WILD DARING OF SIGURD THE VIKING.
"When Greeks joined Greeks, then was the tug of war."
Nathaniel Lee.
It was a most grievous disappointment to Sigurd when the Saxon leaders finally decided not to attack the Normans, and thus checkmate them as they sought to capture the Saxons whilst in council. When he saw that there was no hope of the Saxons uniting in this, he appealed most importunately to Hereward to join him, but in vain. When everything failed, so insatiate was his thirst for vengeance that he determined to attack them single-handed, trusting to his prowess, and his familiarity with the passes and the mountain retreats, to secure for himself immunity from capture.
"If I had but a dozen of my hardy mountaineers, I would lead these Normans a dance before this day was done!" he muttered, as he saw the remnant of the Saxons departing. His hatred of the Normans had so eaten into his soul, that every opportunity to attack them was a favourable one, and he was ready for any scheme of wild daring if only Norman blood could be spilled. So, alone, he grimly and resolutely strode up the pass, until he reached a spot he deemed suitable for his purpose. Boulders and bushes intermingled thickly on one side; on the other was a precipice—a sheer drop of twenty feet into a trout-stream, which threaded its way amid limestone boulders.
Behind him the gaunt, gloomy mountains shot up far away, their lower parts covered thickly with bracken, bushes, and boulders; behind and amid which a retreating figure need never be exposed for more than a second at a time. Looking around for a second or two, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, and then he climbed a few yards from the path, and laid himself down amid the bracken and deep grass, with his broad sword unsheathed and laid by his side, ready for the fray. Thus he waited for the oncoming Norman soldiery. For more than an hour he lay thus in ambush, with wild and turbulent passions fermenting in his breast, and a wild look in his eyes—reason for the moment dethroned by this one overmastering passion.
Presently on the still night air was borne the sound of stealthy footsteps. Sigurd bounded to his feet as the first sounds broke upon his ear. He fixed tightly his helmet, closed his visor, and adjusted his coat of link-mail, which had swung a little awry. Then, grasping his powerful broadsword, he made a vigorous lunge at an invisible foe, and then, with a grunt of satisfaction, he took his stand behind a massive boulder, flanked on the side next the advancing foe with a thick network of shrubs, through which, however, he could watch the movements of the Normans. The darkness was ebbing away fast. Already the morning's sun had smitten the head of mighty Helvellyn in the distance, and bathed his kingly head in a halo of golden glory; but substantial remains of laggard night still hung moodily about the bottom of the pass, as though nature, in shame and sadness, would fain cast her mantle over this mad strife of men, and over the deed about to be enacted before her eyes. Slowly, with hushed voices and stealthy tread, on came the unsuspecting foe. The head of the column threaded its way past the lurking-place. Sigurd clenched his sword with an impatient grip, for the sight of Norman foemen, within reach of his sword, was well nigh more than he could resist. On they passed, all unconscious that a human tiger was lurking near and making ready for his spring. File after file of the Normans strode on, mostly afoot, but some were leading their horses. Now the rear men are abreast. A second more, their backs are seen. A spring and a blow, and the hindmost Norman is cloven to the waist, and drops with scarce a groan. There is a wild shriek, and consternation is rampant amongst the rearmost ranks.
Sigurd, in mad rage, hacks and hews at the panic-stricken crew, cutting down man after man with terrific celerity, whilst some, in their efforts to escape his onslaught, fall over the precipice. Presently the Normans discover that but one solitary Saxon attacks them. A shout goes up, "The mad Saxon! Cut him down! Down with him! Run him through!" Immediately a hundred swords are whipped from their scabbards, and a united rush is directed towards him. Sigurd sees his chance is gone; he dashes along the path in swift retreat, followed by the yelling foe. Presently he darts from the path and makes for the hills, tearing through bracken, furze, and brushwood, and leaping boulders with an agility none but a mountaineer and a hunter who had been wont all his life to go swinging over these mountain sides, until the sinews of his legs had become like thongs of steel, could make pretence to imitate. Presently he turns to glance at the crew behind, and he laughs a savage laugh as he sees them huddling together like sheep at the bottom of the pass, some afraid to follow, and all of them conscious of the hopelessness of it. With an exclamation of contempt, he catches up a fragment of rock and hurls it with terrific energy amongst them, striking one of them on the shoulder, and knocking him to the ground with a broken shoulder-blade. Then, with a hysterical laugh, and a fierce brandish aloft of his sword, he dashes off again towards the summit. With wondering gaze the Normans watch him scaling, ridge after ridge, the beetling brow of the hill far above them, like a stag bounding from the hunter. Presently he darts over the topmost ridge, and is lost to view. He halts in a tiny hollow of the mountain's brow, and, pulling out his sword, dripping with gore, he wipes it on the sward.
"Aha!" he cried, apostrophising the fearsome weapon; "One more taste of blood! Norman blood, too. I love to see Norman blood. It drips, too; that means more will soon be shed."[5] Then, running his hand along its edge, he exclaimed, "Nothing blunted, my trusty friend Tyrfing,[6] ready as ever for the fray!" he shouted in frenzy, and commenced to hack and hew as though in deadly conflict with an invisible foe, the perspiration pouring off him in streams. But human nature, though it be never so strong, has its limits. This frenzied, this almost maniacal outburst, was followed by complete physical exhaustion. Like a stone, he dropped flat upon the ground, and there he lay without motion or any sign of existence whatever for a full hour or more. Had the Normans but known of the wild drama being enacted beyond the brow of the mountain, it would have been a fatal day to Sigurd, for the Normans had had so many tastes of his prowess, and of his mad daring, that they would have given large treasure to have this dreaded foe within their power. But this was not destined to be the last time when he should strike terror into their ranks when they least suspected him.
