University of Virginia Library

THE SYRIAN LADY;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.

There is something in the first approach of spring — in
the budding of the young leaves, the freshness of the genial
atmosphere, the songs of the small birds, the increasing warmth
and lustre of the sun — as contrasted with the gloomy winter
which has just departed, that can not fail to awaken ideas of
a gay and lively character in all hearts accessible to the influences
of gratitude and love. In compliance, as it were, with
this feeling, a custom has more or less generally prevailed
among all nations, and in all ages, of celebrating the arrival of
this season by merriment, and song, and rural triumph. Like
many others, admirable practices of the olden time, the setting
apart to joy and innocent festivity of the first of May is now
gradually falling into neglect; but at the period of which we
are about to treat, not Christmas itself could be observed with
more reverential care than its inviting rival. On May-day, the
evergreens which had decked the cottage and the church, the

castle and the cloister, gave way to garlands of such flowers as
the mellowing influences of the season had already called into
their existence of beauty and perfume; troops of morris-dancers
paraded the public way with their fantastic dresses, glittering
blades, and intricate evolutions; feasting and wassail, without
which even pleasure itself was then deemed incomplete, prevailed
on every side; in the crowded city, or in the secluded
valley; in the hut of the serf, or in the turreted keep of his
warlike lord; in the gloom of the convent, or in the glitter of
the court, the same feelings were excited, the same animation
glowed in every countenance, the same triumphant demonstrations
of joy hailed the glad harbinger of sunshine and of summer.

In England, above all other lands — the merry England of
antiquity — was this pleasing festival peculiarly dear to all
classes of society; at all times a period eagerly anticipated,
and rapturously enjoyed, never perhaps was its arrival celebrated
by all men with wilder revelry, with more enthusiastic happiness,
than on the year which had accomplished the deliverance
of their lion-hearted monarch from the chains of perfidious
Austria. It seemed to the whole nation as though, not
only the actual winter of the year, with his dark accompaniments
of snow and storm, but the yet more oppressive winter
of anarchy and misrule, of usurpation and tyranny, were about
to pass away from the people, which had so long groaned under
the griping sway of the bad John, or been torn by the savage
strife of his mercenary barons; while their legitimate and honored
sovereign was dragging his dreary hours along in the dungeon,
from which he had but now escaped, through the devoted
fidelity and unrivalled art of the minstrel Blondel.

Now, however, the king was on the throne of his fathers,
girt with a circle of three gallant spirits, who had shed their
blood like water on the thirsty deserts of Syria; earning not

only earthly honor and renown, but, as their imperfect faith
had taught them to believe, the far more lofty guerdon of eternal
life. Now their national festival had returned — they were
called upon by the thousand voices of nature to give the rein to
Pleasure, and why should they turn a deaf ear to her inspiring
call?

The streets of London — widely different indeed from the
vast wilderness of walls, which has risen like a phœnix from
the ashes of its predecessor, but even at that early age a vast
and flourishing town — were thronged, from the earliest dawn,
by a constant succession of smiling faces: old and young, men
and maidens, grave citizens and stern soldiers, all yielding to
the excitement of the moment, all hurrying from the intricate
lanes of the city to greet their king, who had announced his
intention of holding a court at Westminster, and proceeding
thence, at high noon, to feast with the city dignitaries in Guildhall.
The open stalls, which then occupied the place of shops,
were adorned by a display of their richest wares, decorated
with wreaths of a thousand bright colors; — steel harness from
the forges of Milan; rich velvets from the looms of Genoa;
drinking-cups and ewers of embossed gold, glittered in every
booth. The projecting galleries, which thrust forward their irregular
gables far across the narrow streets, were hung with tapestries
of price; while garlands of flowers, stretched from side to
side, and the profusion of hawthorn boughs, with their light
green leaves and snowy blossoms, lent a sylvan appearance to
the crowded haunts of the metropolis. From space to space
the streets were guarded by the city-watch in their white cassocks
and glittering head-pieces; while ever and anon the
train of some great lord came winding its way, with led horses
in costly caparison, squires and pages in the most gorgeous fashion
of the day, the banner and the knightly armor of the baron
borne before him, from his lodgings in the Minories, or the more

