Those hateful inquisitors had not gone many hours’ journey northward, when, as ill-luck would have it, they fell in with a Norman Captain, Godfrey de Boville, and two hundred men-at-arms, marching to garrison a western city. To these they told their tale, and, ever ready for pillage and bloodshed, the band halted, and then turned into the woodlands where we had our lair.
The sun was low that afternoon when an affrighted herdsman came running in to me with the news that he knew not how many soldiers were in the glades beyond. And before he could get his breath or quite tell his hasty message their prickers came out of the wood—the gallant Norman array (whose glitter has since grown dearer to me than the shine of a mistress’ eyes) rode from under our oak-trees, the banners and bannerets fluttered upon the evening wind—their trumpets brayed until our very rafters echoed to that warlike sound—the level twilight rays flashed back from those serried ranks and the steel panoply of the warriors in as goodly a martial show as ever, to that day, I had seen.
What need I tell you of the negotiations which followed while this silver cloud, charged with ruin and cruelty, hung on the dusky velvet side of the twilight hill above us? What need be said of how I swore between my teeth at the chance which had brought this swarm hither in a day rather than in the week I had hoped for, or how my heart burned with smothered anger and pride when we had to tamely answer their haughty summons to unconditional surrender?
Yet by one saving clause they did not attack us at once. Only to me was it clear how utterly impossible was it with the few rugged serfs at my command to defend even for one single onset that great straggling house against their overwhelming force. To them our strength was quite unknown; this and the gathering darkness tempted the Norman to put off the attack until the daylight came again, and the respite was our saving. It was not a saving upon which to dwell long, for ’twas no more glorious than the retreat of a wolf from his hiding-place when the shepherds fire the brake behind him.
All along the edge of the hill their watch-fires presently twinkled out, and as Editha and Sven the Strong came to me in gloomy conference upon the turret we could see the soldiers pass now and again before the blaze, we could hear their laughter and the snatches of their drinking-song, the hoarse cry of the wardens, and the champing and whinny of the chargers picketed under the starlight in lines upon our free Saxon turf. And for Sven and all his good comrade hinds we knew to-morrow would bring the riveting of new and heavier collars than any they had worn as yet. For me and my contumacy, though I feared it not, there could be naught but the swift absolution of a Norman sword; while for her—for her, that gentle, stately lady to whose pale sweetness my rough, unworthy pen can do no sort of justice—there was nameless degradation and half a wandering bully’s tent.
The serf suggested, with his rugged northern valor, we should set light to the hall and, with the women and children in our midst, sally out and cut a way to freedom, and I knew the path he would choose would have been through the hostile camp. But his lady suggested better. She proposed both hind and bondsmen should steal away in the darkness, and, since valor here was hopeless, disperse over the countryside, and there, secure in their humbleness, await our future returning. We, on the other hand, would follow them through the friendly shadows that lay deep and nigh to the house on the unguarded side, and then turn us to a monastery some few miles away, where, if we could reach it, in Sanctuary and the care of one of the few remaining Saxon abbots, we might bide our chance, or at least make terms with our conquerors.
So it was settled, and soon I had all those kind, shaggy villains in the dining-hall standing there uncapped upon the rushes in the torchlight, and listening in melancholy silence to the plan, and then presently, with the despatch our situation needed, they were slipping in twos and threes out of the little rearward portal and slinking off to the thickets.
Presently our turn came, and as I stood gloomy and stern in that voiceless, empty hall that was wont to be so bright and noisy, fingering my itching dagger and scowling out of the lattice upon the red gleam in the night air hanging over the Norman camp-fires, there came the fall of my wife’s feet upon the stairway. In either hand she had a babe, swaddled close up against the night air, and naught but their bright wonder-brimming eyes showing as she hugged them tight against her sides. For them, for them alone, the frown gave way, and I stooped to that escape. We crept away, and Editha’s heart was torn at leaving thus the hall where she had been born and reared, and when, presently, in the shadows of the crowded oaks, she found all her slaves and bondsmen in a knot to wish her farewell, the tears that had been brooding long overflowed unrestrainedly.
Even I, who had dwelt among them but a space on my way from the further world of history toward the unknown future, could not but be moved by their uncouth love and loyalty. There were men there who had stood in arms with her father when the cruel Danes had ravished these valleys for a score of miles inland, and some who had grown with her in the goodly love and faith of thane and servitor as long as she herself had lived. These rugged fellows wept like children, called me father, klafod, “bread bestower,” and pressed upon her in silent sorrow, kissing her hands and the hem of her robe, and taking the little ones from her arms, and pressing their rude unshaven faces to their rosebud cheeks until I feared that Gurth or Agitha might cry out, or some wail from that secret scene of sorrow would catch the ears of our watchful foemen.
So, as gently as might be, I parted the weeping mistress and her bondsmen, and set her upon a good horse Sven had stolen from the paddock, and springing into the saddle of my own strong charger, gave my broad jeweled belt to the Saxon that he might divide it among his comrades, and, taking a long tough spear from his faithful hand, turned northward with Editha upon our dangerous journey.