The Last of the Vikings

by John Bowling

  CHAPTER XXII.

  A VIKING'S LOVE.

  "Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave."--Song of Solomon, viii. 6.

  During the time that Oswald was recovering from the prostrationconsequent upon the fever, he and Wulfhere drew carefully a plan for thefortress already determined upon. Every detail was gone carefully overand elaborated. In the meantime, also, messengers were despatched farand near, and artificers and handicraftsmen rallied to the work.Speedily the foundations were dug, and the outer walls encircling thesummit began to rise steadily and rapidly before the persistent andenergetic labours of the Saxon refugees. Each one wrought with a will,knowing that life and freedom depended upon their ability to raise afortress strong enough to defy their enemies.

  Ere the Normans were aware of what was going on, a rampart had beenerected, which was soon to develop into a stronghold, impregnable, andsecure against assault. This first line of defence having been raised,vigorous attention was given to the interior. Wells were dug, stableswere built, habitations also sprang up as by magic. Women and childrenhurried into it, bringing everything they had saved from the desolationof the past. Cattle were driven into it at night, and emerged in themorning to feed around its shoulders, pushing their way in sheeraudacity down into the green valleys, for there were always bands ofsturdy outlaws in the woods between them and danger--outlaws, who snaredgame, which literally swarmed in the woods, or cut their timber fortheir bows and arrows. For these men the Normans were no match in thesolitudes which were familiar to them, and they soon learnt to have asemi-friendliness with them, and to court relationships with thehill-men, all of which decidedly made for peace. But to a tacitacknowledgment of these outlaws the Norman leaders were bitterlyopposed. De Montfort feared that this thing would grow until it became amenace to his own position, though he remembered most vividly the wordsused by Oswald on that memorable night when he confronted him in his ownhouse as though he had dropped from the clouds, when, in burning words,the Saxon told him that they wished to be at peace, but would asserttheir right to pasturage, and to freedom. De Montfort also feared theeffect this thing would have upon William, if once he learnt that hissubject was conniving at an incipient rebellion, which might ultimatelythreaten the peace of the kingdom. So, what between the pleadings of hisdaughter Alice for peace towards the harassed Saxons, and the sharplesson they had taught him once before, that they were an enemy not tobe trifled with on ground of their own choosing, the days and weeks spedon in delays and hesitation as to how this defiance on the part of ahandful of desperate men, who defended themselves with such vigour whenattacked, should be met; seeing also that they were, upon the whole,non-aggressive and peace-loving when left alone to the pursuit ofpeaceful avocations.

  The Saxons encamped were, nevertheless, a strange and motley company,and nothing less than the sagacity, watchfulness, and marvellousforbearance of Oswald, coupled with the matchless valour and firmnesswhich he displayed, would have served to restrain the undisciplined andheterogeneous company over whom he ruled. There was a moiety ofdesperate and blood-thirsty men who were almost incapable of restraint,and who were so blinded by their hatred of the Normans that motives ofprudence or of policy were most hateful to them, and Oswald's efforts toenforce self-restraint upon his own followers, and to cultivate friendlyrelations with the enemy, were gall and wormwood.

  Sigurd was the acknowledged leader of these, and they, by their denseignorance and superstitions, fittingly represented the dark heathenism,and plunder, and bloodshed, characteristics of their Norse ancestors.They were utterly unable to realise the fact, which Oswald saw mostdistinctly, that all hope of wresting the kingdom from the Normans byforce of arms was an idle dream, unless the Normans should be involvedin a struggle with other foes. They clung to their heathenish religion,encouraged by their grim old priest Olaf, who, periodically quitting hiscave in an adjacent valley, haunted the settlement like a hyena on thescent of blood, and found little difficulty in stirring up the ferociouspassions of his followers, often to the verge of open revolt and mutiny.Oswald surveyed the situation with the eye of a statesman; but thereconciling of these turbulent factions to his ideal was a task whichrequired the utmost efforts of wisdom and valour too, and whichperpetually threatened the peace of the camp.

  These desperate complications were further intensified into a privateand personal cause of enmity and hatred on Sigurd's part--as we shallpresently see--by reason of his strange and fierce love for the fairSaxon, Ethel. Despite his passionate endeavours to cast out the deepimpression made upon him at his first interview with Ethel, we needscarcely say such efforts were utterly vain and futile. She was abeloved and familiar figure to every one in the little colony, and hewas necessarily brought frequently into intercourse with her; and day byday he became more deeply involved. The love of the fierce Viking hadthis quality in common with more ordinary mortals; it was like aquagmire, in which, being once fairly entangled, the more he struggledto get free of it the deeper he sank, until all hope of extricationtherefrom became perfectly impossible.

  "Ethel, girl," said he, addressing her one day with the bluntness whichwas a characteristic of his whole nature and disposition; and hislove-making was of a piece with his whole disposition, "I have no skillin the art of making love, or, what is pretty much the same thing, amake-believe of love, and I much fear me my rough manners and rough-hewnlimbs commend me not to fair maidens like thyself. But since I saw theefirst, feelings have been kindled in my breast which I thought weredead, and utterly out of place in these times. But scorn me not, Ethel.Thou art as surely of Viking extraction on thy father's side as I am;and though I have no gentle manners, there is no honied falseness in mynature, and perhaps through thy gentle influence I may come to love theways of peace."

  This confession of love on the part of Sigurd was the very thing Ethelhad been dreading to hear; and her confusion and sickness of heart werepitiably manifest.

  "Alas! my lord," said she, "these are times when the funeral rites forour dead are more opportune than the marriage rites. I could not thinkof wedlock in times like these, when children born may well-nigh cursethe day when they first saw the light."

  "But I will carry thee to the court of Malcolm of Scotland, where thoushalt dwell in safety. My sword will receive a hearty welcome by him.Then, if peace should come, we may return to our own land."

  "My lord, you know not what you ask. These are not times for love. Withmy country laid desolate, and my people scattered, I can indulge noaffection but for these."

  "My love for my country is as great as thine, and wedlock between us twoneed not diminish our love for our country."

  "Say no more, my lord. You know not what you ask. 'Tis painful to me,for I am not free to love."

  Sigurd started as if stung by a serpent.

  "Ah! what a dolt I must be, not to see it! How could a maiden come incontact with _him_, and not love him. Well, Ethel, Sigurd would throw noshadow across thy path. Happy be thy love, and its consummation timely!"

  "My lord, I have no lover!" said Ethel, hastily leaving the room.

  Sigurd slowly paced the room, in profound meditation. The memorableoccasion when he found Oswald and Wulfhere in the company of the twoNorman women passed in review before his mental vision, and itssignificance laid hold upon his mind as it had never done before.

  "Can it be," said he, "that _he_ should be insensible to such atreasure, and should add to his culpable blindness the base treachery ofseeking an alliance with the Norman supplanter?"

  The thought of this stirred his passions into fury, and he nervouslygrasped the hilt of his sword, as though he meditated vengeance on somefoe. "I will watch this thing, and if it be as I fear I will no longerally myself with him; but woe be to him if my arm be stronger than his,for so base a betrayal can only be washed out in blood!"

  So saying, he sallied forth, pacing round the fortifications in quest ofOswald, where he learnt that he and Wulfhere had betaken themselvestowards the valle
y. Away he sped him, intent on probing this matter tothe bottom; and instinctively his footsteps turned toward the spot whereonce before his ire had been roused at the conduct of the two he sought.