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Harold, The Last Of The Saxon Kings, a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
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Book 6. Ambition - Chapter 7 |
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_ BOOK VI. AMBITION CHAPTER VII Messire Mallet de Graville possessed in perfection that cunning astuteness which characterised the Normans, as it did all the old pirate races of the Baltic; and if, O reader, thou, peradveuture, shouldst ever in this remote day have dealings with the tall men of Ebor or Yorkshire, there wilt thou yet find the old Dane-father's wit--it may be to thy cost--more especially if treating for those animals which the ancestors ate, and which the sons, without eating, still manage to fatten on. But though the crafty knight did his best, during his progress from London into Wales, to extract from Sexwolf all such particulars respecting Harold and his brethren as he had reasons for wishing to learn, he found the stubborn sagacity or caution of the Saxon more than a match for him. Sexwolf had a dog's instinct in all that related to his master; and he felt, though he scarce knew why, that the Norman cloaked some design upon Harold in all the cross-questionings so carelessly ventured. And his stiff silence, or bluff replies, when Harold was mentioned, contrasted much the unreserve of his talk when it turned upon the general topics of the day, or the peculiarities of Saxon manners. By degrees, therefore, the knight, chafed and foiled, drew into himself; and seeing no farther use could be made of the Saxon, suffered his own national scorn of villein companionship to replace his artificial urbanity. He therefore rode alone, and a little in advance of the rest, noticing with a soldier's eye the characteristics of the country, and marvelling, while he rejoiced, at the insignificance of the defences which, even on the Marches, guarded the English country from the Cymrian ravager [156]. In musings of no very auspicious and friendly nature towards the land he thus visited, the Norman, on the second day from that in which he had conversed with the abbot, found himself amongst the savage defiles of North Wales. Pausing there in a narrow pass overhung with wild and desolate rocks, the knight deliberately summoned his squires, clad himself in his ring mail, and mounted his great destrier. "Thou dost wrong, Norman," said Sexwolf, "thou fatiguest thyself in vain--heavy arms here are needless. I have fought in this country before: and as for thy steed, thou wilt soon have to forsake it, and march on foot." "Know, friend," retorted the knight, "that I come not here to learn the horn-book of war; and for the rest, know also, that a noble of Normandy parts with his life ere he forsakes his good steed." "Ye outlanders and Frenchmen," said Sexwolf, showing the whole of his teeth through his forest of beard, "love boast and big talk; and, on my troth, thou mayest have thy belly full of them yet; for we are still in the track of Harold, and Harold never leaves behind him a foe. Thou art as safe here, as if singing psalms in a convent." "For thy jests, let them pass, courteous sir," said the Norman; "but I pray thee only not to call me Frenchman [157]. I impute it to thy ignorance in things comely and martial, and not to thy design to insult me. Though my own mother was French, learn that a Norman despises a Frank only less than he doth a Jew." "Crave your grace," said the Saxon, "but I thought all ye outlanders were the same, rib and rib, sibbe and sibbe." "Thou wilt know better, one of these days. March on, master Sexwolf." The pass gradually opened on a wide patch of rugged and herbless waste; and Sexwolf, riding up to the knight, directed his attention to a stone, on which was inscribed the words, "Hic victor fuit Haroldus,"--Here Harold conquered. "In sight of a stone like that, no Walloon dare come," said the Saxon. "A simple and classical trophy," remarked the Norman, complacently, "and saith much. I am glad to see thy lord knows the Latin." "I say not that he knows Latin," replied the prudent Saxon; fearing that that could be no wholesome information on his lord's part, which was of a kind to give gladness to the Norman--"Ride on while the road lets ye--in God's name." On the confines of Caernarvonshire, the troop halted at a small village, round which had been newly dug a deep military-trench bristling with palisades, and within its confines might be seen,--some reclined on the grass, some at dice, some drinking,--many men, whose garbs of tanned hide, as well as a pennon waving from a little mound in the midst, bearing the tiger heads of Earl Harold's insignia, showed them to be Saxons. "Here we shall learn," said Sexwolf, "what the Earl is about--and here, at present, ends my journey." "Are these the Earl's headquarters, then?