dishonor and defy, I do command ye injure no one of my companions, layman or priest.” His words were interrupted by a heavy blow across his shoulders, delivered, with the flat of his huge sword, by Reginald.

“Fly!” he said, “fly, priest, or you are dead!” But the archbishop moved not a step, spoke not a syllable. “Drag him hence, comrades,” continued the last speaker; “away with him beyond the threshold--we may not smite him here!”

“Here--here, or nowhere!” the archbishop answered--“here, in the very presence, and before the altar, and the image, of our God!” And, as he spoke, he seized the railings with both hands, set his feet firm, and, being of a muscular and powerful frame, sustained by daring courage and highly-wrought excitement, he succeeded in maintaining his position, in spite of the united efforts of the four Norman warriors.

Meanwhile, all the companions of the prelate had escaped, by ways known only to themselves--all but one faithful follower--the Saxon, Edward Grim, his cross-bearer since his first elevation to the see of Canterbury--the same who had so boldly spoken out after the conference of Clarendon; and the conspirators began to be alarmed lest, if their purpose were not speedily accomplished, the rescue should arrive and frustrate their intentions. Their blood, moreover, was heated by the struggle; and their fierce natures, never much restrained by awe or reverence for things divine, burst through all bonds.

“Here, then, if it so please you!--here!” cried William de Traci, striking, as he spoke, a blow with the full sweep of both his arms wielding his ponderous weapon, at the defenceless victim’s head. But the bold Saxon suddenly stretched out his arm to guard his beloved master. Down came the mighty blow--but not for that did the true servitor withdraw his naked limb--down came the mighty blow, and lopped the unflinching hand, sheer as the woodman’s bill severs the hazel-twig!

Still, Becket stood unwounded. “Strike! strike, you others!” shouted the Norman, as he grasped the maimed but still-resolved protector of his master, and held him off by the exertion of his entire strength; “strike! strike!” And they did strike, fearlessly--mercilessly! Hugues de Morville smote him with a mace upon his temples, and he fell, stunned, but still alive, face downward on the pavement; and Reginald Fitz-Urse, whirling his espaldron around his head, brought it down with such reckless fury upon the naked skull, that the point clove right through it, down to the marble pavement, on which it yet alighted with a degree of violence so undiminished, that it was shivered to the very hilt, and the strong arms of him who wielded it were jarred up to the shoulders, as if by an electric shock. One of the men-at-arms, who had rushed in during the struggle, spurned with his foot the motionless and senseless clay.

“Thus perish all,” he said, “all foemen of the king, and of the gentle Normans--all who dare, henceforth, to arouse the base and slavish Saxons against their free and princely masters!”

Thus fell the Saxon prelate, ruthlessly butchered at the very shrine of God--not so much that he was a Romish priest, and an upholder of the rights of Rome, as that he was a Saxon-man, a vindicator of the liberties of England! Yet, though the pope absolved that king whose cruel will had, in truth, done the deed, yet was that deed not unavenged. If the revolt and treachery of all most dear to him, the hatred of his very flesh and blood, the unceasing enmity of his own sons, a miserable old age, and a heart-broken death-bed--if these things may be deemed Heaven’s vengeance upon murder--then, of a surety, that murder was avenged!

THE FATE OF THE BLANCHE NAVIRE.[B]

“The bark that held a prince went down,
The sweeping waves rolled on,
And what was England’s glorious crown
To him who wept a son?”--HEMANS.

