Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

by Henry William Herbert

  CHAPTER XV.

  THE OLD HOME.

  "Your knight for his lady pricks forth in career, And is brought home at even-song, pricked through with a spear."

  IVANHOE.

  That was a dark day for Eadwulf, on which the train of Sir Yvo deTaillebois departed from the tower of Waltheofstow; and thenceforththe discontented, dark-spirited man became darker, more morose andgloomy, until his temper had got to such a pass that he was shunnedand avoided by every one, even of his own fellows.

  It is true, that in the condition of slavery, in the being one of adespised and a detested caste, in being compelled to labor for thebenefit of others than himself, in the being liable at any moment tobe sold, together with the glebe to which he is attached for life,like the ox or ass with which he toils as a companion, there is notmuch to promote contentedness, to foster a quiet, placable, and gentledisposition, to render any man more just, or grateful, or forbearingto his fellows. Least of all is it so, where there is in the slavejust enough of knowledge, of civilization, of higher nurture, toenable him to desire freedom in the abstract, to pine for it as aright denied, and to hate those by whom he is deprived of it, withoutcomprehending its real value, or in the least appreciating either theprivileges which it confers or the duties which it imposes on thefreeman--least of all, when the man has from nature received achurlish, gloomy, sullen temperament, such as would be likely to maketo itself a fanciful adversity out of actual prosperity, to resent allopposition to its slightest wish as an injury, and to envy, almost tothe length of hating, every one more fortunate than himself.

  It may, however, as all other conditions of inferiority, of sorrow, orof suffering, be rendered lighter and more tolerable by the mode ofbearing it. Not that one would desire to see any man, whether reducedby circumstances to that condition, or held to it from his birth, sofar reduced to a tame and senseless submission as to accept it as hisnatural state, or to endure it apathetically, without an effort atraising himself to his proper position in the scale of humanity andnature.

  It is perfectly consistent with the utmost abhorrence of thecondition, and the most thorough determination to escape from it byany means lawful to a Christian, to endure what is unavoidable, and todo that which must be done, bravely, patiently, well, and thereforenobly.

  But it was not in the nature of Eadwulf to take either part. Hisrugged, stubborn, animal character, was as little capable of formingany scheme for his own prospective liberation, to which energy, and afirm, far-reaching will, should be the agents, as it was either toendure patiently or to labor well.

  Perpetually remiss, working reluctantly and badly, ever a recusant, arecreant, a sullen and morose grumbler, while he in no respectlightened, but, it is probable, rather enhanced his difficulties, hedetracted from what slight hope there might exist of his futureemancipation, by carefully, as it would seem, conciliating theill-opinion and ill-will of all men, whether his equals or hissuperiors--while he entirely neglected to earn or amass such smallsums as might be within his reach, and as might perhaps, in the end,suffice to purchase his liberation.

  So long as Kenric and his mother remained in the hamlet ofWaltheofstow, and he was permitted to associate with them in theirquarter, in consequence of the character for patience, honesty,fidelity, and good conduct, which his brother had acquired with hismasters, Eadwulf's temper had been in some sort restrained by theinfluence, unconfessed indeed, and only half-endured with sullenreluctance, which that brother obtained over him, through his clearerand stronger intellect. But when they had departed, and when he foundhimself ejected, as a single man in the first place, and yet more asone marked for a bad servant and a dangerous character, from the bestcottage in the quarter, to which he had begun to fancy himself ofright entitled, he became worse and worse, until, even in the sort ofbarrack or general lodging of the male slaves of the lowest order, hewas regarded by his fellows as the bad spirit of the set, and wasnever sought by any, unless as the ringleader in some act of villainy,wickedness, or rebellion.

  It is probable, moreover, that the beauty and innocence of Edith, who,however averse she might be to the temper and disposition of the man,had been wont, since her betrothal to his brother, to treat him with acertain friendship and familiarity, might have had some influence inmodifying his manner, at least, and curbing the natural display of hispassionate yet sullen disposition.

  Certain it is, that in some sort he loved her--as much, perhaps, ashis sensual and unintelligent soul would allow him to love; and thoughhe never had shown any predilection, never had made any effort toconciliate her favor, nor dared to attempt any rivalry of his brother,whom he wholly feared, and half-hated for his assumed superiority, hesorely felt her absence, regretted her liberation from slavery, andeven felt aggrieved at it, since he could not share her new condition.

  His brother's freedom he resented as a positive injury done tohimself; and his bearing away with him the beautiful Edith, soon tobecome his bride, he looked on in the light of a fraudulent orforcible abstraction of his own property. From that moment, he becameutterly brutalized and bad; he was constantly ordered for punishment,and at length he got to such a pitch of idleness, insolence, andrebellion, that Sir Philip de Morville, though, in his reluctance toresort to corporeal punishment, he would not allow him to be scourgedor set in the stocks, ordered his seneschal to take steps for sellinghim to some merchant, who would undertake to transport him to one ofthe English colonies in Ireland.