--no castle, even of wood--no wall, nought but ditch and palisades?" asked Mallet de Graville in a tone between surprise and contempt. "Norman," said Sexwolf, "the castle is there, though you see it not, and so are the walls. The castle is Harold's name, which no Walloon will dare to confront; and the walls are the heaps of the slain which lie in every valley around." So saying, he wound his horn, which was speedily answered, and led the way over a plank which admitted across the trench. "Not even a drawbridge!" groaned the knight. Sexwolf exchanged a few words with one who seemed the head of the small garrison, and then regaining the Norman, said: "The Earl and his men have advanced into the mountainous regions of Snowdon; and there, it is said, the blood-lusting Gryffyth is at length driven to bay. Harold hath left orders that, after as brief a refreshment as may be, I and my men, taking the guide he hath left for us, join him on foot. There may now be danger: for though Gryffyth himself may be pinned to his heights, he may have met some friends in these parts to start up from crag and combe. The way on horse is impassable: wherefore, master Norman, as our quarrel is not thine nor thine our lord, I commend thee to halt here in peace and in safety, with the sick and the prisoners." "It is a merry companionship, doubtless," said the Norman; "but one travels to learn, and I would fain see somewhat of thine uncivil skirmishings with these men of the mountains; wherefore, as I fear my poor mules are light of the provender, give me to eat and to drink. And then shalt thou see, should we come in sight of the enemy, if a Norman's big words are the sauce of small deeds." "Well spoken, and better than I reckoned on," said Sexwolf, heartily. While De Graville, alighting, sauntered about the village, the rest of the troop exchanged greetings with their countrymen. It was, even to the warrior's eye, a mournful scene. Here and there, heaps of ashes and ruin-houses riddled and burned--the small, humble church, untouched indeed by war, but looking desolate and forlorn--with sheep grazing on large recent mounds thrown over the brave dead, who slept in the ancestral spot they had defended. The air was fragrant with spicy smells of the gale or bog myrtle; and the village lay sequestered in a scene wild indeed and savage, but prodigal of a stern beauty to which the Norman, poet by race, and scholar by culture, was not insensible. Seating himself on a rude stone, apart from all the warlike and murmuring groups, he looked forth on the dim and vast mountain peaks, and the rivulet that rushed below, intersecting the village, and lost amidst copses of mountain ash. From these more refined contemplations he was roused by Sexwolf, who, with greater courtesy than was habitual to him, accompanied the theowes who brought the knight a repast, consisting of cheese, and small pieces of seethed kid, with a large horn of very indifferent mead. "The Earl puts all his men on Welch diet," said the captain, apologetically. "For indeed, in this lengthy warfare, nought else is to be had!" The knight curiously inspected the cheese, and bent earnestly over the kid. "It sufficeth, good Sexwolf," said he, suppressing a natural sigh. "But instead of this honey-drink, which is more fit for bees than for men, get me a draught of fresh water: water is your only safe drink before fighting." "Thou hast never drank ale, then!" said the Saxon; "but thy foreign tastes shall be heeded, strange man." A little after noon, the horns were sounded, and the troop prepared to depart. But the Norman observed that they had left behind all their horses: and his squire, approaching, informed him that Sexwolf had positively forbidden the knight's steed to be brought forth. "Was it ever heard before," cried Sire Mallet de Graville, "that a Norman knight was expected to walk, and to walk against a foe too! Call hither the villein,--that is, the captain." But Sexwolf himself here appeared, and to him De Graville addressed his indignant remonstrance. The Saxon stood firm, and to each argument replied simply, "It is the Earl's orders;" and finally wound up with a bluff--"Go or let alone: stay here with thy horse, or march with us on thy feet." "My horse is a gentleman," answered the knight, "and, as such, would be my more fitting companion. But as it is, I yield to compulsion--I bid thee solemnly observe, by compulsion; so that it may never be said of William Mallet de Graville, that he walked, bon gre, to battle." With that, he loosened his sword in the sheath, and, still retaining his ring mail, fitting close as a shirt, strode on with the rest. A Welch guide, subject to one of the Underkings (who was in allegiance to England, and animated, as