THE FISHERMAN OF SCARPHOUT.
TWO CHAPTERS FROM AN OLD HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
About midway between Ostend and Sluys, exposed to all the fitful wrath of the North Sea, lies a long track of desolate shore, frowning no fierce defiance back upon the waves that dash in fury against it; but--like a calm and even spirit, which repels by its very tranquil humility the heat of passion and the overbearing of pride--opposing nought to the angry billows, but a soft and lowly line of yellow sands. There nothing grows which can add comfort to existence; there nothing flourishes which can beautify or adorn. Torn from the depths of ocean, and cast by the storm upon the shore, sea-shells and variegated weeds will indeed sometimes deck the barren beach, and now and then a green shrub, or a stunted yellow flower, wreathing its roots amidst the shifting sand, will here and there appear upon the low hills called Dunes. But with these exceptions, all is waste and bare, possessing alone that portion of the sublime which is derived from extent and desolation.
It may be well conceived that the inhabitants of such a spot are few. Two small villages, and half-a-dozen isolated cottages, are the only vestiges of human habitation to be met with in the course of many a mile; and at the time to which this tale refers, these few dwellings were still fewer. That time was long, long ago, at a period when another state of society existed in Europe; and when one class of men were separated from all others by barriers which time, the great grave-digger of all things, has now buried beneath the dust of past-by years.
Nevertheless, the inhabitants of that track of sandy country were less different in habits, manners, and even appearance, from those who tenant it at present, than might be imagined; and in original character were very much the same, combining in their disposition traits resembling the shore on which their habitations stood, and the element by the side of which they lived--simple, unpolished, yet gentle and humble, and at the same time wild, fearless, and rash as the stormy sea itself.
I speak of seven centuries ago--a long time, indeed! but nevertheless then, even then, there were as warm affections stirring in the world, as bright domestic love, as glad hopes and chilling fears as now--there were all the ties of home and kindred, as dearly felt, as fondly cherished, as boldly defended as they can be in the present day; and out upon the dull imagination and cold heart that cannot feel the link of human sympathy binding us to our fellow beings even of the days gone by!
Upon a dull; cold, melancholy evening, in the end of autumn, one of the fishermen of the shore near Scarphout gazed over the gray sea as it lay before his eye, rolling in, with one dense line of foaming waves pouring for ever over the other. The sky was black and heavy, covered with clouds of a mottled leaden hue, growing darker towards the north-west, and the gusty whistling of the rising wind told of the coming storm. The fisherman himself was a tall, gaunt man, with hair of a grizzled black, strong marked, but not unpleasant features, and many a long furrow across his broad, high brow.
The spot on which he stood was a small sand-hill on the little bay formed by a projecting ridge of Dunes, at the extremity of which stood the old castle of Scarphout--even then in ruins, and at the time of high tide, separated from the land by the encroaching waves, but soon destined to be swept away altogether, leaving nothing but a crumbling tower here and there rising above the waters. Moored in the most sheltered part of the bay, before his eyes, were his two boats; and behind him, underneath the sand-hills that ran out to the old castle, was the cottage in which he and his family had dwelt for ten years.
He stood and gazed; and then turning to a boy dressed in the same uncouth garments as himself, he said, "No, Peterkin, no! There will be a storm--I will not go to-night. Go, tell your father and the other men I will not go. I expect my son home from Tournai, and I will not go out on a stormy night when he is coming back after a long absence."
The boy ran away along the shore to some still lower cottages, which could just be seen at the opposite point, about two miles off; and the fisherman turned towards his own dwelling. Four rooms were all that it contained; and the door which opened on the sands led into the first of these: but the chamber was clean and neat; everything within it showed care and extreme attention; the brazen vessels above the wide chimney, the pottery upon the shelves, all bore evidence of good housewifery; and as the fisherman of Scarphout entered his humble abode, the warm blaze of the fire, and the light of the resin candle welcomed him to as clean an apartment as could be found in the palace of princes.
He looked round it with a proud and satisfied smile; and the arms of his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen, were round his neck in a moment, while she exclaimed in a glad tone, speaking to her mother who was busy in the room beyond, "Oh, mother, he will not go out to sea to-night!"
