by Walter Scott
“And thou, creature of guilt and misery,” said Cedric, “what became thy lot on the death of thy ravisher?”
“Guess it, but ask it not. Here—here I dwelt, till age, premature age, has stamped its ghastly features on my countenance—scorned and insulted where I was once obeyed, and compelled to bound the revenge which had once such ample scope to the efforts of petty malice of a discontented menial, or the vain or unheeded curses of an impotent hag; condemned to hear from my lonely turret the sounds of revelry in which I once partook, or the shrieks and groans of new victims of oppression.”
“Ulrica,” said Cedric, “with a heart which still, I fear, regrets the lost reward of thy crimes, as much as the deeds by which thou didst acquire that meed, how didst thou dare to address thee to one who wears this robe? Consider, unhappy woman, what could the sainted Edward himself do for thee, were he here in bodily presence? The royal Confessor was endowed by Heaven with power to cleanse the ulcers of the body; but only God Himself can cure the leprosy of the soul.”
“Yet, turn not from me, stern prophet of wrath,” she exclaimed, “but tell me, if thou canst, in what shall terminate these new and awful feelings that burst on my solitude. Why do deeds, long since done, rise before me in new and irresistible horrors? What fate is prepared beyond the grave for her to whom God has assigned on earth a lot of such unspeakable wretchedness? Better had I turn to Woden, Hertha, and Zernebock, to Mista, and to Skogula, the gods of our yet unbaptized ancestors, than endure the dreadful anticipations which have of late haunted my waking and my sleeping hours!”
“I am no priest,” said Cedric, turning with disgust from this miserable picture of guilt, wretchedness, and despair—“I am no priest, though I wear a priest’s garment.”
“Priest or layman,” answered Ulrica, “thou art the first I have seen for twenty years by whom God was feared or man regarded; and dost thou bid me despair?”
“I bid thee repent,” said Cedric. “Seek to prayer and penance, and mayest thou find acceptance! But I cannot, I will not, longer abide with thee.”
“Stay yet a moment!” said Ulrica; “leave me not now, son of my father’s friend, lest the demon who has governed my life should tempt me to avenge myself of thy hard-hearted scorn. Thinkest thou, if Front-de-Bœuf found Cedric the Saxon in his castle, in such a disguise, that thy life would be a long one? Already his eye has been upon thee like a falcon on his prey.”
“And be it so,” said Cedric; “and let him tear me with beak and talons, ere my tongue say one word which my heart doth not warrant. I will die a Saxon—true in word, open in deed. I bid thee avaunt! touch me not, stay me not! The sight of Front-de-Bœuf himself is less odious to me than thou, degraded and degenerate as thou art.”
“Be it so,” said Ulrica, no longer interrupting him; “go thy way, and forget, in the insolence of thy superiority, that the wretch before thee is the daughter of thy father’s friend. Go thy way; if I am separated from mankind by my sufferings—separated from those whose aid I might most justly expect—not less will I be separated from them in my revenge! No man shall aid me, but the ears of all men shall tingle to hear of the deed which I shall dare to do! Farewell! thy scorn has burst the last tie which seemed yet to unite me to my kind—a thought that my woes might claim the compassion of my people.”
“Ulrica,” said Cedric, softened by this appeal, “hast thou borne up and endured to live through so much guilt and so much misery, and wilt thou now yield to despair when thine eyes are opened to thy crimes, and when repentance were thy fitter occupation?”
“Cedric,” answered Ulrica, “thou little knowest the human heart. To act as I have acted, to think as I have thought, requires the maddening love of pleasure, mingled with the keen appetite of revenge, the proud consciousness of power—draughts too intoxicating for the human heart to bear, and yet retain the power to prevent. Their force has long passed away. Age has no pleasures, wrinkles have no influence, revenge itself dies away in impotent curses. Then comes remorse, with all its vipers, mixed with vain regrets for the past and despair for the future! Then, when all other strong impulses have ceased, we become like the fiends in hell, who may feel remorse, but never repentance. But thy words have awakened a new soul within me. Well hast thou said, all is possible for those who dare to die! Thou hast shown me the means of revenge, and be assured I will embrace them. It has hitherto shared this wasted bosom with other and with rival passions; henceforward it shall possess me wholly, and thou thyself shalt say that, whatever was the life of Ulrica, her death well became the daughter of the noble Torquil. There is a force without beleaguering this accursed castle; hasten to lead them to the attack, and when thou shalt see a red flag wave from the turret on the eastern angle of the donjon,dk press the Normans hard: they will then have enough to do within, and you may win the wall in spite both of bow and mangonel.dl Begone, I pray thee; follow thine own fate, and leave me to mine.”