many of those petty chiefs were, with a vindictive jealousy against the rival tribe of Gryffyth, far more intense than his dislike of the Saxon), led the way. The road wound for some time along the course of the river Conway; Penmaen-mawr loomed before them. Not a human being came in sight, not a goat was seen on the distant ridges, not a sheep on the pastures. The solitude in the glare of the broad August sun was oppressive. Some houses they passed--if buildings of rough stones, containing but a single room, can be called houses--but they were deserted. Desolation preceded their way, for they were on the track of Harold the Victor. At length, they passed the cold Conovium, now Caer-hen, lying low near the river. There were still (not as we now scarcely discern them, after centuries of havoc,) the mighty ruins of the Romans,--vast shattered walls, a tower half demolished, visible remnants of gigantic baths, and, proudly rising near the present ferry of Tal-y-Cafn, the fortress, almost unmutilated, of Castell-y-Bryn. On the castle waved the pennon of Harold. Many large flat-bottomed boats were moored to the river-side, and the whole place bristled with spears and javelins. Much comforted, (for,--though he disdained to murmur, and rather than forego his mail, would have died therein a martyr,--Mallet de Graville was mightily wearied by the weight of his steel,) and hoping now to see Harold himself, the knight sprang forward with a spasmodic effort at liveliness, and found himself in the midst of a group, among whom he recognised at a glance his old acquaintance, Godrith. Doffing his helm with its long nose-piece, he caught the thegn's hand, and exclaimed: "Well met, ventre de Guillaume! well met, O Godree the debonnair! Thou rememberest Mallet de Graville, and in this unseemly guise, on foot, and with villeins, sweating under the eyes of plebeian Phoebus, thou beholdest that much-suffering man!" "Welcome indeed," returned Godrith, with some embarrassment; "but how camest thou hither, and whom seekest thou?" "Harold, thy Count, man--and I trust he is here." "Not so, but not far distant--at a place by the mouth of the river called Caer Gyffin [158]. Thou shalt take boat, and be there ere the sunset." "Is a battle at hand? Yon churl disappointed and tricked me; he promised me danger, and not a soul have we met." "Harold's besom sweeps clean," answered Godrith, smiling. "But thou art like, perhaps, to be in at the death. We have driven this Welch lion to bay at last. He is ours, or grim Famine's. Look yonder;" and Godrith pointed to the heights of Penmaen-mawr. "Even at this distance, you may yet descry something grey and dim against the sky." "Deemest thou my eye so ill practised in siege, as not to see towers? Tall and massive they are, though they seem here as airy as roasts, and as dwarfish as landmarks." "On that hill-top, and in those towers, is Gryffyth, the Welch king, with the last of his force. He cannot escape us; our ships guard all the coasts of the shore; our troops, as here, surround every pass. Spies, night and day, keep watch. The Welch moels (or beacon-rocks) are manned by our warders. And, were the Welch King to descend, signals would blaze from post to post, and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants,--through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou wilt have seen the drops yet red on the way, where the stone tells that Harold was victor." "A brave man and true king, then, this Gryffyth," said the Norman, with some admiration; "but," he added in a colder tone, "I confess, for my own part, that though I pity the valiant man beaten, I honour the brave man who wins; and though I have seen but little of this rough land as yet, I can well judge from what I have seen, that no captain, not of patience unwearied, and skill most consummate, could conquer a bold enemy in a country where every rock is a fort." "So I fear," answered Godrith, "that thy countryman Rolf found; for the Welch beat him sadly, and the reason was plain. He insisted on using horses where no horses could climb, and attiring men in full armour to fight against men light and nimble as swallows, that skim the earth, then are lost in clouds. Harold, more wise, turned our Saxons into Welchmen, flying as they flew, climbing where they climbed; it has been as a war of the birds. And now there rests but the eagle, in his last lonely eyrie." "Thy battles have improved thy eloquence much, Messire Godree," said the Norman, condescendingly. "Nevertheless, I cannot but think a few light horse----" "Could scale yon mountain-brow?" said Godrith, laughing, and pointing to Penmaen-mawr. The Norman looked and was silent, though he thought to himself, "That Sexwolf was no such dolt after all!" _ |
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