CHAPTER XV.

'O HIGH AMBITION LOWLY LAID!'

The choughs and ravens which had flapped lazily away, with noisy wings and harsh croaking, when the Royalists had come to search amongst the dead and wounded for Ralph de Guader, had settled down to their banquet again as soon as their disturbers had departed, mistakenly laden with the body of the Breton knight whom Grillonne had decorated with the earl's helmet. Their foul beaks were busy with the flesh of the dead and the eyes of the living.

The harsh clamour of these noisy revellers pierced at length to the fainting ears of the fallen earl, who was in some measure revived by the cordial which Grillonne had poured down his throat. Consciousness came back to him, a poor exchange, under such circumstances, for kind oblivion. For he could move neither hand nor foot, and the weight upon his chest was as the oppression of a fearful nightmare—a nightmare from which there was no awaking. He lay helpless—the living under the dead!

Above him stretched the twilight sky, still flushed with fleeting, blood-red clouds, beyond which, from pale green pools of infinite depth, glimmered, here and there, a silvery star. To the right stretched the sombre heath, its rising hills crested with fantastic figures of contorted slain, men and horses stiffened into uncouth and terrible forms; while groaning wounded were heaped between them, their panting anguish not less awful than the silence of the dead.

To his left also were witnesses of battle, but not so many, for on that side the hungry morasses had swallowed them up. To the south and west the measureless fen stretched to the horizon, crimson to its farthest verge with the ensanguined glow of the sun, the tall reeds reddened like warrior's lances that had been dipped in the life-blood of the foe.

The air was full of the awful scent of wounds and blood, and the weird, dank odours of the decaying sedges, while the wailing wind piped and moaned over the wold, swaying the rushes, though scarcely making a ripple on the protected surfaces of the bottomless lagoons.

Mallard and teal and plover came circling back to their haunts in the lonely swamps, now that the din of battle, which had frightened them, was over and done; and, as the twilight deepened, bats and owls came forth with silent wings to hunt their night-roaming prey.

Ralph's open eyes looked only into the sky, and at the wild, wind-driven clouds fleeting across the calm, immutable heavens beyond, as the struggling hosts of mortals fleet over the face of eternity.

His soul was filled with an overwhelming sense of desolation and guilt. He had brought his fate upon himself, and he must face the Shadow of the Valley of Death, all forsworn and blood-stained as he was; alone, helpless. No wife to comfort him, no priest to absolve him,

Against the clear spaces of the sky, he saw, high up, almost above the clouds, an ordered flight of wild swans passing swiftly westward into the sunset glow.

Oh, that he were free as they, winged as the wind! His spirit writhed in fierce rebellion. He put forth all his force in a wild struggle to drag his limbs from the prisoning mass that detained them, but he could not lift the ghastly burden that weighted him to earth an inch.

'Mary in heaven, help me!' he groaned. 'I am scarce wounded, and so strong! It will take me hours to die, and these foul birds will perish mine eyes!'

The cold sweat burst from his brow, and, as he writhed again, he somewhat shook his head, and the bells on the jester's cap tinkled.

He quivered with astonishment, and contrived so far to lift his head as to catch a glimpse of the points of the cape which covered his shoulders. At first the idea seized him that he was no longer on earth at all, but in purgatory, and dressed in a jester's garb, in that his sin had been through the folly of pride and mad ambition. Then, with a flash, came the joyous thought of Grillonne, the faithful, the ready of wit, the fertile of resource.

A wild gladness came to him, but as the sky grew dark, and the stars were obscured by clouds, hope left him again.

'If it were he indeed, he has forgotten me, or has met his death in trying to save me.'

Then all the joys of earth passed before him in a fair pageant, and he thought of his young bride with her clear, loving eyes that he might never see again, and to whom he had been united with such magnificence scarcely a month before, and who was but a few short miles from the scene of his present suffering; and at the thought, burning tears welled from beneath his closed lids and rolled down his bronzed cheeks, moistening the parti-coloured edges of Grillonne's cape.

'Ah, it is bitter!' he groaned.

'Not more bitter for thee than for the scores and tens of scores thou hast led into like misery,' said awakened conscience grimly.

'Mea culpa! mea culpa!' murmured the unfortunate warrior in his anguish. 'My days have been evil in the land. I have sought not the will of Heaven, but mine own vain-glory. But oh, Mary Mother, let not my sins be visited on the head of my sweet lady! as thou wert a woman, protect her from all harm! Sure William will be merciful to his kinswoman.'

Dismal indeed were the thoughts that chased each other across his restless brain, which seemed to make up by its activity for the enforced stillness of his body. Visions crowded upon him of his castle of Blauncheflour in flames, and his lady in the power of insulting or—and it was little less terrible to his ambitious, jealous spirit—too-courteous conquerors, some one of whom might, perchance, find favour in her eyes and drive his memory from her heart.