Cedric would have inquired farther into the purpose which she thus darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Bœuf was heard exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the scallop-shell of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he loiters here to hatch treason among my domestics!”
“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil conscience! But heed him not; out and to thy people. Cry your Saxon onslaught; and let them sing their war-song of Roller,dm if they will, vengeance shall bear a burden to it.”dn
As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald Front-de-Bœuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with some difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty Baron, who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.
“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift: it is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make. Hast thou prepared them for death?”
“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command, “expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they had fallen.”
“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Bœuf, “thy speech, methinks, smacks of a Saxon tongue?”
“I was bred in the convent of St. Withold of Burton,” answered Cedric.
“Ay?” said the Baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of messengers. That St. Withold’s of Burton is a howlet’s nest worth the harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon as little as the mailcoat.”
“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion, which Front-de-Bœuf imputed to fear.
“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office, and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of proof.”
“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion. “Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the postern.”
And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Bœuf thus schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.
“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared to environ this castle of Torquilstone. Tell them whatever thou hast a mind of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that can detain them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear thou this scroll. But soft—canst read, Sir Priest?”
“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I know the characters, because I have the holy service by heart, praised be Our Lady and St. Withold!”
“The fitter messenger for my purpose. Carry thou this scroll to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is written by the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it to York with all the speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement. Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack o
f runagates, who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art to keep the knaves where they are, until our friends bring up their lances. My vengeance is awake, and she is a falcon that slumbers not till she has been gorged.”
“By my patron saint,” said Cedric, with deeper energy than became his character, “and by every saint who has lived and died in England, your commands shall be obeyed! Not a Saxon shall stir from before these walls, if I have art and influence to detain them there.”
“Ha!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest, and speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the slaughter of the Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred to the swine?”
Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and would at this moment have been much the better of a hint from Wamba’s more fertile brain. But necessity, according to the ancient proverb, sharpens invention, and he muttered something under his cowl concerning the men in question being excommunicated outlaws both to church and to kingdom.
“Despardieux,” answered Front-de-Bœuf, “thou hast spoken the very truth: I forgot that the knaves can strip a fat abbot as well as if they had been born south of yonder salt channel. Was it not he of St. Ives whom they tied to an oak-tree, and compelled to sing a mass while they were rifling his mails and his wallets? No, by Our Lady, that jest was played by Gualtier of Middleton, one of our own companions-at-arms. But they were Saxons who robbed the chapel at St. Bees of cup, candlestick, and chalice, were they not?”
“They were godless men,” answered Cedric.
“Ay, and they drank out all the good wine and ale that lay in store for many a secret carousal, when ye pretend ye are but busied with vigils and primes! Priest, thou art bound to revenge such sacrilege.”
“I am indeed bound to vengeance,” murmured Cedric; “St. Withold knows my heart.”
Front-de-Bœuf, in the meanwhile, led the way to a postern, where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior defence, which communicated with the open field by a well-fortified sallyport.
“Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and if thou return hither when it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was hog’s in the shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee, thou seemest to be a jolly confessor; come hither after the onslaught, and thou shalt have as much Malvoisie as would drench thy whole convent.”
“Assuredly we shall meet again,” answered Cedric.
“Something in hand the whilst,” continued the Norman; and, as they parted at the postern door, he thrust into Cedric’s reluctant hand a gold byzant, adding, “Remember, I will flay off both cowl and skin if thou failest in thy purpose.”
“And full leave will I give thee to do both,” answered Cedric, leaving the postern, and striding forth over the free field with a joyful step, “if, when we meet next, I deserve not better at thine hand.” Turning then back towards the castle, he threw the piece of gold towards the donor, exclaiming at the same time, “False Norman, thy money perish with thee!”
Front-de-Bœuf heard the words imperfectly, but the action was suspicious. “Archers,” he called to the warders on the outward battlements, “send me an arrow through yon monk’s frock! Yet stay,” he said, as his retainers were bending their bows, “it avails not; we must thus far trust him since we have no better shift. I think he dares not betray me; at the worst I can but treat with these Saxon dogs whom I have safe in kennel. Ho! Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and the other churl, his companion—him I mean of Coningsburgh—Athelstane there, or what they call him? Their very names are an encumbrance to a Norman knight’s mouth, and have, as it were, a flavour of bacon. Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince John said, that I may wash away the relish; place it in the armoury, and thither lead the prisoners.”