notorious Chepe. The air was literally alive with music and
light laughter; even the shaven and cowled monk, as he
threaded his way through the motley concourse — suffered the
gravity of his brow to relax into a smile when he looked upon
the undisguised delight of some fair girl, escorted by her trusty
bachelor; now stopping to gaze on the foreign curiosities displayed
in decorated stalls; now starting in affected terror from
the tramp and snort of the proud war-horse, or mustering a
frown of indignation at the unlicensed salutation of its courtly
rider; now laughing with unsuppressed glee at the strange
antics of the mummers and morricers, who, in every disguise
that fancy could suggest, danced and tumbled through the
crowded ways — heedless of the disturbance they excited, or
the danger they incurred from the hoofs of chargers which
were prancing along in constant succession, to display the
equestrian graces and firm seat of some young aspirant for the
honors of chivalry.

The whole scene was in the highest degree picturesque, and
such as no other age of the world could afford. The happiness
which, although fleeting and fictitious, threw its bright illumination
over the whole multitude, oblivious of the cares, the
labors, and the sorrows of to-morrow, afforded a subject for the
harp of the poet, no less worthy his inspired meditations than
the gorgeous coloring and the rich costume of the middle ages
might lend to the pencil of a Leslie or a Newton.

In a chamber overlooking with its Gothic casements this
scene of contagious mirth — alone, unmoved by the gay hum
which told of happiness in every passing breeze — borne down,
as it would appear, by the weight of some secret calamity —
sat Sir Gilbert à-Becket, of glorious form and unblemished
fame. The bravest of the brave on the battle-plain, unequalled
for wisdom in the hall of council, he had been among the first
of those bold hearts who had buckled on their mighty armor to

fight the good fight of Christianity — to rear the cross above the
crescent — and to redeem the Savior's sepulchre from the contaminating
sway of the unbeliever.

There was not one among the gallant thousands who had
followed their lion-hearted leader from the green vales of England
to the sultry sands of Palestine, whose high qualities had
been more frequently tried, or whose undaunted valor was more
generally acknowledged, than the knight à-Becket; there was
not one to whose lance the chivalrous Richard looked more
confidently for support, nor one to whose counsel he more willingly
inclined his ear. In the last desperate effort before the
walls of Ascalon — when, with thirty knights alone, the English
monarch had defied the concentrated powers, and vainly
sought an opponent in the ranks of sixty thousand mussulmans
— his crest had shone the foremost in those fierce encounters
which have rendered the name of the Melec Ric a terror to
the tribes of the desert that has endured even to the present
day. It was at the close of this bloody encounter, that, conquered
by his own previous exertions rather than by the prowess
of his foemen — his armor hacked and rent, his war-steed slain
beneath him — he had been overwhelmed by numbers while
wielding his tremendous blade beside the bridle-rein of his
king, and borne away by the Saracens into hopeless captivity.

Days and months had rolled onward, and the limbs of the
champion were wasted and his constitution sapped by the vile
repose of the dungeon; yet never for an instant had his proud
demeanor altered, or his high spirit quailed beneath the prospect
of an endless slavery. All means had been resorted to
by his turbaned captors to induce him to adopt the creed of
Mohammed. Threat of torments such as was scarcely endured
even by the martyrs of old; promises of dominion, and wealth,
and honor; the agonies of thirst and hunger; the allurement
of beauty almost superhuman — had been brought to assail the

faith of the despairing but undaunted prisoner: and each temptation
had been tried but to prove how unflinching was his resolution,
and how implicit his faith in that Rock of Ages which
he had ever served with enthusiastic, at least, if erring zeal,
and with a fervency of love which no peril could shake, no
pleasure could seduce from its serene fidelity.

At length, when hope itself was almost dead within his
breast; when ransom after ransom had been vainly offered;
when the noblest moslem captives had been tendered in exchange
for his inestimable head; and, to crown the whole,
when the no-longer united powers of the crusading league had
departed from the shores on which they had lavished so much
of their best blood — his deliverance from the fetters of the infidel
was accomplished by one of those extraordinary circumstances
which the world calls chance, but which the Christian
knows how to attribute to the infinite mercies of an overruling
Providence. The eagerness of the politic sultan — whose name
ranks as high among the tribes of Islam as the glory of his opponents
among the pale sons of Europe — to obtain proselytes
from the nations which he had the sagacity to perceive were
no less superior to the wandering hordes of the desert in arts
than in arms, had led him to break through those laws which
are so intimately connected with the religion of Mohammed —
the laws of the harem! As the pious faith of the western warrior
appeared to gain fresh vigor from every succeeding temptation,
so did the anxiety of his conqueror increase to gain over
to his cause a spirit the value of which was daily rendered
more and more conspicuous. In order to bring about this end,
after every other device had failed, he commanded the admission
to the Briton's cell of the fairest maiden of his harem — a
maid whose pure and spotless beauty went further to prove her
unblemished descent than even the titles which were assigned
to the youthful Leila, of almost royal birth.