At length, however, as the stillness of the night fell over the plain, broken only by the moaning wind or the agonised groan of some fellow-sufferer, he grew calmer, and a deep resignation flooded his breast.

'Mea culpa!' he murmured again. Death seemed inevitable, and he bowed his spirit humbly to accept it.

Hark!—

The mingled anguish and joy of hope awaked once more. For the silence was broken by a sound so faint that his listening ears could scarce detect its repetition, distracted as they were by the tumultuous pulses which throbbed at the possibility of escape. Yet why hope rather than fear? Why should the sound of approaching steps mean friends rather than foes?

The fact grew certain. Steps were approaching, and were accompanied by a clash of arms that betokened soldiery.

How he strained to catch every faint sound that might indicate the direction in which these, his fellow-men, alive and strong and capable of help, were moving!

'St. Nicholas befriend me! If the miracle is wrought that I be rescued from this living tomb, I vow to make pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre before my days are done!'

Then he shuddered in sick misery lest the band should pass him by! Better a blow from the miséricorde of an enemy, than the languishing torture of his present position.

Others thought so too, for he heard more than one piteous cry for help.

Then he, the proud earl, lifted up a feeble voice and craved deliverance, even by death!—

And it came.

'Here! here! This way, my lads, this way!' cried the familiar voice of the faithful jester. 'Look you, galliards, there is my famous cap and cape! Saints be praised! He wears them still. The Lord grant there is a living skull in the cap. I shrewdly thought I heard him squeak!'

'Ay, Grillonne, thou didst, sure enough!' cried the earl; and the revulsion of feeling from despair to hope was so great that he fainted again.

When he revived, his head was in Grillonne's arms, and the intolerable weight of the slain who had fallen above him was removed from his limbs, which, however, were so numbed that he could not move them. Half-a-dozen stout fellows, archers, slingers, and spearmen, were bustling about him, dimly visible by the light of a horn lantern which one of them carried.

Grillonne, seeing his eyes open, instantly held a flask to his lips, and when the draught had helped his revival, nodded sagely.

''Tis well to be taken for a fool sometimes, nuncle.' he remarked, twitching his tinkling cap from the earl's head. 'Thy fine helmet has been carried off in triumph to the enemy's camp on the corse of poor Sir Guy de Landerneau, whom I bedecked with it; seeing that, as they had already killed him as dead as a Norwich red herring, they could do him no further hurt. 'Twill have given us time even if they discover the cheat, as most like they will, for so many of them are full well acquainted with thy noble hawk nose.'

'Ah, Grillonne ready-wit,' said the earl, 'St. Nicholas reward thee! That prince of hypocrisy, Lanfranc, may say that jesters have no hope, and are doomed without fail to the worm that dieth not and the fire that knows no quenching! [5] But I tell thee, Grillonne, he in hell shall pray to thee in heaven as Dives to Lazarus!' and the groaning noble kissed the hand that lay upon his breast, albeit the member belonged to one of that despised class, for death is a greater leveller than any democrat or republican of them all, and Ralph de Guader had held long converse with him.

Grillonne raised the hand which had been so honoured to his own lips and added some hearty smacks to the aristocratic salute it had received.

'Nay, my dear lord,' he said in a rather husky voice, 'I would fain lay that hand up in lavender and take it to heaven with me when I die, since thou thinkest I have hope to get there. But alack! we have rough work before us to prevent thee from getting thither before thy palace is prepared for thee. Thou art not saved yet by a very long chalk. If St. Nicholas is half so generous as thou deemest, he will give me my reward at once, like a free-handed gentleman, in the shape of success to the safe ending of my undertaking; nor must we spend further time in palaver.'

He beckoned to the men who were with him, and four of them came forward with a litter roughly woven of osiers, of which a plentiful supply was near at hand. Grillonne and another lifted the earl into it, and they set off at a rapid pace, the jester guiding them along the smoothest path; and watching over his charge with tender care.

To De Guader it seemed as if he were couched on pillows of softest down, notwithstanding his wounds and the pain the motion caused him, for the joy of being rescued from his horrible entombment, and of having yet a chance of life and love, was so intense that he seemed to be in a dream of bliss.

His eyes filled with grateful tears each time that a gleam from the lantern gave him a fitful glimpse of Grillonne's face. Never had he thought to be so glad to look on that wizened, whimsical countenance, with its oblique eyes twinkling with mingled malice and affection, and which seemed almost quainter under the conical steel-cap with the nasal, in which he had ensconced it on giving up his cap to the earl, than in that strange headgear itself.

