Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest
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CHAPTER VII.
THE SLAVE GIRL'S SELF-DEVOTION.
"I say not nay, but that all day, It is both writ and said, That woman's faith is, as who sayeth, All utterly decayed; But neverthelesse, right good witnesse In this case might be laid, That they love true and continue-- Recorde the Not-browne mayde; Which, when her love came her to prove, To her to make his mone, Wolde have him part--for in her hart She loved him but alone."
THE NOT-BROWNE MAYDE.
How true a thing is it of the human heart, and alas! how pitiful athing, that use has such wondrous power over it, whether for good orfor evil; but mostly--perhaps because such is its originalnature--unto evil. Custom will harden the softest spirit to theice-brook's temper, and blind the clearest philosophic eye to alldiscrimination, that things the most horrible to behold shall bebeheld with pleasure, and things the most unjust regarded as simplejustice, or, at least, as the inevitable course and pervading law ofnature. True as this is, in all respects, in none is it more clearlyor fatally discoverable than in every thing connected with what may becalled slavery, in the largest sense--including the subjugation, bywhatever means, not only of man to man, but even of animals to thehuman race. In all such cases, it would appear that the hardening anddeteriorating influence of habit, and perhaps the unavoidable tendencyto believe every thing subordinate as in itself inferior, soon bringsthe mind to regard the power to enforce and the capacity to perform,as the rule of justice between the worker and the master.
The generally good and kind-hearted man, who has all his life beenused to see his beasts of burden dragging a few pounds' weight abovetheir proper and merciful load, soon comes to regard the extraordinarymeasure as the proper burden, and to look upon the hapless brute,which is pining away by inches, in imperceptible and insensible decay,as merely performing the work, and filling the station, to perform andfill which it was created. And so, and yet more fatally, as regardsthe subjugation of man, or a class of men, to man. We commence bydegrading, and end by thinking of him as of one naturally degraded. Wereduce him to the standard and condition of a brute, then assume thathe is but a brute in feelings, intellect, capacity to acquire, andthence argue--in the narrowest of circles--that being but a brute, itis but right and natural to deal with him as what he is. Nor is thistendency of the human mind limited in its operation to actual slavery;but prevails, more or less, in relation to all servitude andinferiority, voluntary or involuntary; so that many of the best, allindeed but the very best, among us, come in the end to look upon all,placed by circumstances and society in inferior positions, asinferiors in very deed, and as naturally unequal to themselves inevery capacity, even that of enjoyment, and to regard them, in fact,as a subordinate class of animals and beings of a lower range ofcreation.
This again, still working in a circle, tends really to lower theinferior person; and, by the tendency of association, the inferiorclass; until degenerating still, as must occur, from sire to son,through centuries, the race itself sinks from social into naturaldegradation.
This had already occurred in a very great degree in the Saxon serfs ofEngland, who had been slaves of Saxons, for many centuries, before thearrival of the Norman conquerors. The latter made but smalldistinction, in general, between the free-born and the slave of theconquered race, but reduced them all to one common state of misery andreal or quasi-servitude--for many, who had once been land-holders andmasters, sunk into a state of want and suffering so pitiable and soabject, that, generation succeeding generation with neither the meansnor the ambition to rise, they became almost undistinguishable fromthe original serfs, and in many instances either sold themselves intoslavery to avoid actual starvation, or were seized and enslaved, indefiance of all law, in the dark and troublous time which followed theNorman conquest.
There being then two classes of serfs existing on British soil, thoughnot recognized as different by law, or in any wise differing incondition, Kenric, himself descended in the third degree from afreeman and landholder, exhibited a fair specimen at the first;although it by no means followed of course that men in his relativeposition were actually superior to the progeny of those, who coulddesignate no point before which their ancestors were free. And thisbecame evident, at once, to those who looked at the characters ofKenric the Dark, and Eadwulf the Red, of whom the former was in allrespects a man of sterling qualities, frank, bold demeanor, and allthe finer characteristics of independent, hardy, English manhood;while the second, though his own brother, was a rude, sullen,thankless, spiritless, obstinate churl, with nothing of the man,except his sordid, sensual appetites, and every thing of the beast,except his tameless pride and indomitable freedom.