The earliest dawning of a December’s morning had not yet tinged the eastern sky, when in the port of Barfleur the stirring bustle which precedes an embarkation broke loudly on the ear of all who were on foot at that unseemly hour; nor were these few in number, for all the population of that town--far more considerable than it appears at present, when mightier cities, some rendered so by the gigantic march of commerce, some by the puissant and creative hands of military despotism, have sprung on every side into existence, and overshadowed its antique renown--were hastening through the narrow streets toward the water’s edge. The many-paned, stone-latticed casements gleamed with a thousand lights, casting a cheerful glare over the motley multitude which swarmed before them with all the frolic merriment of an unwonted holyday. All classes and all ranks might there be seen, of every age and sex: barons and lords of high degree, clad in the rich attires of a half-barbarous yet gorgeous age, mounted on splendid horses, and attended by long retinues of armed and liveried vassals; ladies and demoiselles of birth and beauty curbing their Spanish jennets, and casting sidelong looks of love toward the favored knights curveting in the conscious state of proud humility beside their bridle-reins--as clearly visible as at high noon, in the broad radiance of the torches that accompanied their progress; while all around them and behind crowded the humbler throng of mariners and artisans, with here a solemn burgher, proud in his velvet pourpoint and his golden chain, and there a barefoot monk, far prouder in his frock of sackcloth and his knotted girdle; and ever and anon a group of merry maidens, with their high Norman caps and short jupons of parti-colored serge, crowding around the _jongleur_[C] with his ape and gittern--or pressing on to hear the loftier professor[D] of the _gai-science_, girded with sword and dagger in token of his gentle blood, and followed by his boy bearing the harp, which then had power to win, not with the low-born and vulgar throng, but with the noble and the fair, high favor for its wandering master!

[B] The title given by the chroniclers to this ill-fated
vessel is “The Blanche _Nef_,” the latter word being the
old French for the modern term, which we have substituted.
Singularly enough, the ancient word survives as the name
of a piece of antique gold plate modelled like a ship, in
which the napkins of the royal table are served in the high
ceremonials of the court of France.

[C] The juggler of the middle ages, who, like the
street-musicians of the present time, were mostly Savoyards
by birth, generally carried with them the ape or marmoset,
even to this day their companion, and added to their feats
of strength and sleight of hand both minstrelsey and music.

[D] The _gai-science_, so early as the commencement of the
century of which we write, had its degrees, its colleges,
and its professors, who, though itinerants, and dependent
for their subsistence on their instrument and voice,
considered war no less their trade than song, esteeming
themselves, and moreover admitted by others to be, in the
fullest sense, gentlemen.

The courts and thoroughfares of the old town--for it was old even then--by slow degrees grew silent and deserted; and, ere the sun was well above the wave, the multitudes which thronged them had rolled downward to the port, and stood in dense ranks gazing on its calm and sheltered basin. Glorious indeed and lovely was the sight when the first yellow rays streamed over the still waters: they waked the distant summits of the hills behind the town into a sudden life; they kissed the crest of every curling ripple that dimpled with its “innumerable laughter” the azure face of ocean; but, more than all, they seemed to dwell upon two noble barks, which lay, each riding at a single anchor, at a short arrow-shot from the white sands that girt as with a silver frame the liquid mirror of the harbor.

Fashioned by the best skill of that early day, and ornamented with the most lavish splendor, though widely different from the floating castles of modern times, those vessels--the picked cruisers of the British navy--were in their structure no less picturesque than in their decoration royally magnificent. Long, low, and buoyant, they floated lightly as birds upon the surface; their open waists already bristling with the long oars by which, after the fashion of the Roman galley, they were propelled in serene weather; their masts clothed with the wings which seemed in vain to woo the breeze; their elevated sterns and forecastles blazing with tapestries of gold and silver, reflected in long lines of light, scarcely broken by the dancing ripples. The larger of the two bore on her foresail, blazoned in gorgeous heraldry, the arms of England. The second, somewhat smaller, but if anything more elegant in her proportions, and fitted with a nicer taste, although less sumptuous, was painted white from stem to stern; her oars, fifty in number, of the same spotless hue, were barred upon the blades with silver; and on her foresail of white canvass, overlaid with figured damask, were wrought, among a glittering profusion of devices, in characters of silver, the words “La Blanche Navire.” Beyond them, in the outer bay, a dozen ships or more were dimly seen through the mist-wreaths which the wintry sun was gradually scattering--their canvass hanging in festoons from their long yard-arms, and their decks crowded, not with mariners alone, but with the steel-clad forms of men-at-arms and archers, the gallant train of the third Norman who had swayed the destinies of England.

