Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

by Henry William Herbert

The castle gates rolled open on their hinges, grating harsh thunder; and forth came a proud procession, the high-justiciary and his five associate judges, with their guard of halberdiers, and the various high officers of the court, among these the sheriff, whose anxious and interested looks, and, yet more, whose pale and lovely daughter, hanging on his arm, so firm and yet so wan and woe-begone, excited general sympathy.

And when it was whispered through the multitude, as it was almost instantaneously—for such things travel as by instinct—that she was the betrothed of the young appellant, and that, to win her with his spurs of gold, he had assumed this terrible emprize, all other excitement was swallowed up in the interest created by the cold and almost stern expression of her lovely features, and her brave demeanor.

And more ladies than one whispered in the ears of those who were dearest to them; "If he be vanquished, she will not survive him!"

And many a manly voice, shaken in a little of its firmness, made reply;

"He may be slain, but he can not be vanquished."

Scarcely had the members of the Court been seated, with those of the higher gentry and nobility, who had waited to follow in their suit, when from the tower of a neighboring Cistercian house, the clock struck ten; and, now, as in that doleful death-scene in Parisina;

"The convent-bells are ringing, But mournfully and slow: In the gray square turret swinging, With a deep sound, to and fro, Heavily to the heart they go. Hark! the hymn is singing— The song for the dead below, Or the living who shortly shall be so; For a departing being's soul The death-hymn peals, and the hollow bells knoll."

While those bells were yet tolling, and before the echoes of the last stroke of ten had died away, two barefooted friars entered the lists, one at either end, each carrying a Bible and a crucifix; and at the same moment the two champions were seen advancing, each to his own end of the lists, accompanied by his sureties or god-fathers, all armed in complete suits of chain-mail; Sir Aradas as appellant, entering at the east, Sir Foulke at the left end of the inclosure.

Here they were met each by one of the friars, the constable and mareschal riding close up to the barriers, to hear the plighting of their oaths.

And at this moment, the eyes of all the multitude were riveted on the forms of the two adversaries, and every judgment was on the stretch to frame auguries of the issue, from the thews, the sinews, and the demeanor, of the two champions.