It was, therefore, even with one of the better class of theseunfortunate men, a matter of personal character and temper, whether heretained something of the relative superiority he bore to his yet moreunfortunate companions in slavery, or whether he sank self-lowered totheir level. Nothing, it is true, had either to which he might aspire;no hope of bettering his condition; no chance of rising in the scaleof humanity. Acts of emancipation, as rewards of personal service, hadbeen rare even among the Saxons, since, the utmost personal servicebeing due by the thrall to his lord, no act of personal service,unless in most extreme cases, could be esteemed a merit; and suchserfs as owed their freedom to the voluntary commiseration of theirowners, owed it, in the great majority of cases, to their superstitionrather than to their mercy, and were liberated on the deathbed, whenthey could serve their masters in no otherwise, than in becoming anatonement for their sins, and smoothing their path through purgatoryto paradise.
With the Normans, the chance of liberation was diminished anhundred-fold; for the degraded race, held in utter abhorrence andcontempt, and looked upon as scarce superior to the abject Jew, wasexcluded from all personal contact with their haughty lords, whorarely so much as knew them by sight or by name--was incapable ofserving them directly, in the most menial capacity--and, therefore,could hardly, by the wildest good fortune, hope for a chance ofattracting even observation, much less such praise as would be like toinduce the high boon of liberty.
Again, on the deathbed, the Norman knight or noble, scarcecondescending to think of his serf as a human being, could never haveentertained so preposterous an idea, as that the better or worseusage, nay! even the life or death of hundreds of these despisedwretches could weigh either for him or against him, before the throneof grace. So that the deathbed emancipations, which had been sofrequent before the conquest, and which were recommended andinculcated by abbots and prelates, while abbots and prelates were ofSaxon blood, as acts acceptable on high, now that the high clergy,like the high barons of the realm, were strangers to the children ofthe soil, had fallen into almost absolute disuse.
In fact, in the twelfth century, the Saxon serf-born man had littlemore chance of acquiring his freedom, than an English peasant of thepresent day has of becoming a temporal or spiritual peer of the realm;and, lacking all object for emulation or exertion, these men too oftenjustified the total indifference with which they were looked upon bythe owners of the soil. This fact, or rather this condition of thingsin their physical and moral aspect, has been dwelt upon, somewhat atlength, in order to show how it is possible that a gentleman of thehighest birth, of intellects, acquirements, ideas of justice andright, vastly more correct than those entertained by the majority ofhis caste--a gentleman, sensitive, courteous, kindly, the very mirrorof faith and honor--should have distorted devotion so noble, faith sodisinterested, a sense of honor so high, a piety so pure, as thatdisplayed by Kenric the Dark, in his refusal of the bright jewelliberty, in his eloquent assertion of his rights, his sympathies, hisspiritual essence as a man, into an act of _outrecuidance_, almostinto a personal affront to his own dignity. Yet, so it was, and alas!naturally so--for so little was he, or any of his fellows, used toconsider his serf in the light of an arguing, thinking, responsiblebeing, that probably Balaam was but little more astonished when hisass turned
round on him and spoke, than was Yvo de Taillebois, whenthe serf of the soil stood up in his simple dignity as a man, andrefused to be free, unless those he loved, whom it was his duty tosupport, cherish, shield, and comfort, might be free together withhim. Certain it is, that he left the cottage which he had enteredfull of gratitude, and eager to be the bearer of good tidings,disappointed, exasperated against Kenric, vexed that his endeavors toprove his gratitude had been frustrated, and equally uncertain how heshould disclose the unwelcome tidings to his daughter, and howreconcile to his host the conduct of the Saxon, which he had remainedin the hope of fathoming, and explaining to his satisfaction.
In truth, he felt himself indignant and wounded at the unreasonableperduracy of the man, in refusing an inestimable boon, for what hechose to consider a cause so trivial; and this, too, though had hehimself been in the donjon of the infidel, expecting momentary deathby the faggot or the rack, and been offered liberty, life, empire,immortality, on condition of leaving the least-valued Christian womanto the harem of the Mussulman, he would have spurned the offer withhis most arrogant defiance.
This seemed to him much as it would seem to the butcher, if the bull,with the knife at his throat, were to speak up and refuse to live,unless his favorite heifer might be allowed to share his fortunes. Itappeared to him wondrous, indeed, but wondrously annoying, and almostabsurd. In no respect did it strike him as one of the noblest and mostgenerous deeds of self-abandonment of which the human soul is capable;though, had the self-same offer been spurned, as the slave spurned it,and in the very words which he had found in the rude eloquence ofindignation, by belted knight or crowned king, he had unhesitatinglystyled it an action of the highest glory, and worthy of immortalrecord in herald's tale or minstrel's story. Such is the weight ofcircumstance upon the noblest minds of men.