His commands were obeyed; and, upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung with many spoils won by his own valour and that of his father, he found a flagon of wine on the massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Bœuf took a long draught of wine, and then addressed his prisoners; for the manner in which Wamba drew the cap over his face, the change of dress, the gloomy and broken light, and the Baron’s imperfect acquaintance with the features of Cedric, who avoided his Norman neighbours, and seldom stirred beyond his own domains, prevented him from discovering that the most important of his captives had made his escape.
“Gallants of England,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “how relish ye your entertainment at Torquilstone? Are ye yet aware what your surquedy and outrecuidance,do merit, for scoffing at the entertainment of a prince of the house of Anjou? Have ye forgotten how ye requited the unmerited hospitality of the royal John? By God and St. Denis, an ye pay not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these windows, till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons of you! Speak out, ye Saxon dogs—what bid ye for your worthless lives? How say you, you of Rotherwood?”
“Not a doitdp I,” answered poor Wamba; “and for hanging up by the feet, my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the biggindq was bound first round my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it again.”
“St. Genevieve!” said Front-de-Bœuf, “what have we got here?”
And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric’s cap from the head of the Jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of servitude, the silver collar round his neck.
“Giles—Clement—dogs and varlets!” exclaimed the furious Norman, “what have you brought me here?”
“I think I can tell you,” said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment. “This is Cedric’s clown, who fought so manful a skirmish with Isaac of York about a question of precedence.”
“I shall settle it for them both,” replied Front-de-Bœuf; “they shall hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar of Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin, we leave them the breath of their nostrils. Go,” said he to two of his attendants, “fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I pardon your error for once; the rather that you but mistook a fool for a Saxon franklin.”
“Ay, but,” said Wamba, “your chivalrous excellency will find there are more fools than franklins among us.”
“What means the knave?” said Front-de-Bœuf, looking towards his followers, who, lingering and loth, faltered forth their belief that, if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was become of him.
“Saints of Heaven!” exclaimed De Bracy, “he must have escaped in the monk’s garments!”
“Fiends of hell!” echoed Front-de-Bœuf, “it was then the boar of Rotherwood who I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my own hands! And thou,” he said to Wamba, “whose folly could overreach the wisdom of idiots yet more gross than myself—I will give thee holy orders—I will shave thy crown for thee! Here, let them tear the scalp from his head, and then pitch him headlong from the battlements. Thy trade is to jest, canst thou jest now?”
“You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,” whimpered forth poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be overcome even by the immediate prospect of death; “if you give me the red cap you propose, out of a simple monk you will make a cardinal.”
“The poor wretch,” said De Bracy, “is resolved to die in his vocation. Front-de-Bœuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to me to make sport for my Free Companions. How sayst thou, knave? Wilt thou take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?”
“Ay, with my master’s leave,” said Wamba; “for, look you, I must not slip collar (and he touched that which he wore) without his permission
.”
“Oh, a Norman saw will soon cut a Saxon collar,” said De Bracy.
“Ay, noble sir,” said Wamba, “and thence goes the proverb:
‘Norman saw on English oak,
On English neck a Norman yoke;
Norman spoon in English dish,
And England ruled as Normans wish;
Blythe world to England never will be more,
Till England’s rid of all the four. “’
“Thou dost well, De Bracy,” said Front-de-Bœuf, “to stand there listening to a fool’s jargon, when destruction is gaping for us! Seest thou not we are overreached, and that our proposed mode of communicating with our friends without has been disconcerted by this same motley gentleman thou art so fond to brother? What views have we to expect but instant storm?”
“To the battlements then,” said De Bracy; “when didst thou ever see me the graver for the thoughts of battle? Call the Templar yonder, and let him fight but half so well for his life as he has done for his order. Make thou to the walls thyself with thy huge body. Let me do my poor endeavour in my own way, and I tell thee the Saxon outlaws may as well attempt to scale the clouds, as the castle of Torquilstone; or, if you will treat with the banditti, why not employ the mediation of this worthy franklin, who seems in such deep contemplation of the wine-flagon? Here, Saxon,” he continued, addressing Athelstane, and handing the cup to him, “rinse thy throat with that noble liquor, and rouse up thy soul to say what thou wilt do for thy liberty.”
“What a man of moulddr may,” answered Athelstane, “providing it be what a man of manhood ought. Dismiss me free, with my companions, and I will pay a ransom of a thousand marks.”
“And wilt moreover assure us the retreat of that scum of mankind who are swarming around the castle, contrary to God’s peace and the king’s?” said Front-de-Bœuf.
“In so far as I can,” answered Athelstane, “I will withdraw them; and I fear not but that my father Cedric will do his best to assist me.”