  Circumstances, however, occurred, which changed the fate both of themaster and the slave, and led in the end to the events, which form themost striking portion of the present narrative.

  For some time past, as was known throughout all the region, Sir Philipde Morville had been, if not actually at feud, at least on terms ofopen enmity with the nobleman whose lands marched with his own on theforest side, Sir Foulke d'Oilly--a man well-advanced in years, most ofwhich he had spent in constant marauding warfare, a hated oppressorand tyrant to his tenantry and vassals, and regarded, among his Normanneighbors and comrades, as an unprincipled, discourteous, and cruelman.

  With this man, recently, fresh difficulties had arisen concerning somedisputed rights of chase, and on a certain day, within a month afterthe departure of Sir Yvo de Taillebois, the two nobles, meeting on thedebatable ground, while in pursuit of the chase, under veryaggravating circumstances, the hounds of both parties having fallen onthe scent of the same stag, high words passed--a few arrows were shotby the retainers on both sides, Sir Philip's being much the morenumerous; a forester of Sir Foulke d'Oilly's train was slain; and, hadit not been for the extreme forbearance of De Morville, a conflictwould have ensued, which could have terminated only in the totaldiscomfiture of his rival and all his men.

  This forbearance, however, effected no good end; for, before thebarons parted, some words passed between them in private, which werenot heard by any of their immediate followers, and the effect of whichwas known only by the consequences which soon ensued.

  On the following morning, at the break of day, before the earliest ofthe serfs were summoned to their labors, the castle draw-bridge waslowered, and Sir Philip rode forth on his destrier, completely armed,but followed only by a single esquire in his ordinary attire.

  The vizor of the knight's square-topped helmet was lowered, and themail-hood drawn closely over it. His habergeon of glitteringsteel-rings, his mail-hose, fortified on the shoulders and at theknees by plates of polished steel, called poldrons and splents, shonelike silver through the twilight; his triangular shield hung about hisneck, his great two-handed broad-sword from his left shoulder to hisheel, and his long steel-headed lance was grasped in his right hand;none could doubt that he was riding forth to do battle, but it wasstrange that he wore no surcoat of arms over his plain mail, that notrumpet preceded, no banner was borne behind him, no retainers, savethat one unarmed man, in his garb of peace, followed the bridle oftheir lord.

  He rode away slowly down the hill, through the serf's quarter, intothe w
ood; the warder from the turret saw him turn and gaze backwistfully toward his hereditary towers, perhaps half prescient that heshould see them no more. He turned, and was lost to view; nor did anyeye of his faithful vassals look on him in life again.

  Noon came, and the dinner hour, but the knight came not to the banquethall--evening fell, and there were no tidings; but, at nightfall,Eadwulf came in, pale, ghastly, and terrified, and announced that theknight and the esquire both lay dead with their horses in a glade ofthe wood, not far from the scene of the quarrel of the preceding day,on the banks of the river Idle. No time was lost. With torch andcresset, bow and spear, the household hurried, under their appointedofficers, to the fatal spot, and soon found the tidings of the serf tobe but too true.

  The knight and his horse lay together, as they had fallen, bothstricken down at the same instant, in full career as it would seem, bya sudden and instantaneous death-stroke. The warrior, thoughprostrate, still sat the horse as if in life; he was not unhelmed; hisshield was still about his neck; his lance was yet in the rest, theshaft unbroken, and the point unbloodied--the animal lay with its legsextended, as if it had been at full speed when the fatal strokeovertook it. A barbed cloth-yard arrow had been shot directly into itsbreast, piercing the heart through and through, by some one in fullfront of the animal; and a lance point had entered the throat of therider, above the edge of the shield which hung about his neck, comingout between the shoulders behind, and inflicting a wound which musthave been instantaneously mortal.

  Investigation of the ground showed that many horses had been concealedor ambushed in a neighboring dingle, within easy arrow-shot of themurdered baron; that two horsemen had encountered him in the glade,one of whom, he by whose lance he had fallen, had charged him in fullcareer.

  It was evident to the men-at-arms, that Sir Philip's charger had beentreacherously shot dead in full career, by an archer ambushed in thebrake, at the very moment when he was encountering his enemy at thelance's point; and that, as the horse was in the act of falling, hehad been bored through from above, before his own lance had touchedthe other rider.

  The esquire had been cut down and hacked with many wounds of axes andtwo-handed swords, one of his arms being completely severed from thetrunk, and his skull cleft asunder by a ghastly blow. His horse'sbrains had been dashed out with a mace, probably after the slaughterof the rider; and that this part of the deed of horror had beenaccomplished by many armed men, dismounted, and not by the slayer ofDe Morville, was evident, from the number of mailed and bootedfootsteps deeply imprinted in the turf around the carcasses of themurdered men and butchered animals.

