by Walter Scott 24 страница

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I was free, was happy, was honoured, loved, and was beloved. I am now a

slave, miserable and degraded--the sport of my masters' passions while

I had yet beauty--the object of their contempt, scorn, and hatred,

since it has passed away. Dost thou wonder, father, that I should hate

mankind, and, above all, the race that has wrought this change in me?

Can the wrinkled decrepit hag before thee, whose wrath must vent itself

in impotent curses, forget she was once the daughter of the noble Thane

of Torquilstone, before whose frown a thousand vassals trembled? "

" Thou the daughter of Torquil Wolfganger! " said Cedric, receding as he

spoke; " thou--thou--the daughter of that noble Saxon, my father's friend

and companion in arms! "

" Thy father's friend! " echoed Urfried; " then Cedric called the Saxon

stands before me, for the noble Hereward of Rotherwood had but one son,

whose name is well known among his countrymen. But if thou art Cedric of

Rotherwood, why this religious dress? --hast thou too despaired of saving

thy country, and sought refuge from oppression in the shade of the

convent? "

" It matters not who I am, " said Cedric; " proceed, unhappy woman, with

thy tale of horror and guilt! --Guilt there must be--there is guilt even

in thy living to tell it. "

" There is--there is, " answered the wretched woman, " deep, black, damning

guilt, --guilt, that lies like a load at my breast--guilt, that all the

penitential fires of hereafter cannot cleanse. --Yes, in these halls,

stained with the noble and pure blood of my father and my brethren--in

these very halls, to have lived the paramour of their murderer, the

slave at once and the partaker of his pleasures, was to render every

breath which I drew of vital air, a crime and a curse. "

" Wretched woman! " exclaimed Cedric. " And while the friends of thy

father--while each true Saxon heart, as it breathed a requiem for his

soul, and those of his valiant sons, forgot not in their prayers the

murdered Ulrica--while all mourned and honoured the dead, thou hast

lived to merit our hate and execration--lived to unite thyself with the

vile tyrant who murdered thy nearest and dearest--who shed the blood

of infancy, rather than a male of the noble house of Torquil Wolfganger

should survive--with him hast thou lived to unite thyself, and in the

hands of lawless love! "

" In lawless hands, indeed, but not in those of love! " answered the

hag; " love will sooner visit the regions of eternal doom, than

those unhallowed vaults. --No, with that at least I cannot reproach

myself--hatred to Front-de-Boeuf and his race governed my soul most

deeply, even in the hour of his guilty endearments. "

" You hated him, and yet you lived, " replied Cedric; " wretch! was there

no poniard--no knife--no bodkin! --Well was it for thee, since thou didst

prize such an existence, that the secrets of a Norman castle are like

those of the grave. For had I but dreamed of the daughter of Torquil

living in foul communion with the murderer of her father, the sword of a

true Saxon had found thee out even in the arms of thy paramour! "

" Wouldst thou indeed have done this justice to the name of Torquil? "

said Ulrica, for we may now lay aside her assumed name of Urfried;

" thou art then the true Saxon report speaks thee! for even within these

accursed walls, where, as thou well sayest, guilt shrouds itself in

inscrutable mystery, even there has the name of Cedric been sounded--and

I, wretched and degraded, have rejoiced to think that there yet

breathed an avenger of our unhappy nation. --I also have had my hours of

vengeance--I have fomented the quarrels of our foes, and heated drunken

revelry into murderous broil--I have seen their blood flow--I have heard

their dying groans! --Look on me, Cedric--are there not still left on

this foul and faded face some traces of the features of Torquil? "

" Ask me not of them, Ulrica, " replied Cedric, in a tone of grief mixed

with abhorrence; " these traces form such a resemblance as arises from

the graves of the dead, when a fiend has animated the lifeless corpse. "

" Be it so, " answered Ulrica; " yet wore these fiendish features the mask

of a spirit of light when they were able to set at variance the elder

Front-de-Boeuf and his son Reginald! The darkness of hell should hide

what followed, but revenge must lift the veil, and darkly intimate what

it would raise the dead to speak aloud. Long had the smouldering fire of

discord glowed between the tyrant father and his savage son--long had I

nursed, in secret, the unnatural hatred--it blazed forth in an hour of

drunken wassail, and at his own board fell my oppressor by the hand of

his own son--such are the secrets these vaults conceal! --Rend asunder,

ye accursed arches, " she added, looking up towards the roof, " and bury

in your fall all who are conscious of the hideous mystery! "

" 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-Boeuf 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-Boeuf 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 superority, 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; droughts 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, 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. --Begone, I pray thee--follow thine own fate,

and leave me to mine. "

Cedric would have enquired farther into the purpose which she thus

darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Boeuf 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 Rollo, if they will; vengeance shall bear a burden to

it. "

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald

Front-de-Boeuf 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-Boeuf, " 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 an owlet's nest worth the

harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon

as little as the mail-coat. "

" God's will be done, " said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion,

which Front-de-Boeuf 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-Boeuf

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 of 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-Boeuf, " 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-Boeuf, " 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; " Saint Withold knows

my heart. "

Front-de-Boeuf, 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 fly 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-Boeuf 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 call they 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-Boeuf took a long

drought 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-Boeuf, " how relish ye your

entertainment at Torquilstone? --Are ye yet aware what your 'surquedy'

and 'outrecuidance' [31] 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 Dennis, 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 doit I, " answered poor Wamba--" and for hanging up by the feet,

my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the biggin was bound

first round my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore

it again. "

" Saint Genevieve! " said Front-de-Boeuf, " 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-Boeuf; " 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-Boeuf, looking towards his

followers, who, lingering and loath, 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-Boeuf, " it was then the boar of

Rotherwood whom 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 thyself--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-Boeuf, 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;

Blithe world to England never will be more,

Till England's rid of all the four. '"

" Thou dost well, De Bracy, " said Front-de-Boeuf, " 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 mould 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-Boeuf.

" 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. "

" We are agreed then, " said Front-de-Boeuf--" thou and they are to be set

at freedom, and peace is to be on both sides, for payment of a thousand

marks. It is a trifling ransom, Saxon, and thou wilt owe gratitude to

the moderation which accepts of it in exchange of your persons. But

mark, this extends not to the Jew Isaac. "

" Nor to the Jew Isaac's daughter, " said the Templar, who had now joined

them.

" Neither, " said Front-de-Boeuf, " belong to this Saxon's company. "

" I were unworthy to be called Christian, if they did, " replied

Athelstane: " deal with the unbelievers as ye list. "

" Neither does the ransom include the Lady Rowena, " said De Bracy. " It

shall never be said I was scared out of a fair prize without striking a

blow for it. "

" Neither, " said Front-de-Boeuf, " does our treaty refer to this wretched

Jester, whom I retain, that I may make him an example to every knave who

turns jest into earnest. "

" The Lady Rowena, " answered Athelstane, with the most steady

countenance, " is my affianced bride. I will be drawn by wild horses

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