The Knights of England, France, and Scotland

by Henry William Herbert

And, with the word, they galloped forward, and pausing exactly in front of the bride, who stood between her husband and the priest—shrinking with modesty and terror from the ardent and licentious gaze which he riveted on her glowing charms—he began to rate the latter for daring to wed a serf-girl to a free vassal without his lord’s consent, and the former for presuming to defraud his seigneur of his droits.

In vain the good curate explained and expostulated; in vain twenty oaths were proffered by contemporaries of the girl’s grandsire, that she was free; in vain the husband tendered security, and offered rich donations; in vain the village-maidens grovelled before the young lord’s charger’s hoofs, and clasped his knees in an agony of fruitless supplication! The wrong was predetermined; the wronger was a strong man, armed; and how should humble innocence prevail against the might which makes the right, where violence is masterful, and law its abject servitor?

To make a sad tale short, Raoul de Canillac announced his determination to carry her up to the castle presently, and hold her there in trust, until such time as a “court-baron” could be held to decide on the question of her manumission. He plighted his knightly word, however, his honor, as a peer of France, that she should be treated with all tenderness, as one who had waited on his sister; and returned to her husband, in all honor, should she be pronounced free: but this on the condition only that she should render herself freely up and gently, and go without resistance or complaint. To this he added, that, as an act of grace and favor, and to prove that he would deal with them in all faithfulness of honor, he would himself hold court at high noon to-morrow, at which he cited all his vassals to appear, and enjoined it on the priest, the parents, and the bridegroom, then and there to produce the testimonials of her birth or manumission; or, failing that, to remain for ever mute. Lovely as ever, if not lovelier, paler than the white lily, and like it drooping when its fair head is surcharged with dewdrops, and deluged with soft, silent tears, the miserable Marguerite sank on her husband’s breast in one last, long embrace.

Fire flashed from the dark eyes of Raoul de Canillac, and the blood literally boiled in his veins, as he saw that lovely form clasped close by arms other than his own—those lips polluted, as he termed it, by the kiss of a peasant!

“Enough of this!” he cried. “Set her upon the palfrey—the gray palfrey we brought down for my sister. You, Amelot de l’Aigle, guide it,” he continued, “but keep her in the middle of the lances.”

But the wretched girl had fainted; and they were forced to place her on a cloak, doubled upon the bows of the demipique, in front of the page, to whose waist she was bound by a silken scarf, to prevent her falling to the ground. The tears stood in the eyes of the good old seneschal; and the faces of many of the men-at-arms, who were all of the same class with the bridegroom, and many of them his comrades and friends, were dark and sullen. None, however, dared to remonstrate, much less to resist the authoritative mandate of the feudal tyrant.

No words, however, can express the scene which ensued as the cavalcade swept onward at a rapid pace, leaving behind them agony, and desolation, and despair, where all, before their coming, had been happiness, and innocent, quiet bliss, and hopeful peace! The stifled wailing of the girls, the silent agony of the hopeless bridegroom, the deep, scarcely-smothered execrations of the men—it was a scene as terrible and heart-rending as that which preceded it had been delightful and cheering to the soul.

At length the priest, raising his arms toward heaven, cried in a low and plaintive voice—

“My children, let us pray; let us pray to the most high God, that he will keep our sweet sister Marguerite in innocence and honor, and give her back to us in happiness and peace. Let us pray!”

And every voice responded of all who heard his words; every voice, save one, responded, “Let us pray!” and every knee was bent as they bowed them in a sorrowing circle around their monitor and friend—every knee, save that of Maurice Champrèst; but he stood erect, and pulled his hat over his brows, and folded his arms across his chest, and exclaimed, as the ravishers of his sweet wife wound through the dale into the larger valley: “Earth has no justice, Heaven no pity! Man has no honor, God no vengeance!”