The youngest son of the sagacious Conqueror, after the death of the “Red king,” by a rare union of audacity and cunning, Henry, had seized the sceptre of the fair island--the hereditary right of his romantic, generous, and gallant brother, who with the feudatories of his Norman duchy was waging war upon the Saracen, neglectful of his own and of his subjects’ interests alike, beneath the burning sun of Syria. Already firmly seated in his usurped dominion ere Robert returned homeward, nor yet contented with his ill-gained supremacy, he had wrung from the bold crusader, partly by force but more by fraud, his continental realms; and adding cruelty which scarcely can be conceived to violence and fraud, deprived him of Heaven’s choicest blessing, sight, and cast him--of late the most renowned and glorious knight in Christendom--a miserable, eyeless captive into the towers of Cardiff, his dungeon while he lived, and after death his tomb!

No retributive justice had discharged its thunders upon the guilty one; no gloom sat on his smooth and lordly brow, no thorns had lurked beneath the circle of Henry’s blood-bought diadem. Fortune had smiled on every effort; had granted every wish, however wild; had sanctioned every enterprise, however dubious or desperate: he never had known sorrow; and from his restless, energetic soul, remorse and penitence were banished by the incessant turmoil of ambition and the perpetual excitement of success. And now his dearest wish had been accomplished--the most especial aim and object of his life perfected with such absolute security, that his insatiate soul was satisfied. Absolute lord of England, and undisputed ruler of the fair Cotentin, he had of late disarmed the league which for a time had threatened his security; detaching from the cause of France the powerful count of Anjou, whose daughter--the most lovely lady and the most splendid heiress of the time--he had seen wedded to his first-born and his favorite, William. The previous day he had beheld the haughty barons tender the kiss of homage and swear eternal loyalty to the young heir of England, Normandy, and Anjou; the previous night he had sat glad and glorious at the festive board, encompassed by all that was fair, and noble, and high-born, in the great realms he governed, and among all that proud and graceful circle his eye had looked on none so brave and beautiful as that young, guiltless pair for whom he had imbrued, not his hands only, but his very soul, in blood! He sat on the high dais, beneath the gilded canopy; and as he quaffed the health of those who had alone a kindly tenure of his cold and callous heart, a noble knight approached with bended knee, and placing in his hand a mark of gold--“Fair sir,” he said, “I, a good knight and loyal--Thomas Fitz-Stephen--claim of your grace a boon. My father, Stephen Fitz-Evrard, served faithfully and well, as long as he did live, your father William--served him by sea, and steered the ship with his own hand which bore him to that glorious crown which he right nobly won at Hastings. I pray you, then, fair king, that you do sell to me, for this gold mark, the fief I crave of you: that, as Fitz-Evrard served the first King William, so may Fitz-Stephen serve the first King Henry. I have right nobly fitted--ay, on mine honor, as beseems a mighty monarch--here, in the bay of Barfleur, ‘the Blanche Navire.’ Receive it at my hands, great sir, and suffer me to steer you homeward; and so may the blessed Virgin and her Son send us the winds which we would have!”

“Good knight and loyal,” answered the prince, as he received the proffered coin, “grieved am I, of a truth, and sorrowful, that altogether I may not confer on you the fief which of good right you claim: for lo! the bark is chosen--nay, more, apparelled for my service--which must to-morrow, by Heaven’s mercy, bear me to that land whither your sire so fortunately guided mine. But since it may not be that I may sail myself, as would I could do so, in your good bark, to your true care will I intrust what I hold dearer than my very soul--my sons, my daughters--mine and my country’s hope; and as your father steered the FIRST, so shall you steer the THIRD King William, that shall be, to the white cliffs of England!”

“Well said, my liege!” cried Foulke, the count of Anjou, a noble-looking baron of tall and stately presence, although far past the noon of manhood, the father of the lovely bride; “to better mariner or braver ship than stout Fitz-Stephen and La Blanche Navire, was never freight intrusted! Quaff we a full carouse to their blithe voyage! How sayest thou, daughter mine,” he added, turning to the blushing girl, who sat attired in all the pomp of newly-wedded royalty beside her youthful lover--“how sayest thou? wouldst desire a trustier pilot, or a fleeter galley?”

“Why,” she replied, with a smile half-sweet, half-sorrowful, while a bright tear-drop glittered in her eye--“why should I seek for fleetness, when that same speed will but the sooner bear me from the sight of our fair France, and of thee, too, my father?”