Her mother, who had once been very beautiful--nay, was so still--came forth, and greeted her husband with a calm, glad kiss; and sitting down, the father pulled off his heavy boots, and warmed his strong hands over the cheerful blaze.
The wind whistled louder and louder still, the sea moaned as if tormented by the demon of the storm, and few, but dashing drops of heavy rain, came upon the blast, and rattled on the casements of the cottage.
"It will be a fearful night!" said the fisherman, speaking to his daughter. "Emiline, give me the book, and we will read the prayer for those that wander in the tempest."
His daughter turned to one of the wooden shelves; and from behind some very homely articles of kitchen furniture, brought forth one of the splendid books of the Romish church, from which her father read a prayer aloud, while mother and daughter knelt beside him.
Higher still grew the storm as the night came on; more frequent and more fierce were the howling gusts of wind; and the waves of the stirred-up ocean, cast in thunder upon the shore, seemed to shake the lowly cottage as if they would fain have swept it from the earth. Busily did Dame Alice, the fisherman's wife, trim the wood fire; eagerly and carefully did she prepare the supper for her husband and her expected son; and often did Emiline listen to hear if, in the lulled intervals of the storm, she could catch the sound of coming steps.
At length, when the rushing of the wind and waves seemed at their highest, there came a loud knocking at the door, and the fisherman started up to open it, exclaiming, "It is my son!" He threw it wide; but the moment he had done so, he started back, exclaiming, "Who are you?" and pale as ashes, drenched with rain, and haggard, as if with terror and fatigue, staggered in a man as old as the fisherman himself, bearing in his arms what seemed the lifeless body of a young and lovely woman.
The apparel of either stranger had, at one time, cost far more than the worth of the fisherman's cottage and all that it contained; but now, that apparel was rent and soiled, and upon that of the man were evident traces of blood and strife. Motioning eagerly to shut the door--as soon as it was done, he set his fair burden on one of the low settles, and besought for her the aid of the two women whom he beheld. It was given immediately; and although an air of surprise, and a look for a moment even fierce, had come over the fisherman's countenance on the first intrusion of strangers into his cottage, that look had now passed away; and, taking the fair girl, who lay senseless before him, in his strong arms, he bore her into an inner chamber, and placed her on his wife's own bed. The women remained with her; and closing the door, the fisherman returned to his unexpected guest, demanding abruptly, "Who is that?"
The stranger crossed his question by another--"Are you Walran, the fisherman of Scarphout?" he demanded, "and will you plight your oath not to betray me?"
"I am Walran," replied the fisherman, "and I do plight my oath."
"Then that is the daughter of Charles, Count of Flanders!" replied the stranger. "I have saved her at the risk of my life from the assassins of her father!"
"The assassins of her father!" cried the fisherman. "Then is he dead?"
"He was slain yesterday in the church--in the very church itself, at Bruges! Happily his son was absent, and his daughter is saved, at least, if you will lend us that aid which a young man; who is even now engaged in misleading our pursuers, promised in your name."
"My son!" said the fisherman. "His promise shall bind his father as if it were my own. But tell me, who are you?"
"I am Baldwin, Lord of Wavrin," replied the stranger. "But we have no time for long conferences, good fisherman. A party of assassins are triumphant in Flanders. The count is slain; his son, a youth, yet unable to recover or defend his own without aid: his daughter is here, pursued by the murderers of her father; she cannot be long concealed, and this night, this very night, I must find some method to bear her to the shores of France, so that I may place her in safety, and, as a faithful friend of my dead sovereign, obtain the means of snatching his son's inheritance from the hands of his enemies, ere their power be confirmed beyond remedy. Will you venture to bear us out to sea in your boat, and win a reward such as a fisherman can seldom gain?"
"The storm is loud," said the fisherman; "the wind is cold; and ere you reach the coast of France, that fair flower would be withered never to, revive again. You must leave her here."
"But she will be discovered and slain by the murderers of her father," replied Baldwin. "What, are you a man, and a seaman, and fear to dare the storm for such an object?"
