University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE SAXON'S CONSTANCY.

It was with grave and somewhat downcast brows, and
nothing of haughtiness or pride of port or demeanor, that the
lord and his friend entered under the lowly roof, invested for
the moment with a majesty which was not its own, by the
strange sacredness of grief and death.

There never probably, in the whole history of the world,
has been a race of men, which entertained in their own persons
a more boundless contempt of death, or assigned less
value to the mere quality of life, than the warlike Normans.
Not a man of them, while in the heyday of life and manhood,
would have hesitated for a moment in choosing a death
under shield, a death of violence and anguish, winning renown

and conferring deathless honor, to the gentlest decay,
the most peaceful dissolution. Not a man would have shed
a tear, or shown a sign of sorrow, had he seen his favorite
son, his most familiar friend, his noblest brother in arms,
felled from his saddle in the mêlée, and trampled out of
the very form of humanity beneath the hoofs of the charging
cavalry. Not a man but would have ridden over a battle-field,
gorged with carcasses and drunk with gore, without expressing
a thought of terror, a sentiment beyond the victory,
the glory, and the gain. But such is the sovereignty of
death, in the silence and solitude of its natural gloom, stripped
of the pomp and paraphernalia of funereal honors, and
unadorned by the empty braveries of human praise and glory
—such is the empire of humble, simple, overruling sorrow,
that, as they entered the low-roofed, undecorated chamber,
where lay the corpse of the neglected, despised serf—the
being, while in life, scarce equal to the animals of the chase—
with his nearest of kin, serfs likewise, abject, ignorant, down-trodden,
and debased—in so far as man can debase God's
creations—mourning in Christian sorrow over him, the nobles
felt, for a moment, that their nobility was nothing in the presence
of the awful dead; and that they, too, for all their pride
of antique blood, for all their strength of limb and heaven-daring
valor, for all their lands and lordships, must be brought
down one day to the dust, like the poor slave, and go forth,
as they entered this world, bearing nothing out, before one
common Lord and Master, who must in the end sit in universal
judgment.

Such meditations are not, perhaps, very common to the
great, the powerful, and the fortunate of men, in any time or

place, so long as the light of this world shine about, and
their ways are ways of pleasantness; but if rare always, and
under all ordinary circumstances, with the chivalrous, high-hearted,
and hot-headed knights of the twelfth century, they
were assuredly of the rarest.

Yet now so powerfully did they come over the strong
minds of the two grave nobles, that they paused a moment on
the threshold before entering; and Yvo de Taillebois, who
was the elder man, and of deeper thoughts and higher imagination
than his friend, raised his plumed bonnet from his
brow, and bowed his head in silence.

It was a strange and moving scene on which they looked.
The room, which was the ordinary dwelling-place of the
family, was rather a large, dark parallelogram, lighted only
through the door and a couple of narrow latticed windows,
which, if closed, would have admitted few half-intercepted
rays, but which now stood wide open, to admit the fresh and
balmy air, so that from one, at the western end of the cottage,
a clear ruddy beam of the declining sun shot in a long pencil
of light, bringing out certain objects in strong relief against
the surrounding gloom.

The door, at which the two knights stood, chanced to be so
placed under the shadow of one of the great trees which
overhung the house, that there was little light for them to intercept.
Hence, those who were within, occupied by their
own sad and bitter thoughts, did not at first so much as observe
their presence. Facing the entrance, a large fire-place,
with great projecting jambs, inclosing on each side a long
oaken settle, occupied one half the length of the room; and
on one of these, propped up with some spare bedding and

clothing, lay the wounded man, Kenric, to whom the Baron
de Taillebois owed his beloved child's life, half recumbent,
pale from the loss of blood, yet chafing with annoyance, that
he should be thus bedridden, when his strength might have
been of avail to others, feebler and less able to exert themselves
almost than he, bruised though he was, and gored from
the rude encounter.

A little fire was burning low on the hearth, with a pot simmering
over it—for, in their bitterest times of anguish and desolation,
the very poor must bestir themselves, at least, to house
service—and from the logs, which had fallen forward on the
hearth, volumes of smoke were rolling up and hanging thick
about the dingy rafters, and the few hams and flitches which,
with strings of oat-cakes garnished the roof, its only ornament.

