“How now?” he said, addressing his words to the man who led the way, mounted upon a shaggy forest-pony; “how now, Sir Saxon!—is it for this we saved thee from the tyrant’s hangmen, that thou shouldst prove a blind guide in this matter?”
“Norman,” replied the other, still scanning, as he spoke, the ground dinted and torn by the fresh hoof-tracks, “my heart thirsts for vengeance not less than thine; nor is our English blood less stanch, although it be less fiery, than the hottest stream that swells the veins of your proud race! I tell you, Rufus hath passed here, and he hath not turned back. You shall have your revenge!”
Even as he spoke, the beast which he bestrode set his feet firm and snuffed the air, staring as though his eyeballs would start from their sockets, and uttering a tremulous, low neigh. “Blood hath been shed here! and that, I trow, since sunset! Jesu! what have we now?” he cried, as his eye fell upon the carcass that so lately had exulted in the possession of health, and energy, and strength, and high dominion. “By Thor the Thunderer, it is the tyrant’s corpse!”
“And slain,” replied the father, “slain by another’s hand than mine! Curses, ten thousand curses, on him who shot this shaft!” While he was speaking he dismounted, approached the body of his destined victim, and gazed with an eye of hatred most insatiably savage upon the rigid face and stiffening limbs; then drawing his broad dagger—“I have sworn!” he muttered, as he besmeared its blade with the dark, curdled gore—“I have sworn! Lie there and rot,” he added, spurning the body with his foot. “And now we must away, for we are known and noted; and, whoso did the deed, ’tis we shall bear the blame of it. We must see other lands. I will but leave a brief word with the monks of Lymington, that they commit my poor boy to a hallowed tomb, and then farewell, fair England!” And they, too, rode away, nor were they ever seen again on British soil; nor—though shrewd search was made for them until the confessor of Tyrrel, when that bold spirit had departed, revealed the real slayer of the king—did any rumor of their residence or fortunes reach any mortal ear.
The moon rose over the New Forest broad and unclouded, and the dew fell heavy over glade and woodland. The night wore onward, and the bright planet set, and one by one the stars went out—and still the king lay there untended and alone. The morning mists were rising, when the rumbling sound of a rude cart awoke the echoes of that fearful solitude. A charcoal-burner of the forest was returning from his nocturnal labors, whistling cheerfully the burden of some Saxon ballad, as he threaded the dark mazes of the green-wood. A wiry-looking cur—maimed, in obedience to the forest-law, lest he should chase the deer reserved to the proud conquerors alone—followed the footsteps of his master, who had already passed the corpse, when a half-startled yelp, followed upon the instant by a most melancholy howl, attracted the attention of the peasant. After a moment’s search he found, although he did not recognise, the cause of his dog’s terror; and, casting it upon his loaded cart, bore it to the same church whereat but a few hours before the living sovereign had determined to glut his fierce eyes with the death-pangs of his fellow-man. Strange are the ways of Providence. That destined man lived after his intended torturer! And, stranger yet, freed from his bonds, that he might minister unto the slaughter of that self-same torturer, he found his purpose frustrate—frustrate, as it were, by its accomplishment—his meditated deed anticipated, his desperate revenge forestalled.—“Verily, vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord, “and I will repay it.”
THE SAXON PRELATE’S DOOM.
“Die, prophet, in thy speech!”—King Henry VI.
The mightiest monarch of his age, sovereign of England—as his proud grandsire made his vaunt of yore—by right of the sword’s edge; grand duke of Normandy, by privilege of blood; and liege lord of Guienne, by marriage with its powerful heritress; the bravest, the most fortunate, the wisest of the kings of Europe, Henry the Second, held his court for the high festival of Christmas in the fair halls of Rouen. The banquet was already over, the revelry was at the highest, still, the gothic arches ringing with the merriment, the laughter, and the blended cadences of many a minstrel’s harp, of many a trouvere’s lay. Suddenly, while the din was at the loudest, piercing through all the mingled sounds, a single trumpet’s note was heard—wailing, prolonged, and ominous—as was the chill it struck to every heart in that bright company—of coming evil. During the pause which followed, for at that thrilling blast the mirth and song were hushed as if by instinct—a bustle might be heard below, the tread of many feet, and the discordant tones of many eager voices. The great doors were thrown open, not with the stately ceremonial that befitted the occasion, but with a noisy and irreverent haste that proved the urgency or the importance of the new-comers. Then, to the wonder of all present, there entered—not in their wonted pomp, with stole, and mitre, crozier dalmatique and ring, but in soiled vestments, travel-worn and dusty, with features haggard from fatigue, and sharpened by anxiety and fear—six of the noblest of old England’s prelates, led by the second dignitary of the church, York’s proud archbishop. Hurrying forward to the dais, where Henry sat in state, they halted all together at the step, and in one voice exclaimed:—
“Fair sir, and king, not for ourselves alone, but for the holy church, for your own realm and crown, for your own honor, your own safety, we beseech you—”