  Efforts were made immediately to track the assassins by the slot,several, both of the men-at-arms and of the Yorkshire foresters, beingexpert at the art; but their skill was at fault, as well as the scentof the slow-hounds, which were laid on the trail; for, within a fewhundred yards of the spot, the party had entered the channel of theriver Idle, and probably followed its course upward, to a place whereit flowed over a sheet of hard, slaty, rock; and where the landfarther back consisted of a dry, sun-burned, upland waste, of short,summer-parched turf, which took no impression of the horses' hoofs.

  There was no proof, nor any distinct circumstantial evidence; yet nonedoubted any more than if they had beheld the doing of the dastardlydeed, that the good Lord de Morville had fallen by the hand of SirFoulke d'Oilly and of his associates in blood-shedding.

  For the rest, the good knight lay dead, leaving no child, wife,brother, nor any near relation, who should inherit either his honorsor his lands. He had left neither testament nor next of kin.Literally, he had died, and made no sign.

  The offices of the church were done duly, the masses were chanted overthe dead, and the last remains of the good knight were consigned todust in the chapel vaults of his ancestral castle, never to descend toposterity of his, or to bear his name again forever.

  In a few days it was made known that Sir Philip had died deeplyindebted to the Jews of York, of Tadcaster, even of London; that hisestates, all of which were unentailed and in his own right, wereheavily mortgaged; and that the lands would be sold to satisfy thecreditors of the deceased. Shortly after, it was whispered abroad, andsoon proclaimed aloud, that Sir Foulke d'Oilly had become purchaser ofwhatever was saleable, and had been confirmed by the royal mandate inthe possession of the seigneurial and feudal rights of the lapsed fiefof Waltheofstow. There had been none to draw attention to thesuspicions which weighed so heavily against Sir Foulke in theneighborhood, and among the followers of the dead knight; they weremen of small rank and no influence, and had no motive to induce themwantonly to incur the hatred of the most powerful and unscrupulousnoble of the vicinity, by bringing charges which they had no means tosubstantiate, if true, and which, to disprove, it was probable that hehad contrivances already prepared by false witness.

  Within a little while, Sir Foulke d'Oilly assumed his rightsterritorial and seigneurial; but he removed not in person toWaltheofstow, continuing to reside in his own larger and moremagnificent castle of Fenton in the Forest, within a few miles'distance, and committing the whole management of his estates andgovernance of his serfs to a hard, stern, old man-at-arms, renownedfor his cruel valor, whom he installed as the seneschal of the fief,with his brother acting as bailiff under him, and a handful of fierce,marauding, free companions, as a garrison to the castle.

  The retainers of the old lord were got rid of peacefully, their duesof pay being made up to them, and themselves dismissed, with somesmall gratuity. One by one the free tenants threw up the farms whichthey rented, or resigned the fiefs which they held on man-service;and, before Sir Philip had been a month cold in his grave, not a soulwas left in the place, of its old inhabitants, except the miserableSaxon serfs, to whom change of masters brought no change of place; andwho, regarded as little better than mere brutes of burden, were scarcedistinguished one from the other, or known by name, to their new andvicarious rulers. On them fell the most heavily the sudden blow whichhad deprived them of a just, a reasonable, and a merciful lord, asjustice and mercy went in those days, and consigned them defenselessand helpless slaves, to one among the cruellest oppressors of thatcruel and benighted period--and, worse yet than that, mere chattels atthe mercy of an underling, crueller even than his lord, and wantingeven in the sordid interest which the owner must needs feel in thephysical welfare of his property.

  Woe, indeed, woe worth the day, to the serfs of Waltheofstow, whenthey fell into the hands of Sir Foulke d'Oilly, and tasted of themercies of his seneschal, Black Hugonet of Fenton in the Forest!

  It was some considerable time before the news of this foul murderreached the ears of Sir Yvo de Taillebois; and when it did becomeknown to him, and measures were taken by him to reclaim the manor ofWaltheofstow, in virtue of the mortgage he had redeemed, it was foundthat so many prior claims, and that to so enormous an extent, were inexistence, as to swallow up the whole of the estates, leaving Sir Yvoa loser of the nineteen thousand zecchins which he had advanced, withnothing to show in return for his outlay beyond the freedom of Kenricand his family.

  The good knight, however, was too rich to be seriously affected by thecircumstance, and of too noble and liberal a strain to regret deeplythe mere loss of superabundant and unnecessary gold. But not so did heregard the death of his dear companion and brother in arms; yet,though he caused inquiries to be set on foot as to the mode of hisdecease, so many difficulties intervened, and the whole affair wasplunged in so deep a mystery and obscurity, that he was compelled toabandon the pursuit reluctantly, until, after months had elapsed,unforeseen events opened an unexpected clew to the fatal truth.