But, wholly unconscious of the ill-odored reek, though it
streamed up close under his very eyes, and seeing nothing of
the chevaliers, who were watching not six paces from him,
Kenric lay helpless, straining his nerveless eyes toward the
spot where the ruddy western sunlight fell, like a glory, on the
pale, quiet features of the dead child, and on the cold, gray,
impassive head of the aged mourner, aged far beyond the
ordinary course of mortal life, who bent over the rude bier;
and, strange contrast, on the sunny flaxen curls, and embrowned
ruddy features of two or three younger children,
clustered around the grandam's knee, silent through awe
rather than sorrow, for they were too young as yet to know
what death meant, or to comprehend what was that awful
gloom which had fallen upon hearth and home.

Every thing in that humble and poor apartment was scrupulously

clean and tidy; a white cloth was on the table, with
two or three platters and porringers of coarse earthenware, as
if the evening meal had been prepared when death had entered
in, and interposed his awful veto—some implements of
rustic husbandry, an ax or two, several specimens of the old
English bill and Sheffield whittle; and one short javelin, with
a heavy head, hung on the walls, with all the iron work
brightly polished and in good order; fresh rushes were strewn
on the floor, a broken pitcher, full of newly-gathered field-flowers,
adorned the window-sill; and what was strange indeed
at that age, and in such a place, two or three old, much tattered,
dingy manuscripts graced a bare shelf above the chimney
corner.

The aged woman had ceased from the wild outbreak of
grief with which she had bewailed the first sign of death on
the sick boy's faded brow, and was now rocking herself to and
fro above the body, with a dull, monotonous murmur, half articulate,
combining fragments of some old Saxon hymn with
fondling epithets and words of unmeaning sorrow, while the
tears slowly trickled down her wan cheeks, and fell into her lap
unheeded. Kenric was silent, for he had no consolation to
offer, even if consolation could have been availing, in that

Such was the spectacle which met the eyes of those high-born
men, who had come down from their high place into the
lowly village, with the intention of bestowing happiness and
awakening gratitude, and who now found themselves placed
front to front with one far mightier than themselves, whose

presence left no room for joy, even with those the least used
to such emotion.

It is, however, I fear, but too much the case even with the
more refined and better nurtured classes of the present century,
while they are compassionating the sorrows and even endeavoring
to alleviate the miseries of their poorer and less-cultivated
brethren, to undervalue the depth of their sensations,
to fancy that the same events harrow not up their less vivid
sensibilities, and inflict not on their coarser and less intellectual
natures the same agonies, which they effect upon their
own. But, although it may be true that, in the very poor,
the necessity of immediate labor, of all-engrossing occupation,
rendering thought and reflection on the past impossible, sooner
removes from them the pressure of past grief, than from those
who can afford to brood over it in indolent despair, and indulge
in morbid and selfish woe, there can be no doubt that,
in the early moments of a new bereavement, the agony is as
acute to the dullest and heaviest as to the loftiest and most
imaginative intellect. Since it is the heart itself, that is
touched in the first instance; and, though in after hours imagination
may assume its share, so that the most imaginative
minds dwell longest on the bygone suffering, the heart is the
same in the peasant as in the peer, and that of the wisest of
the sons of men bleeds neither more nor less profusely than
that of the rudest clown.

And so, perchance, in some sort it was now. For, after
pausing and looking reverently on the sad picture, until it was
evident that they were entirely overlooked, if not unseen, Sir
Philip de Morville took a step or two forward into the cottage,
his sounding tread at once calling all eyes toward his

person, in a sort of half-stupid mixture of alarm and astonishment.

For in those days, the steps of a Norman baron rarely descended
to the serf's quarters, unless they were echoed by the
clanking strides of armed subordinates, and too often followed
by the clash of shackles or the sound of the hated scourge.
Sir Philip was indeed, as it has been observed, an even-tempered
and just master, as things went in those times; that is
to say, he was neither personally cruel nor exacting of labor;
nor was he niggardly in providing for his people; nor did he,
when it came before his eyes, tolerate oppression, or permit
useless severity on the part of subordinates, who were often
worse tyrants and tormentors than the lords. Still, his kindliest
mood amounted to little more than bare indifference;
and he certainly knew and studied less concerning any thing
beyond the mere physical wants and condition of his thralls and
bondsmen, than he did of the nurture of his hawks or hounds.

