When, therefore, Dame Isabel rose from her knees and looked round, she found herself unattended, save by the spaniel which had growled and barked at Wolf’s entrance, and which now looked up in her face, and, in default of the faculty of speech, seized the skirt of her russet robe, as if to implore her to fly. The instinct of self-preservation seconded the suggestion of the dog, and after rushing into the passage, and in vain summoning the fugitive nymphs to return, she, hesitating no longer, tottered tremblingly down the stair that led to the hall in which Oliver and De Moreville had supped on Christmas Eve, and, escaping by the rear of the house, she made for the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan, with some vague notion that she should be safe under the roof and before the altar of an edifice which in her eyes was so sacred.
But here Dame Isabel was exposed to a severe disappointment. In her hurry and tremor she had forgotten that the door of the chapel was locked; and as she paused in extreme perplexity, and stood for a moment pondering what to do next, or where she was to betake herself, she almost fainted from the intensity of her alarm as the tramp of steeds, and the ringing of bridles, and the clash of steel, and the voices of men, sounded in her ear, and intimated that the outlandish soldiers, whom she knew to be so brutal and bloodthirsty, were passing within a stone’s throw of her, and that she was only concealed from their eyes by the trees and the roofs of the outbuildings.
Under such circumstances, Dame Isabel hesitated no longer, but, attended by the faithful spaniel, she passed with trembling steps through the orchard, and, just as darkness was about to descend on the earth, she, recking little of mud and mire, fled into the woodlands. For a time she wandered about, not knowing whither she went, and aware that the woodland was not without its dangers, but fearing little from the bear, or the wolf, or the yellow hyæna, in comparison with her dread of the monsters in human form, at whose approach she had left the home where for years she had dwelt, sadly indeed, but in peace and safety. Fatigued at length, after wandering for hours without reaching a house, she came to a halt, and seating herself under a tree, in the moonlight, the faithful dog at her side, she thought of her dead husband and her absent son, and shed bitter tears, and then stretched herself on the cold grass and fell asleep.
Next day, Styr the Anglo-Saxon made a diligent search for Dame Isabel in the neighbourhood of Oakmede. But, though aided by Wolf and others, he utterly failed to discover any traces of the Norman lady, and was driven to the conclusion that she had perished in the fire. The old man, however, was not satisfied with the part which had been played by the domestics; and when after his fruitless search he returned towards evening to his cottage, he bitterly reflected on the conduct both of the men and maidens who had, on such an occasion, left the Hleafdian to her fate, not even sparing his own son. Indeed, Styr reproached Wolf so sharply, that the boy, to avoid a quarrel, left the cottage to look after Ayoub and Muradel, which, in the morning, were found quietly standing near the spot where their stable had been, and apparently wondering at the change that had been wrought by the fire in the aspect of everything around.
Wolf had not departed five minutes when Styr and his wife were startled by a strange scratching and whining at the other door, which caused their watch-dog to bark loudly, and when it was opened, Dame Isabel’s spaniel entered, looking the picture of woe, and ever and anon turning and pointing towards the door, and gazing earnestly in their faces, as if imploring them to follow. Styr and his wife guessed all, and without loss of time followed the dog into the woodland till they reached the leafless oak associated with traditions of Druidical rites, and there, within the broken circle of rough stones, lay a woman in a wimple and a russet gown, her hands clasped as if she prayed. It was Dame Isabel, and she was not dead but dying.
The Anglo-Saxon and his wife carried her reverentially to their cottage, and used all the means in their power to restore her; but their efforts proved vain. She recovered, indeed, sufficiently to tell the sad story of her flight and of her wanderings; but, this done, she sank into a sleep from which she never awoke. Next morning she was a corpse, cold and rigid, and the monks from a neighbouring religious house, to which she had been a benefactress in the days when she was a great baroness and wife of one of Cœur-de-Lion’s most puissant knights, came and removed the body to their church, where masses were said for the soul that had departed under circumstances so melancholy, and then the remains of Dame Isabel were conveyed with all honour to Oakmede and laid among the bones of the Icinglas in the little chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan.
CHAPTER XLIV
A MYSTERIOUS EXIT
FORTUNATELY for Oliver Icingla, he did not persevere in his resolution of doing battle with a whole herd of wild bulls, for if he had he could hardly have failed to get the worst of the encounter, and died much more obscurely than, as the last of his line, it was his ambition to do. Immediately changing his plan, he hastened to climb the tree under whose branches he had made his couch; and having called the bloodhound to desist from the fray, he resolved on keeping the seat which he occupied till the cattle thought fit to take themselves elsewhere.
However, Oliver very soon became convinced that he was likely in that case to have a much longer vigil than suited his inclination or convenience. Adopting, therefore, the expedient of moving from tree to tree—which was just possible, seeing that they grew thick and that the branches interlaced—he ultimately, with much difficulty, and not without considerable danger to neck and limb, and which was all the greater from his being incumbered with his axe, contrived to get to a safe distance from the spot where the herd were still madly and furiously tearing up the ground that had been smeared with blood, and bellowing with savage rage. Muttering his thanks to the saints for his release from a peril which he had so little foreseen, Oliver took his way towards the camp of refuge, which he contrived to reach a little after sunrise. But he soon found that he was scarcely himself: his dream haunted him awake and asleep, and next day he was prostrate, and so feverish that the aid of the anchorite of the isle was invoked.
In a few days, however, Oliver recovered his strength sufficiently to move about, and he was seated among the ruins and conversing with Collingham about their position and prospects when Wolf the varlet suddenly presented himself, and related, with tears in his eyes, all that had befallen at Oakmede, from the moment when he was alarmed by the approach of the French to the hour when Dame Isabel was laid at rest in St. Dunstan’s Chapel. Oliver listened sadly and in silence, and did not indicate even by a gesture either his indignation or his wish to have revenge. But he internally swore a solemn oath to fight the Count de Perche whenever and wherever he should meet him, and not to part till one or the other had fallen, and in the event of his killing the count to cut off his head and carry it to Oakmede and hang it by the hair on a tree, that it might be food for crows.