“Dost thou, then, rue thy choice?” whispered the ardent voice of William in her ear; “and wouldst thou tarry here, when fate and duty summon me hence for England?”

Her full blue eye met his, radiant with true affection, and her slight fingers trembled in the clasp of her young husband with a quick thrill of agitation, and her lips parted, but the words were heard by none save him to whom they were addressed; for, with the clang of beakers, and the loud swell of joyous music, and the glad merriment of all the courtly revellers, the toast of the bride’s father passed round the gleaming board: “A blithe and prosperous voyage--speed to the Blanche Navire, and joy to all who sail in her!”

Thus closed the festive evening, and thus the seal of destiny was set upon a hundred youthful brows, foredoomed, alas! to an untimely grave beneath the ruthless billows.

The wintry day wore onward; and, wintry though it was, save for a touch of keenness in the frosty air, and for the leafless aspect of the country, it might have passed for a more lightsome season; the sky was pure and cloudless as were the prospects and the hopes of the gay throng who now embarked secure and confident beneath its favorable omens. The sun shone gayly as in the height of summer, and the blue waves lay sleeping in its lustre as quietly as though they ne’er had howled despair into the ears of drowning wretches! There was no thought of peril or of fear--how should there be? The ships were trustworthy; the seamen skilful, numerous, and hardy; the breezes fair, though faint; the voyage brief; the time propitious.

The day wore onward; and it was high noon before the happy king--his every wish accomplished, secure as he conceived himself, and firm in the fruition of his blood-bought majesty--rowed with his glittering train on board the royal galley. Loud pealed the cheering clamors of his Norman subjects, bidding their sovereign hail; but louder yet they pealed, when, with its freight of ladies, the second barge shot forth--William and his fair sister, and yet fairer bride, and all the loveliest of the dames that graced the broad Cotentin.

Not yet, however, were the anchors weighed--not yet were the sails sheeted home; for on the deck of the king’s vessel, beneath an awning of pure cloth-of-gold, a gorgeous board was spread. Not in the regal hall of Westminster could more of luxury have been brought together than was displayed upon that galley’s poop. Spread with the softest ermine--meet carpet for the gentle feet that trod it--cushioned with seats of velvet, steaming with perfumes the most costly, it was a scene resembling more some fairy palace than the wave-beaten fabric that had braved many a gale, and borne the flag of England through many a storm in triumph. And there they sat and feasted, and the red wine-cup circled freely, and the song went round: their hearts were high and happy, and they forgot the lapse of hours; and still the reveller’s shout was frequent on the breeze, and still the melody of female tones, blent with the clang of instrumental music, rang in the ears of those who loitered on the shore, after the sun had bathed his lower limb in the serene and peaceful waters.

Then, as it were, awaking from their trance of luxury, the banqueters broke off. Skiff after skiff turned shoreward, till none remained on board the royal ship except the monarch and his train, and that loved son with his bright consort, whom, parting from them there, he never was to look upon again! The courses were unfurled, topsails were spread, and pennants floated seaward; and, as the good ship gathered way, the father bade adieu--adieu, as he believed it, but for one little night--to all he loved on earth; and their barge, manned by a score of powerful and active rowers, wafted the bridal party to the Blanche Navire, which, as her precious freight drew nigh, luffed gracefully and swiftly up to meet them, as though she were a thing of life, conscious and proud of the high honor she enjoyed in carrying the united hopes of Normandy and England.

Delay--there was yet more delay! The night had settled down upon the deep before the harbor of Barfleur was fairly left behind; and yet so lovely was the night--with the moon, near her full, soaring superbly through the cloudless sky, and myriads on myriads of clear stars weaving their mystic dance around her--that the young voyagers walked to and fro the deck, rejoicing in the happy chance that had secured to them so fair time for their excursion: and William sat aloof, with his sweet wife beside him, indulging in those bright anticipations, those golden dreams of happiness, which indeed make futurity a paradise to those who have not learned, by the sad schoolings of experience, that human life is but another name for human sorrow.