Dazzled by her charms, and intoxicated by the fascination
of her manner, her artless wit, and her delicate timidity, so far
removed from the unbridled passion of such other eastern beauties
as had visited his solitude, the Christian soldier betrayed
such evident delight in listening to her soft words, and such
keen anxiety for a repetition of the interview, that the oriental
monarch believed that he had in sooth prevailed. Confidently,
however, as he had calculated on the conversion of the believing
husband by the unbelieving wife, the bare possibility of an
opposite result had never once occurred to his distorted vision.
But truly has it been said, “Magna est veritas et prævalebit!”
The damsel who had been sent to create emotion in the breast
of another, was the first to become its victim herself: she whose
tutored tongue was to have won the prisoner from the faith of
his fathers, was herself the first to fall away from the creed of
her race. Enamored, beyond the reach of description, of the
good knight, whose attractions of person were no less superior
to the boasted beauty of the oriental nobles, than his rich and
enthusiastic mind soared above their prejudiced understandings,
she had surrendered her whole soul to a passion as intense as
the heat of her native climate; she had lent a willing ear to
the fervid eloquence of her beloved, and had drank in fresh
passion from the very language which had won her reason
from the debasing superstitions of Islamism to the bright and
everlasting splendors of the Christian faith. From this moment
the eastern maid became the bride of his affections, the solace
of his weary hours, the object of his brightest hopes. He had
discovered that she was worthy of his love; he was sure that
her whole being was devoted to his welfare; and he struggled
no longer aginst the spirit with which he had battled, as unworthy
his country, his name, and his religion.

It was not long ere the converted maiden had planned the
escape, and actually effected the deliverance, of her affianced

lover. She had sworn to join him in his flight; she had promised
to accompany him to his distant country, and to be the star
of his ascendant destinies, as she had been the sole illuminator
to his hours of desolation and despair.

Rescued from his fetters, he had lain in concealment on the
rocky shores of the Mediterranean, anxiously awaiting the vessel
which was to convey him to the land of his birth, and her
whose society alone could render his being supportable. The
vessel arrived: but what was the agony of his soul on learning
that she whom he prized above light, and life, and all save virtue,
had fallen a sacrifice to the furious disappointment of her
indignant countrymen! Maddened with grief, and careless of
an existence which had now become a burden rather than a
treasure, he would have returned to avenge the wrongs of his
lost Leila, and perish on her grave, had not her emissaries —
conscious that in such a case the fate which had befallen the
mistress must undoubtedly be theirs likewise — compelled him
to secure their common safety by flight.

After weary wanderings, he had returned a heart-stricken
wretch to his native England, at that moment rejoicing with
unfeigned delight at the recovery of her heroic king. He
sometimes mingled in the labors of the council or the luxuries
of the banquet, but it was evident to all that his mind was far
away! that for him there might indeed be the external semblance
of joy, but that all within was dark and miserable! It
was plain that, in the words of the poet —

On this morning of universal joy — to him a period fraught
with the gloomiest recollections, for it was the anniversary of
that sad day on which he had parted from the idol of his heart,
never to behold her more! — on this morning he had secluded
himself from the sight of men; he was alone with his memory!