All the inmates, therefore, looked up in wonder, not altogether
unmixed with fear, as, certainly for the first time in his
life, the castellan entered the humble tenement of the serf of
the soil.

But all idea of fear passed away on the instant; for the
knight's face was open and calm, though grave, and his voice
was gentle, and even subdued, as he spoke.

“Soh!” he said, “what is this, Kenric, which causes us, in
coming down to see if we might not heal up thy heart and
cheer thy spirits by good tidings, to find worse sorrow, for
which we looked not, nor can reverse it by any mortal doing.
Who is the boy?”

“Pardon that I rise not, beausire, to reply to you,” answered

the serf, “but this right leg of mine will not bear me; and
when the hand of sickness hold us down, good will must make
shift in lieu of good service. It is my nephew Adhemar, Sir
Philip, the only son of my youngest brother Edgar, who was
drowned a year since in the great flood of the Idle.”

“In striving to rescue my old blind destrier Sir Roland,
ah! I remember him; a stout and willing lad! But I knew
not, or forgot, that he was thy brother. And so this is his
son,” he added, striding up to the side of the rude bier, and
laying his broad hand upon his brow. “He is young,” he
said, musingly, “very young to die. But we must all die one
day, Kenric; and who knows but it is best to die young?”

“At least, the ancient Greeks and Romans said so,” interposed
Yvo de Taillebois, speaking for the first time. “They
have a proverb, that, whomsoever the gods love, dies young.”

“I think it is best, beausire,” answered the serf; “it is
never cold in the grave, in the dreariest storms; nor sultry in
the scorching August. And they are never hungry there, nor
sorefooted, nor weary unto death. I think it is best to die
young, before one has tasted overmuch sorrow here on earth
to burden his heart and make him stubborn and malicious.
It was this I was saying to old Bertha, as your noblenesses entered;
but she has never held her head up since my brother,
Edgar, died; he was her favorite, since she always held that
he had most favor of our grandfather.”

“She is very old?” said Sir Philip, half questioning, half
musing. “She is very old?”

“Above ninety years, Sir Philip, I have heard Father
Eadbald say, who died twenty years since, at the abbey, come
next Michaelmas. It should have been he who married her.

Her mother was the last free woman of our race. We had
three hydes of land, I 've heard her tell, in those days, down
by the banks of Idle, held of old Waltheof, who gave his
name to this your noble castle. But they are all gone before
us, and we must follow them when our day comes. And then,
as I tell Bertha, we shall be free, all, if not equal; for the most
virtuous must be first there, as Father Engelram tells us. May
Mary and the saints be about us!”

“Come, Kenric,” said De Morville, cheeringly, “thou talkest
now more like to a gray brother, than to the stout woodman
who struckest yon brave blow but a while since, and saved Sir
Yvo's fair lady, Guendolen. Faith! it was bravely done, and
well; and well shall come of it to you, believe me. It is to
speak of that to thee that we came hither, but this boy's death
hath put it from our minds. But, hark ye, boy! I will send
down some wenches hither from the castle, with ale and mead
for his lykewake, and linen for a shroud; and Father Engelram
shall see to the church-service; and there shall be a
double dole to the poor at the abbey; and I myself will pay ten
marks, in masses for his soul. If he died a serf, he shall be
buried as though he were a freeman, and a franklin's son; and
all for thy sake, and for the good blow thou struckest but
three hours agone.”

Kenric's brow flushed high, whether it was with gratification,
or gratitude, or from wounded pride; but he stuttered
confusedly, as he attempted to thank his lord, and only found
his tongue as he related to his grandmother, in his native language,
the promises and goodly proffers of the castellan; and
she, for a moment, spoke eagerly in reply, but then seemed to
forget, and was silent. A word or two passed in French between

the nobles, Yvo de Taillebois urging that the time was
inopportune for speaking of the matter on which they had
come down; for that it was not well to mingle great joys with
great sorrows; but Sir Philip insisted, declaring that there
was no so good way to cure a past grief, as by the news of a
coming joy.

“So, hark you, Kenric,” he said; “the cure we came to
bring you for your bruised bones, and the guerdon for your
gallant deed, in two words, is this—I may not, as you may
have heard tell, liberate my serfs, under condition, but I may
sell; and I have sold thee to mine ancient friend and brother
in arms, Yvo de Taillebois.”

