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

by Henry William Herbert

"Fare you well, my child, and be content. And if you rule your husband, when you get one, as you now rule your father, Heaven in its mercy help him, for he will have less of liberty to boast than the hardest-worked serf of them all. Fare you well, little wicked Guendolen."

And she laughed a light laugh as the affectionate father, who used so little of the father's authority, left the Bower, and cried joyously, "Free, free! all free! I might have been sure that I should succeed with him. Dear, gentle father! and yet once, once for a time, I was afraid. Yet I was right, I was right; and the right must ever win the day. Edith! Edith!" she cried, as she heard her light foot without. "You are free. I have conquered!"

It is needless, perhaps it were impossible, to describe the mingled feelings of delight, gratitude, and wonder, coupled to something akin to incredulity, which were aroused in the simple breast of the Saxon maiden, by the tidings of her certain manumission, and, perhaps even gladder yet, of her transference, in company with all those whom she loved, to a new home among scenes which, if not more lovely than those in which her joyless childhood and unregretted youth had elapsed, were at least free from recollections of degradation and disgrace.

The news circulated speedily through the castle, how the gratitude of the Lady Guendolen had won the liberty of the whole family of her preserver, with the sole exception of the gross thrall Eadwulf; and it was easily granted to Edith, that she should be the bearer of the happy tidings to the Saxon quarter.

Sweet ever to the captive's, to the slave's, ear must be the sound of liberty, and hard the task, mighty the sacrifice, to reject it, on any terms, however hard or painful; but if ever that delightful sound was rendered doubly dear to the hearer, it was when the sweetest voice of the best beloved—even of her for whom the blessed boon had been refused, as without her nothing worth—conveyed it to the ears of the brave and constant lover, enhanced by the certainty that she, too, who announced the happiness, had no small share in procuring it, as she would have a large share of enjoying it, and in rendering happy the life which she had crowned with the inestimable gift of freedom.

That was a happy hearth, a blessed home, on that calm summer evening, though death had been that very day borne from its darkened doors, though pain and suffering still dwelt within its walls. But when the heart is glad, and the soul contented and at peace, the pains of the body are easily endured, if they are felt at all; and happier hearts, save one alone, which was discontent and bitter, perhaps bitterer from the contemplation of the unparticipated bliss of the others, were never bowed in prayer, or filled with gratitude to the Giver of all good.

Eadwulf sat, gloomy, sullen, and hard of heart, beside the cheerful group, though not one of it, refusing to join in prayer, answering harshly that he had nothing for which to praise God, or be thankful to him; and that to pray for any thing to him would be useless, for that he had never enjoyed his favor or protection.

His feelings were not those of natural regret at the continuance of his own unfortunate condition, so much as of unnatural spite at the alteration in the circumstances of his mother, his brother, and that brother's beautiful betrothed; and it was but too clear that, whether he should himself remain free or no, he had been better satisfied that they should continue in their original condition, rather than that they should be elevated above himself by any better fortune.

Kenric had in vain striven to soothe his morose and selfish mood, to cheer his desponding and angry, rather than sorrowful, anticipations—he had pointed out to him that his own liberation from slavery, and elevation to the rank and position of a freeman and military tenant of a fief of land, did not merely render it probable, but actually make it certain, that Eadwulf also would be a freeman, and at liberty to join his kindred in a short time in their new home; "for it must be little, indeed, that you know of my heart," said the brave and manly peasant, "or of that of Edith, either, if you believe that either of us could enjoy our own liberty, or feel our own happiness other than unfinished and incomplete, so long as you, our own and only brother, remain in slavery and sorrow. Your price is not rated so high, brother Eadwulf, but that we may easily save enough from our earnings, when once free to labor for ourselves, within two years at the farthest, to purchase your freedom too from Sir Philip; and think how easy will be the labor, and how grateful the earnings, when every day's toil finished, and every zecchin saved, will bring us a day nearer to a brother's happy manumission."

"Words!" he replied, doggedly—"mighty fine words, in truth. I marvel how eloquent we have become, all on the sudden. Your labor will be free, as you say, and your earnings your own; and wondrous little shall I profit by them. I should think now, since you are so mighty and powerful with the pretty Lady Guendolen, all for a mere chance which might have befallen me, or any one, all as well as yourself, you might have stipulated for my freedom—I had done so I am sure, though I do not pretend to your fine sympathies and heaven-reaching notions——"