His eyes indeed rested on the letters of an illuminated missal
which lay open before him; but the long, dark lock of silky
hair which was grasped in his feverish hand, showed too
plainly that his grief was still of that harrowing and fiery character
which prevents the mind from tasting as yet the consolations
of Divine truth. He had sat thus for hours, unconscious
of the passing multitude, whose every sound was borne to his
unheeding ears by the fresh breeze of spring. His courtly
robe and plumed bonnet, his collar, spurs, and sword, lay beside
him, arranged for the approaching festival by his officious
page; but no effort could have strung his nerves or hardened
his heart on that day to bear with the frivolous ceremonies and
false glitter of a court. He recked not now whether his presence
would lend a zest to the festival, or whether his absence
might be construed into offence. The warrior, the politician,
the man, were merged in the lover! Utter despondency had
fallen upon his spirit. Like the oak of his native forests, he
was proud and unchanged in appearance, but the worm was
busy at his heart. Even tears would have been a relief to the
dead weight of despair which had benumbed his very soul;
but never, since that fatal hour, had one drop relieved the
aching of his brain, or one smile gleamed across his haggard
features. Mechanically he fulfilled his part in society: he
moved, he spoke, he acted, like his fellow-men; but he was
now become, from the most ardent and impetuous of his kind,
a mere creature of habit and circumstance.

So deeply was he now absorbed in his dark reveries, that
the increasing clamor of the multitude had escaped his attention,
although the character of the sounds was no longer that
of unmingled pleasure. The voices of men, harsh and pitched
in an unnatural key, rude oaths, and tumultuous confusion, proclaimed
that, if not engaged in actual violence, the mob was at
least ripe for mischief. More than once, during the continuance

of these turbulent sounds, had the plaintive accents of a
female voice been distinctly audible — when on a sudden a
shriek arose of such fearful import, close beneath the casements
of the abstracted baron, that it thrilled to his very heart. It
seemed to his excited fancy that the notes of a well-remembered
voice lent their music to that long-drawn cry; nay, he almost
imagined that his own name was indistinctly blended in that
yell of fear.

With the speed of light he had sprung to his feet, and hurried
to the lattice; but twice before he reached it, had the
cry repeated, calling on the name of “Gilbert!” with a plaintive
energy that could no longer be mistaken. He gained the
embrasure, dashed the trellised blinds apart, and there — struggling
in the licentious grasp of the retainers who ministered to
the brutal will of some haughty noble — her raven tresses scattered
to the winds of heaven, her turbaned shawl and flowing
caftan rent and disordered by the rude hands of lawless violence
— he beheld a female form of unrivalled symmetry, clad
in the well-remembered garments of the East. Her face was
turned from him, and the dark masses of hair which had escaped
from their confinement entirely concealed her features;
still there was an undefined resemblance which acted so keenly
upon his feelings, that the thunder of heaven could scarcely
burst with a more appalling crash above the heads of the guilty
than did the powerful tones of the crusader as he bade them,
“as they valued life, release the damsel!” With a rapid shudder
which ran through every limb at his clear summons, she
turned her head. It was — it was his own lost Leila! the high
and polished brow; the eyes that rivalled in languor the boasted
organs of the wild gazelle; the rapturous ecstasy that kindled
every lineament as she recognised her lover's form —

were all, all Leila's! To snatch his sword from its scabbard,
to vault at a single bound from the lofty casement, to force his
way through the disordered press, to level her audacious assailants
to the earth, was but a moment's work for the gigantic
power of the knight, animated as he now was by all those feelings
which can minister valor to the most timid, and give
strength to the feeblest arm! He beheld her whom he had
believed to be snatched for ever from his heart, nor could hundreds
of mail-clad soldiers have withstood his furious onset!
He had already clasped his recovered treasure in one nervous
arm, while with the other he brandished aloft the trusty blade,
which had so often carried havoc and terror to the centre of the
moslem lines; when the multitude, enraged at the interference
of a stranger with what to them appeared the laudable occupation
of persecuting a witch or infidel, seconded by the bold ruffians
who had first laid hand upon the lovely foreigner, rushed
bodily onward, threatening to overpower all resistance by the
weight of numbers.

Gallantly, however, and at the same time mercifully, did Sir
Gilbert à-Becket support his previous reputation. Dealing
sweeping blows with his huge falchion on every side, yet shunning
to use the point or edge, he had cleft his way in safety to
the threshold of his own door. Yet even then the final issue
of the strife was far from certain; for so sudden had been the
exit of the baron, and from so unusual an outlet, that none of
his household were conscious of their lord's absence, and the
massy portal was closed against the entrance of the lawful
owner. Stones and staves flew thick around him; and so
fiercely did the leaders of the furious mob press upon his retreat,
that, yielding at length to the dictates of his excited spirit,
he dealt the foremost a blow which would have cloven him to
the teeth though he had been fenced in triple steel; thundering
at the same time with his booted heel against the oaken

leaves of his paternal gate, and shouting to page and squire
within till the vaulted passages rang forth in startled echoes.