Fairer--the breeze blew fairer; and every sail was set and drawing, and the light ripples burst with a gurgling sound like laughter about the snow-white stem; and, still to waft them the more swiftly to their home, fifty long oars, pulled well and strongly by as many nervous arms, glanced in the liquid swell. The bubbles on the surface were scarcely seen as they flashed by, so rapid was their course; and a long wake of boiling foam glanced in the moonshine, till it was lost to sight in the far distance. The port was far behind them; and the king’s ship, seen faintly on the glimmering horizon, loomed like a pile of vapor far on their starboard bow. And still the music rang upon the favorable wind, and still the rowers sang amid their toil, and still the captain sent the deep bowl round. The helmsman dozed upon the tiller--the watch upon the forecastle had long since stretched themselves upon the deck--in the deep slumbers of exhaustion and satiety.

“Give way! my merry men, give way!” such was the jovial captain’s cry; “pull for the pride of Normandy--pull for your country’s fame, men of the fair Cotentin. What! will ye let yon island-lubbers outstrip ye in the race? More way! more way!”

And with unrivalled speed the Blanche Navire sped on. A long black line stretches before her bow, dotting the silvery surface with ragged and fantastic shades; but not one eye has marked it! On she goes, swifter yet and swifter, and still the fatal shout is ringing from her decks: “Give way, men of Cotentin! give more way!” Now they are close upon it, and now the dashing of the surf about the broken ledges--for that black line is the dread Raz de Gatteville, the most tremendous reef of all that bar the iron coast of Normandy! The hoarse and hollow roar must reach the ears even of those who sleep. But no! the clangor of the exulting trumpets, and the deep booming of the Norman nakir, and that ill-omened shout, “Give way--yet more--more way!” has drowned even the all-pervading roar of the wild breakers. On, on she goes, fleet as the gazehound darting upon its antlered prey; and now her bows are bathed by the upflashing spray; and now--hark to that hollow shock, that long and grinding crash!--hark to that wild and agonizing yell sent upward by two hundred youthful voices, up to the glorious stars that smiled as if in mockery of their ruin. There rang the voice of the strong, fearless men; the knight who had spurred oft his destrier amid the shivering of lances and the rending clash of blades, without a thought unless of high excitement and fierce joy; the mariner who, undismayed, had reefed his sail, and steered his bark aright, amid the wildest storm that ever lashed the sea to fury--now utterly unnerved and paralyzed by the appalling change from mirth and revelry to imminent and instant death.

So furious was the rate at which the galley was propelled, that, when she struck upon the sharp and jagged rocks, her prow was utterly stove inward, and the strong tide rushed in, foaming and roaring like a mill-stream! Ten seconds’ space she hung upon the perilous ledge, while the waves made a clear breach over her, sweeping not only every living being, but every fixture--spars, bulwarks, shrouds, and the tall masts themselves--from her devoted decks. At the first shock, with the instinctive readiness that characterizes, in whatever peril, the true mariner, Fitz-Stephen, rallying to his aid a dozen of the bravest of his men, had cleared away and launched a boat; and, even as the fated bark went down, bodily sucked into the whirling surf, had seized the prince and dragged him with a stalwart arm into the little skiff, which had put off at once, to shun the drowning hundreds who must have crowded in and sunk her on the instant.

“Pull back!--God’s death!--pull back!” cried the impetuous youth, as he looked round and saw that he alone of all his race was there; “pull back, ye dastard slaves, or by the Lord and Maker of us all, though ye escape the waves, ye ’scape not my revenge!”--and, as he spoke, he whirled his weapon from the scabbard and pressed the point so closely to Fitz-Stephen’s throat, that its keen temper razed the skin; and, terrified by his fierce menaces, and yet more by the resolute expression that glanced forth from his whole countenance, they turned her head once more toward the reef, and shot into the vortex, agitated yet and boiling, wherein the hapless galley had been swallowed. A female head, with long, fair hair, rose close beside the shallop’s stern, above the turbulent foam. William bent forward: he had already clutched those golden tresses--a moment, and she would have been enfolded in his arms--another head rose suddenly! another--and another--and another! Twenty strong hands grappled the gunwale of the skiff with the tenacity of desperation. There was a struggle, a loud shout, a heavy plunge, and the last remnant of the Blanche Navire went down, actually dragged from beneath the few survivors by the despairing hands of those whom she could not have saved or succored had she been of ten times her burden.