With his brow bent, and his arms folded on his breast, moodily, almostsorrowfully, did the good knight of Taillebois wend his way backtoward the towers of Waltheofstow, making no effort to overtake hisbrother-in-arms and entertainer, whom he could clearly see stalkingalong before him, in no more placable mood than himself, but buryinghimself on his return in his own chamber, whence he made hisappearance no more that evening; though he might hear Sir Philipstorming through the castle, till the vaulted halls and passagesresounded from barbican to battlement.
Meantime, in the lowly cottage of the serf--for the lord, though angryand indignant, had not failed of his plighted word--the lykewake ofthe dead boy went on--for that was a Saxon no less than a Celticcustom, though celebrated by the former with a sort of stolid decorum,as different as night is from day from the loud and barbarous orgiesof their wilder neighbors.
The consecrated tapers blazed around the swathed and shrouded corpse,and sent long streams of light through the open door and lattices ofthe humble dwelling, as though it had been illuminated for a highrejoicing. The death hymn was chanted, and the masses sung by the graybrothers from the near Saxon cloister. The dole to the poor had beengiven, largely, out of the lord's abundance; and the voices of therioting slaves, emancipated from all servitude and sorrow, for thenonce, by the humming ale and strong metheglin, were loud in praisesof their bounteous master, until, drenched and stupefied with liquor,and drunk with maudlin sorrow, they staggered off to their respectivedens, to snore away the fumes of their unusual debauch, until arousedat dawn by the harsh cry of the task-master.
By degrees the quiet of the calm summer night sank down over thedwelling and garden of Kenric, as guest after guest departed, until noone remained save one old Saxon brother, who sat by the simple coffin,telling his beads in silence, or muttering masses for the soul of thedead, apparently unconscious of any thing passing around him.
The aged woman had been removed, half by persuasion, half by gentleforce, from the dwelling-room, and had soon sunk into the heavy andlethargic slumber which oftentimes succeeds to overwhelming sorrow.The peaceful moonlight streamed in through the open door of thecheerless home, like the grace of heaven into a disturbed and sinfulheart, as one by one the tapers flickered in their sockets andexpired. The shrill cry of the cricket, and the peculiar jarring noteof the night-hawk, replaced the droning of the monkish chants, and thesuppressed tumult of vulgar revelry; but, though there was solitudeand silence without, there was neither peace nor heart-repose within.
Sorely shaken, and cruelly gored by the stag in trunk and limbs, andyet more sorely shaken in his mind by the agitation and excitement ofthe angry scene with his master, and by the internal conflict ofnatural selfishness with strong conscientious will, Kenric lay, withhis eyes wide open, gazing on his dead nephew, although his mind wasfar away, with his head throbbing, and his every nerve jerking andtense with the hot fever.
But by his side, soothing his restless hand with her caressing touch,bathing his burning temples with cold lotions, holding the softmedicaments to his parched lips, beguiling his wild, wanderingthoughts with gentle lover's chidings, and whispering of better daysto come, sat the fair slave girl, Edith, his promised wife, for whosedear sake he had cast liberty to the four winds, and braved the deadlyterrors of the unforgiving Norman frown.
She had heard enough, as she entered the house at that decisivemoment, to comprehend the whole; and, if the proud and high-bornknights were at a loss to understand, much less appreciate, the noblevirtue of the serf, the poor uneducated slave girl had seen and feltit all--felt it thrill to her heart's core, and inspire her weaknesswith equal strength, equal devotion.
She had argued, she had prayed, she had implored, clinging to hisknees, that for the love of Heaven, for the love of herself, he wouldaccept the boon of freedom, and leave her to her fate, which would besweeter far to her, she swore, from the knowledge of his prosperity,than it could be rendered by the fruition of the greatest worldlybliss. And then, when she found prayer and supplication fruitless,she, too, waxed strong and glorious. She lifted her hand to heaven,and swore before the blessed Virgin and her ever-living Son, that,would he yield to her entreaties and be free, she would be true tohim, and to him alone, forever; but should he still persist in hiswicked and mad refusal of God's own most especial gift of freedom, shewould at least deprive him of the purpose of his impious resolution,place an impenetrable barrier between them two, and profess herselfthe bride of Heaven.
At length, as he only chafed and resisted more and more, tillresistance and fever were working almost delirium--any thing butconviction and repentance--like a true woman, she betook herself fromargument, and tears, and supplication, to comforting, consoling, andcaressing; and, had the rage and fever of his body, or the terribleexcitement of his tortured mind, been less powerful, she could not buthave won the day, in the noblest of all strifes--the strife of mutualdisinterestedness and devotion.
"O woman! in our hours of ease, Inconstant, coy, and hard to please; When pain and anguish rend the brow, A ministering angel thou!"