“Not to hold in thrall,” exclaimed Yvo de Taillebois,
eagerly, as he saw the face of the wounded man flush fiery
red, and then grow pale as ashes. “Not to hold in thrall, but
to liberate; but to make thee as free as the birds of the wildest
wing—a freeman; and, if thou wilt follow me, a freeholder
on my lands beyond the lakes, in the fair shire of Westmoreland.”

“I am a serf of the soil, Beausire de Morville, and I may
not be sold from the soil, unless legally convicted of felony.
I know no felony that I have done, Sir Philip.”

“Felony, man!” exclaimed Sir Philip; “art thou mad?
We would reward thee for thy good faith and valor. We
would set thee free. Of course, thou canst not be sold, but
with thine own consent. But thou hast only to consent, and
be free as thy master.”

“Sir Philip,” replied the man, turning even paler than before,
and trembling, as if he had a fit of palsy, “would I
could rise to bless you, on my bended knee! May the great

God of all things bless you! but I can not consent—think me
not ungrateful—but I can not be free!”

“Not free!” exclaimed both nobles in a breath; and Sir
Yvo gazed on him wistfully, as if he but partially understood;
but Philip de Morville turned on his heel, superciliously.
“Come, Sir Yvo,” he said; “it skills not wasting
time, or breath, on these abjects. Why, by the light of
heaven! had I been fettered in a dungeon, with a ton of
iron at my heels, I had leaped head-high to know myself once
more a freeman; and here this slave, By 'r lady! I can not
brook to speak his name! can not consent, forsooth! can not
consent to be free! Heaven's mercy! Let him rot a slave,
then! unless, perchance, thou wouldst crave him for thy sake,
and the Virgin Mother's sake, to take good counsel and be
free. Out on it! out on it! I am sick to the soul at such
baseness!”

And he left the cottage abruptly, in scorn and anger. But
Sir Yvo de Taillebois stood still, gazing compassionately and
inquiringly on the man, over whose face there had fallen a
dark, gray, death-like shadow, as he lay with his teeth and
hands clinched like vices.

“Can this be? I thought not that on earth there lived a
man who might be free, and would not. Dost not love liberty,
Kenric?”

“Ask the wild eagle in his place of pride! Ask the wild
goat on Pennigant or Ingleborough's head; and when they
come down to the cage and chain, believe, then, that I love it
not. Freedom! freedom! To be free but five minutes, I
would die fifty deaths of direst torture. And yet it can not
be—it can not be! Peace, tempter, peace; you can not stir

my soul. Slave I was born, slave I must die, and only in the
grave shall be a slave no longer. Leave me, beausire; but
think me not ungrateful. I never looked to owe so much to
living man, and least of all to living man of your proud race,
as I owe you to-day. But leave me, noble sir; you can not
aid us. So go your way, and leave us to our sorrow, and
may the God of serfs and seigneurs be about you with his
blessing.”

“Passing strange! This is passing strange!” said De
Taillebois, as he turned to go likewise; “I never saw a beast
that would not leave his cage when the door was open.”

“But I have!” answered Kenric; “when the beast's brood
were within, and might not follow him. But I am not a
beast, Sir Knight; but though a serf, a man—a Saxon, not a
Norman, it is true; but a man, yet, a man! There may be
collar on my neck, and gyves on wrist and ankle, but my soul
wears no shackles. It is as free as thine, and shall stand face
to face with thine, one day, before the judgment seat. I am
a man, I say, Sir Yvo de Taillebois; there sits old Bertha, surnamed
the Good, a serf herself, mother of serfs, and grand-mother;
there lies my serf-brother's boy, himself a serf no
longer; there sprawl unconscious on the hearth his baby
brethren, serfs from the cradle to the grave; and here comes,”
he added, in a deeper, sterner, lower tone, as the beautiful
Saxon slave-girl entered, whom they had seen near the drawbridge,
washing in the stream—“here comes—look upon her,
noble knight and Norman!—here comes my plighted bride,
my Edith the fair-haired! I am a man, Norman! Should I
be man, or beast, if, leaving these in bondage, I were to fare
forth hence, alone, into dishonored freedom?”