All, all went down! There was a long and awful pause, and then a slight splash broke the silence, a faint and gurgling sigh, and a strong swimmer rose and shook the brine from his dark locks; and lo, he was alone upon the deep! Something he saw at a brief distance, distinct and dark, floating upon the surface, and with a vigorous stroke he neared it--a fragment of a broken spar. Hope quickened at his heart, and love of life, almost forgotten in the immediate agony and terror, returned in all its natural strength. He seized a rope, and by its aid reared himself out of the abyss; and now he sat, securely as he deemed it, upon a floating fragment on which, one little hour before, he would not have embarked for all the wealth of India. Scarcely had he reached his temporary place of safety, before another of the sufferers swam feebly up and joined him, and then a third, the last of the survivors. The first who reached the spar--it was no other than Fitz-Stephen--had perused with an anxiety the most sickening and painful the faces of the new-comers: he knew them, but they were not the features he would have given his own life to see in safety--Berault, a butcher of Rouen, and Godfrey, a renowned and gallant youth, the son of Gilbert, count de L’Aigle. “The prince--where is the prince?” Fitz-Stephen cried to each, as he arrived; “hast thou not seen the prince?” And each, in turn, replied: “He never rose again--he, nor his brothers, nor his sister, nor his bride, nor one of all their company!”--“Wo be to me!” Fitz-Stephen cried, and letting go his hold, deliberately sank into the whirling waters; and, though a strong man and an active swimmer, chose to die with the victims whom his rashness had destroyed, rather than meet the indignation of their bereaved father, and bear the agonies of his own lifelong remorse.

Three days elapsed before the tidings reached King Henry, who in the fearful misery of hope deferred had lingered on the beach, trusting to hear that, from some unknown cause, the galley of his son might have put back to Barfleur. On the third day, Berault, the sole survivor of that night of misery, was brought in by a fishing-boat which had preserved him; and, when he had concluded his narration, Robert of Normandy had been revenged, although his wrongs had been a hundred-fold more flagrant than they were. Henry, though he lived years, NEVER SMILED AGAIN!

THE SAXON’S BRIDAL.

There are times in England when the merry month of May is not, as it would now appear, merely a poet’s fiction; when the air is indeed mild and balmy, and the more conspicuously so, that it succeeds the furious gusts and driving hailstorms of the boisterous March, the fickle sunshine and capricious rains of April. One of these singular epochs in the history of weather it was in which events occurred, which remained unforgotten for many a day, in the green wilds of Charnwood forest.

If was upon a soft, sweet morning, toward the latter end of the month, and surely nothing more delicious could have been conceived by the fancy of the poet. The low west wind was fanning itself among the tender leaves of the new-budded trees, and stealing over the deep meadows, all redolent with dewy wild flowers, waving them with a gentle motion, and borrowing a thousand perfumes from their bosoms. The hedgerows were as white with the dense blossoms of the hawthorn as though they had been powdered over by an untimely snowstorm; while everywhere along the wooded banks the saffron primrose and its sweet sister of the spring, the violet, were sunning their unnumbered blossoms in the calm warmth of the vernal sunshine. The heavens, of a pure, transparent blue, were laughing with a genial lustre, not flooded by the dazzling glare of midsummer, but pouring over all beneath their influence a lovely, gentle light, in perfect keeping with the style of the young scenery; and all the air was literally vocal with the notes of innumerable birds, from the proud lark, “rejoicing at heaven’s gate,” to the thrush and blackbird, trilling their full, rich chants from every dingle, and the poor linnet, piping on the spray. Nothing--no, nothing--can be imagined that so delights the fancy with sweet visions, that so enthrals the senses, shedding its influences even upon the secret heart, as a soft, old-fashioned May morning. Apart from the mere beauties of the scenery--from the mere enjoyment of the bright skies, the dewy perfumes that float on every breeze, the mild, unscorching warmth--apart from all these, there is something of a deeper and a higher nature in the thoughts called forth by the spirit of the time; a looking forward of the soul to fairer things to come; an excitement of a quiet hope within, not very definite, perhaps, nor easily explained, but one which almost every man has felt, and contrasted with the languid and pallid satiety produced by the full heat of summer, and yet more with the sober and reflective sadness that steals upon the mind as we survey the russet hues and the sere leaves of autumn. It is as if the newness, the fresh youth of the season, gave birth to a corresponding youth of the soul. Such are the sentiments which many men feel now-a-days, besides the painter, and the poet, and the soul-rapt enthusiast of nature: but those were iron days of which we write, and men spared little time in thought from action or from strife, nor often paused to note their own sensations, much less to ponder on their origin or to investigate their causes.