At this critical moment the din of martial music, which had
long been approaching, heralded the royal procession; though
so actively were the rioters engaged in their desperate onset,
and so totally engrossed was the baron in the rescue of his recovered
bride, that neither party were aware of it until its
clangor rang close at hand, and a dazzling cavalcade of knights
and nobles came slowly on the scene of action.

Of stature almost gigantic, noble features, and kingly bearing
— his garb glittering with gold and jewels till the dazzled
eye could scarcely brook its splendor; backing a steed which
seemed as though its strength and spirit might have borne Goliath
to the field; and wielding a blade which no other arm in
Christendom could have poised even for a second — the lion-hearted
Richard, followed by every noble of his realm, dashed
with his native impetuosity into the centre.

“Ha! St. George!” he shouted, in a voice heard clearly
above the mingled clang of instruments and the tumult of the
conflict; “have ye no better way to keep our festival than thus
to take base odds on one? Shame on ye, vile recreants! What,
ho!” he cried, as he recognised the person of the knight, “our
good comrade à-Becket thus hard bestead! Hence to your
your kennels, ye curs of England! — dare ye match yourselves
against the Lion and his brood?”

Loud rang the acclamations of the throng, accustomed to the
blunt boldness of their warrior-king, and losing sight of his
haughty language in joy for his return and admiration of the
additional glory which had accrued to the whole nation from the
prowess of its champion: “God save thee, gallant lion-heart!
Never was so brave a knight! never so noble a king!”

Louder still was the wonder of the monarch and his assembled
court when they learned the strange adventure which had

been brought to so fair a conclusion by their unexpected succor.
The lady threatened with the lasting indignation of the
royal Saladin, though never really in danger of life, had devised
the false report of her own death — knowing that it were hopeless
for her to dream of flight, so long as the eyes of all were
concentrated on her in dark and angry suspicion; and knowing
also that no dread of instant dissolution nor hope of liberty
could have induced her devoted lover to have quitted the land
while she remained in “durance vile.”

When the first excitement — caused by the escape of a prisoner
so highly esteemed as was the bold crusader — had ceased
to agitate the mussulman divan, and affairs had returned to
their usual course — easily escaping from the vigilance of the
haram guard, she had made good her flight to the seabathed
towers of Venice, and thence to the classic plains of Italy.
Then it was that the loneliness of her situation, the perils, the
toils, the miseries which she must necessarily endure, weighed
no less heavily on her tender spirits, than the unwonted labor
of so toilsome a journey on her delicate and youthful frame.
Ignorant of any European language, save the name of her lover,
and the metropolis of his far-distant country, her sole reply to
every query was the repetition, in her musical, although imperfect
accents, of the words — “London,” “Gilbert.” Marvellous
it is to relate — and were it not, in good sooth, history
too marvellous — that her talismanic speech did at length convey
her through nations hostile to her race, through the almost
uninhabited forest, and across the snowy barrier of the Alps,
through realms laid waste by relentless banditti, and cities
teeming with licentious and merciless adventurers, to the
chalky cliffs and verdant meadows of England! For weeks
had she wandered through the streets of the vast metropolis,
jeered by the cruel, and pitied, but unaided, by the merciful
— tempted by the wicked, and shunned by the virtuous

— repeating ever and anon her simple exclamation, “Gilbert,
Gilbert!” till her strength was well nigh exhausted, and
her spirits were fast sinking into utter despondency and despair.

On the morning of the festival she had gone forth with hopes
renewed, when she perceived the concourse of nobles crowding
to greet their king — for she knew her Gilbert to be high
in rank and favor — and fervently did she trust that this day
would be the termination of her miseries. Again was she miserably
deceived; so miserably that, perchance, had not the
very assault which had threatened her with death or degradation
restored her, as it were by magic, to the arms of him whom
she had so tenderly and truly loved, she had sunk that night beneath
the pressure of grief and anxiety, too poignant to be long
endured. But so it was not ordained by that perfect Providence,
which, though it may for a time suffer bold vice to triumph, and
humble innocence to mourn, can ever bring real good out of
seeming evil; and whose judgments are so inevitably, in the end,
judgments of mercy and of truth, that well might the minstrel
king declare of old, in the inspired language of holy writ —

“I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”