"I fear nothing!" answered the fisherman, calmly. "But here is my son! Albert, God's benison be upon you, my boy," he added, as a young man entered the cottage, with the dark curls of his jetty hair dripping with the night rain. "Welcome back! but you come in an hour of trouble. Cast the great bar across the door, and let no one enter, while I show this stranger a refuge he knows not."
"No one shall enter living," said the young man, after returning his father's first embrace: and the fisherman taking one of the resin lights from the table, passed through the room where the fair unhappy Marguerite of Flanders lay, recovering from the swoon into which she had fallen, to a recollection of all that was painful in existence.
"Should they attempt to force the door," whispered the fisherman to his wife, "bring her quick after me, and bid Albert and Emiline follow." And striding on with the Lord of Wavrin into the room beyond, he gave his guest the light, while he advanced towards the wall which ended the building on that side. It had formed part of some old tenement, most probably a monastery, which had long ago occupied the spot, when a little town, now no longer existing, had been gathered together at the neck of the promontory on which the fort of Scarphout stood.
This one wall was all that remained of the former habitations; and against it the cottage was built; though the huge stones of which it was composed were but little in harmony with the rest of the low building. To it, however, the fisherman advanced, and placing his shoulder against one of the enormous stones, to the astonishment of the stranger it moved round upon a pivot in the wall, showing the top of a small staircase, leading down apparently into the ground. A few words sufficed to tell that that staircase led, by a passage under the narrow neck of sand-hills, to the old castle beyond; and that in that old castle was still one room habitable, though unknown to any but the fisherman himself.
"Here, then, let the lady stay," he said, "guarded, fed, and tended by my wife and children; and for you and me, let us put to sea. I will bring you safe to Boulogne, if I sleep not with you beneath the waves; and there, from the King of France, you may gain aid to re-establish rightful rule within the land."
"To Boulogne," said the stranger, "to Boulogne? Nay, let us pause at Bergues or Calais, for I am not loved in Boulogne. I once," he added, boldly, seeing some astonishment in the fisherman's countenance, "I once wronged the former Count of Boulogne--I scruple not to say it--I did him wrong; and though he has been dead for years, yet his people love me not, and I have had warning to avoid their dwellings."
"And do you think the love or hate of ordinary people can outlive long years?" demanded the fisherman; "but, nevertheless, let us to Boulogne; for there is even now the King of France: so said a traveller who landed here the other day. And, the king, who is come, they say, to judge upon the spot who shall inherit the long vacant county of Boulogne, will give you protection against your enemies, and aid to restore your sovereign's son to his rightful inheritance."
The Lord of Wavrin mused for a moment, but consented, and all was speedily arranged. The fair Marguerite of Flanders, roused and cheered by the care of the fisherman's family, gladly took advantage of the refuge offered her, and found no terrors in the long damp vaults or ponderous stone door that hid her from the world; and feeling that she herself was now in safety, she scarcely looked round the apartment to which she was led, but gave herself up to the thoughts of her father's bloody death, her brother's situation of peril, and all the dangers that lay before the faithful friend who, with a father's tenderness, had guided her safely from the house of murder and desolation.
He on his part, saw the heavy stone door roll slowly to after after the princess, and ascertaining that an iron bolt within gave her the means of securing her retreat, at least in a degree, he left her, with a mind comparatively tranquillized in regard to her, and followed the fisherman towards the beach.
There the boat was found already prepared, with its prow towards the surf, and one or two of the fisherman's hardy companions ready to share his danger.
The Lord of Wavrin looked up to the dark and starless sky; he felt the rude wind push roughly against his broad chest; he heard the billows fall in thunder upon the sandy shore! But he thought of his murdered sovereign, and of that sovereign's helping orphans, and springing into the frail bark, he bade the men push off, though he felt that there was many a chance those words might be the signals of his death. Watching till the wave had broken, the three strong seamen pushed the boat through the yielding sand; the next instant she floated; they leaped in, and struggling for a moment with the coming wave, the bark bounded out into the sea, and was lost to the sight of those that watched her from the shore.