The morning was such as we have described--the scene a spot of singular beauty within the precincts of the then-royal forest of Charnwood, in Leicestershire. A deep but narrow stream wound in a hundred graceful turns through the rich meadow-land that formed the bottom of a small, sloping vale, which had been partially reclaimed, even at that day, from the waste; though many a willow-bush fringing its margin, and many a waving ash, fluttering its delicate tresses in the air, betrayed the woodland origin of the soft meadow. A narrow road swept down the hill, with a course little less serpentine than that of the river below, and crossed it by a small, one-arched stone bridge, overshadowed by a gigantic oak-tree, and scaled the opposite acclivity in two or three sharp, sandy zigzags. Both the hillsides were clothed with forest, but still the nature of the soil or some accidental causes had rendered the wood as different as possible; for, on the farther side of the stream, the ground was everywhere visibly covered by a short, mossy turf, softer and more elastic to the foot than the most exquisite carpet that ever issued from the looms of Persia, and overshadowed by huge and scattered oaks, growing so far apart that the eye could range far between their shadowy vistas; while on the nearer slope--the foreground, as it might be called, of the picture--all was a dense and confused mass of tangled shrubbery and verdure. Thickets of old, gnarled thorn-bushes, completely overrun and matted with woodbines; coppices of young ash, with hazel interspersed, and eglantine and dog-roses thickly set between; clumps of the prickly gorse and plumelike broom, all starry with their golden flowerets, and fern so wildly luxuriant, that in many places it would have concealed the head of the tallest man, covered the ground for many a mile through which the narrow road meandered.

There was one object more in view--one which spoke of man even in that solitude, and man in his better aspect. It was the slated roof and belfry, all overgrown with moss and stone-crop, of a small wayside chapel, in the old Saxon architecture, peering out from the shadows of the tall oaks which overhung it in the far distance. It was, as we have said, very small, in the old Saxon architecture, consisting, in fact, merely of a vaulted roof supported upon four squat, massy columns, whence sprung the four groined ribs which met in the centre of the arch. Three sides alone of this primitive place of worship, which would have contained with difficulty forty persons, were walled in, the front presenting one wide, open arch, richly and quaintly sculptured with the indented wolf’s teeth of the first Saxon style. Small as it was, however, the little chapel had its high altar, with the crucifix and candle, its reading-desk of old black oak, its font, and pix, and chalices, and all the adjuncts of the Roman ritual. A little way to the left might be discovered the low, thatched eaves of a rustic cottage, framed of the unbarked stems of forest-trees--the abode, probably, of the officiating priest; and close beside the walls of the little church a consecrated well, protected from the sun by a stone vault, of architecture corresponding to the chapel.

Upon the nearer slope, not far from the roadside, but entirely concealed from passers by the nature of the ground and the dense thickets, there were collected, at an early hour of the morning, five men, with as many horses, who seemed to be awaiting, in a sort of ambush, some persons whom they would attack at unawares. The leader of the party, as he might be considered, as much from his appearance as from the deference shown to him by the others, was a tall, active, powerful man, of thirty-eight or forty years, with a bold and expressive countenance--expressive, however, of no good quality, unless it were the fiery, reckless daring which blazed from his broad, dark eye, and that was almost obscured by the cloud of insufferable pride which lowered upon his frowning brow, and by the deep, scar-like lines of lust, and cruelty, and scorn, which ploughed his weather-beaten features. His dress was a complete suit of linked chain-mail--hauberk, and sleeves, and hose--with shoes of plaited steel, and gauntlets wrought in scale, covering his person from his neck downward in impenetrable armor. He had large gilded spurs buckled upon his heels, and a long, two edged dagger, with a rich hilt and scabbard, in his belt; but neither sword, nor lance, nor any other weapon of offence, except a huge steel mace, heavy enough to fell an ox at a single blow, which he grasped in his right hand; while from his left hung the bridle of a tall, coal-black Norman charger, which was cropping the grass quietly beside him. His head was covered by a conical steel cap, with neither crest, nor plume, nor visor, and mail-hood falling down from it to protect the neck and shoulders of the wearer.