The sun had performed a considerable part of his day's journey when Sigurd began to manifest signs of returning consciousness. First there were sundry stretchings of the muscles, followed by a momentary unclosing of the eyelids. Then he sat up and gazed around, as though bewildered with his surroundings. By-and-by he seemed to recover a recollection of the incidents preceding the stupor he had been passing through. By an effort he rose to his feet, and staggered rather than walked to a cool spring of water, which, born of the clouds which constantly encircled these lofty peaks, was hurrying away with musical ripple to the lowlands. He drank a hearty draught of the ice-cold water; then he bathed his throbbing temples with it. Sitting down then, and taking from a wallet slung behind him a substantial piece of roast kid's flesh and a hunch of bread, he ate a hearty meal, and washed it down with another copious draught of water. Much refreshed by this, he next mounted to the topmost ridge. There, lying at full length, he ran his eye most minutely over every inch of the valleys on either side, carefully noting every suspicious object that came within the sweep of his vision. Then, with equal care, he searched the adjacent hills. The Normans he could see hurrying to and fro near their camp, some five miles away. But apparently there was nothing at all menacing to his position.
Rising to his feet, he strode along the ridge for a mile or two, then commenced to descend for another mile or two, in an oblique direction, until he disappeared from view in a dense wood, which covered the lower reaches of the valley on either side. Holding a downward course, and pushing aside the brushwood, he came ultimately to a stream of water, which, with one gigantic leap, started from its rocky bed and leaped unimpeded full eighty feet, falling into a deep, surging pool, where the waters, finding a level, flowed sluggishly away. The vast amphitheatre appeared to have been worn away by this leap of the waters, and by the crumbling away of the softer shale below, which had undermined and brought down the rocks from above.
This untamed warrior stood on the brink of the precipice with folded arms. There was something in the scene which consorted with his rude and rugged nature, and wonderfully soothed his warring passions. The daws, with cawing clamorousness, flew to and fro across the abyss, and crept into the crevices of the rock where their nests were. The swallows skimmed along the surface of the waters, ever and anon darting upwards to some skilfully made nest of baked clay, clinging to the rocky sides, and from which little black heads were anxiously peeping, and twittering lustily. Bird life here seemed to have found a veritable paradise, and they literally thronged bush and tree, and rock and bank, everywhere. Sigurd stood gazing down the ravine through an interminable labyrinth of foliage-laden trees. Here was a grand solitude such as his soul loved, and he regarded every tree in the forest as a personal friend. Presently he turned to one side of this abyss, and steadfastly regarded three stones which were laid side by side for a moment or two; then he altered the position of one of them, and immediately dropped down on to a shelving rock, and from that to another, and so on, until he had descended a considerable distance. Then suddenly he disappeared on hands and knees into an aperture of the rock which was completely hidden from the view of any one standing above. As soon as this portal was passed, he found himself in a spacious cavern, where evidently men were wont to resort, for there were many things denoting human occupation. Sigurd hastily threw off his armour and reared his sword, with the belt appended, against the rock. Then he threw himself upon a couch of dried bracken and grass, and was soon fast asleep.
Presently two wild-looking men appeared on the scene. One carried a brace of rabbits, and the other had over his shoulder a young fawn; whilst at their heels there followed a couple of fierce-looking hounds. They looked at the three stones, and one of them exclaimed,—
"The Jarl is here!"
"Doubtful luck that," growled the other.
They, however, changed the position of the other two stones, and then they followed their chieftain to his retreat. No sooner did they enter than one prepared to light a fire, and the other to skin and dress the animals they had brought. As soon as this was done, a huge iron pot was suspended on cross-poles over the fire, with about a gallon of water. In this were thrown a couple of haunches of venison with the rabbits. Then one of them turned to a vessel in which a quantity of corn was steeping in water. Two or three pounds of this, along with some savoury herbs and roots, and a quantity of salt, were deposited in the pot. Then the pair sat down to await the cooking of this substantial and savoury mess. Whilst this was being done, Sigurd slept soundly, and the pair carried on a conversation in a low tone, and interspersing their talk with sundry nods and motions towards the sleeping chieftain.
"There will be stirring times again, now, I warrant," said one.
"Yes; plenty of blood-letting, and plenty of scurrying over the mountains with the Normans at our heels," said the other.
"There will soon be none of us left, either for fight or aught else. There has been a desperate thinning going on."
"Well, it won't be a cow's death, anyhow, and that is some comfort for us."
Soon the boiling-pot began to send forth a most savoury and appetising smell, to these half-famished men.
"Wake the Jarl," said one to the other; "he must first break his fast."
So one of them gave Sigurd a rough shaking, and he presently sat up and rubbed his eyes; then he saluted his men.
"Skalds, how fare ye?"
"The hawks have not been so much abroad of late, so we have fared tolerably."
"But ye'll soon have to be on the alert, for the old eagle has been playing havoc with the hawks down in the pass yonder; a dozen of them at least will swoop upon their prey no more. But I'll taste your stew. Hot victuals have not been plentiful lately. Where are your comrades?"
"Scattered a good deal. There are a dozen lurking among the pikes. Some, the family men, have snug quarters near Deepwaters."
"Make signals for them. We have been idle long enough. We must bestir ourselves, for the Norman gets a tighter grip upon us every day we are idle."