The other four were men-at-arms, clad all in suits of armor, but less completely than their lord: thus they had steel shirts only, with stout buff breeches and heavy boots to guard their lower limbs, and iron skullcaps only, without the hood, upon their heads, and leather gauntlets upon their hands; but, as if to make up for this deficiency, they were positively loaded with offensive weapons. They had the long, two-handed sword of the period belted across their persons, three or four knives and daggers of various size and strength at their girdles, great battle-axes in their hands, and maces hanging at their saddle-bows. They had been tarrying there already several hours, their leader raising his eyes occasionally to mark the progress of the sun as he climbed up the azure vault, and muttering a brief and bitter curse as hour passed after hour, and those came not whom he expected.

“Danian,” he said at length, turning to the principal of his followers, who stood nearer to his person, and a little way apart from the others--“Danian, art sure this was the place and day? How the dog Saxons tarry! Can they have learned our purpose?”

“Surely not, surely not, fair sir,” returned the squire, “seeing that I have mentioned it to no one, not even to Raoul, or Americ, or Guy, who know no more than their own battle-axes the object of their ambush. And it was pitch-dark when we left the castle, and not a soul has seen us here; so it is quite impossible they should suspect--and hark! there goes the bell; and see, sir, see--there they come, trooping through the oak-trees down the hill!”

And indeed, as he spoke, the single bell of the small chapel began to chime with the merry notes that proclaim a bridal, and a gay train of harmless, happy villagers might be seen, as they flocked along, following the footsteps of the gray-headed Saxon monk, who, in his frock and cowl, with corded waist and sandalled feet, led the procession. Six young girls followed close behind him, dressed in blue skirts and russet jerkins, but crowned with garlands of white May-flowers, and May-wreaths wound like scarfs across their swelling bosoms, and hawthorn-branches in their hands, singing the bridal carol in the old Saxon tongue, in honor of the pride of the village, the young and lovely Marian. She was indeed the very personification of all the poet’s dreams of youthful beauty--tall and slender in her figure, yet exquisitely, voluptuously rounded in every perfect outline, with a waist of a span’s circumference, wide, sloping shoulders, and a bust that, for its matchless swell, as it struggled and throbbed with a thousand soft emotions, threatening to burst from the confinement of her tight-fitting jacket, would have put to shame the bosom of the Medicean Venus. Her complexion, wherever the sun had not too warmly kissed her beauties, was pure as the driven snow; while her large, bright-blue eyes, red, laughing lip, and the luxuriant flood of sunny, golden hair, which streamed down in wild, artless ringlets to her waist, made her a creature for a prince’s, or more, a poet’s adoration.

But neither prince nor poet was the god of that fair girl’s idolatry, but one of her own class, a Saxon youth, a peasant--nay, a serf--from his very cradle upward the born thrall of Hugh de Mortemar, lord of the castle and the hamlet at its foot, named, from its situation in the depths of Charnwood, Ashby in the Forest. But there was now no graven collar about the sturdy neck of the young Saxon, telling of a suffering servitude; no dark shade of gloom in his full, glancing eye; no sullen doggedness upon his lip: for he was that day, that glad day, a freeman--a slave no longer--but free, free, by the gift of his noble master; free as the wild bird that sung so loudly in the forest; free as the liberal air that bore the carol to his ears. His frock of forest-green and buskins of the untanned deer-hide set off his muscular, symmetrical proportions, and his close-curled, short auburn hair showed a well-turned and shapely head. Behind this gay and happy pair came several maids and young men, two-and-two; and after these, an old, gray-headed man, the father of the bride--and leaning on his arm an aged matron, the widowed mother of the enfranchised bridegroom.