The way was no flowery one either. Slain men and horses encumbered the bearers at every step, and more than one pitiful voice from some wounded wretch, in such plight as the earl had just been rescued from, besought them in mercy to stop and give aid, for the sake of Mary Mother and the saints in heaven. Most pitiful of all was the cry for 'Water, for the love of Christ!' from men whose limbs were actually immersed in the rippling edges of the meres or engulfed in the slimy ooze, and who were so faint from wounds, or so set fast by the slain above them, that they could reach no drop wherewith to moisten their parched lips and slake the burning death-thirst which tormented them. But they cried to deaf ears; nay, when entreating arms were thrown around the limbs of the litter-bearers, a sharp cut across the knuckles with dagger or anlace speedily unclasped the detaining fingers, whether they belonged to friend or foe.

It was rough treatment, but the men were risking their lives in their endeavour to save that of the earl, and delay would have been fatal both to him and to themselves. The fact that the body of Sir Guy de Landerneau had been removed by the enemy proved that they desired to make certain of De Guader's fate, and on finding their mistake they might at any time return to rectify it.

The moon had risen by this, and shone between the swift fleeting clouds that sped across the sky. By her light and the uncertain glimmer of the lantern, Ralph saw that two of his rescuers wore the winged helms and long moustaches and golden torcs distinguishing the costume of the Danes. His heart leapt with hope that the messengers he had despatched to the court of King Sweyn had moved the warlike monarch to seize the opportunity of striking a blow at his ancient enemy, William of Normandy, and had sent him timely reinforcements. But their progress was too rapid for speech, and whatever might be his curiosity, he had to lie passive in his litter and allow himself to be borne whithersoever his rescuers pleased.

And by what a weird and desolate pathway did they bear him!

Heading, apparently, for the very heart of the fen that stretched westward as far as eye could reach, its level surface unbroken by tree or hill, and only varied by beds of tall reeds and snake-like pools of still, dark water, the surfaces of which were scarcely rippled by the gusty breeze, they advanced steadily for the better part of an hour.

The fitful light of the half shrouded moon cast ghastly gleams upon the waving plumes of the flowering sedges and white tufts of the meadow-sweet, whose strong and somewhat sickly perfume mingled, strangely luscious, with the dank odours of peat and decaying rushes and grasses. Now and again some frightened bird flew screaming from its roosting-place, or dusky water-rat glided hastily into thicker cover, or plunged with a flop into the water, while the pipe of the curlew, or boom of the bittern, sounded from afar off in the melancholy marshes. The loneliness was intense, and seemed but accentuated by the presence of bird and beast.

The Rescue of the Earl.

In the dimness of the cloudy night, with the uncertain bursts of moonlight, that seemed to make the chaos of scarce divided earth and water but more difficult to distinguish, the men who bore the earl threaded their way through the bewildering maze, with an unerring celerity and absence of hesitation that proved them to be no strangers to its mysterious solitude.

At length they halted, beside a channel less overgrown with weeds and rushes than the many they had passed, and which was, in fact, the Great Ouse River.

One of the party put a horn to his lips and sounded a couple of mots. His summons was answered from the water, and in a few seconds a boat impelled by eight sturdy oarsmen shot forth from a bend in the river and drew to the bank. The earl was speedily put on board, with the faithful Grillonne at his head, and his bearers embarked, some with him, some in a second boat which had come in the wake of the first.

De Guader confided himself utterly to the safe keeping of his jester, and the rhythmic sound of the oars, which he believed were every moment bringing him nearer to liberty, soothed him inexpressibly. He fell into a drowsy sleep of exhaustion, never really losing consciousness, but devoid of all impatience, and almost of all curiosity as to whither he was being taken.

But the splash of the oars ceased at length, and the keel of the boat grated on the shore of a small island, raising a modest crown a little above the level of the surrounding fen. It was protected by an earthwork somewhat similar in construction to the great dykes with which Cambridge is seamed, the Devil's Dyke, Fleamdyke, and others, and, had the light served, the low turrets of a long, rambling, two-storied house might have been seen behind its shelter.

A summons was given by a few mots on the horn, and in answer a deep voice threw a challenge across the sullen surface of the waters,—

'Who goes there?'

'St. Nicholas for Guader!'

A rattle of chains and hoarse creaking of bolts and hinges followed, and a heavy gate was slowly lifted, which admitted the boats into an inner moat. They glided in and moored their vessels at a small landing stage on the opposite side, the gate closing instantly behind them.

As they did so, the sentry asked anxiously, in a low voice and in the Saxon tongue, 'What cheer?'

'All's well!' was the answer.

'St. Eadmund be praised!' ejaculated the sentry fervently; and the earl's heart leapt with a thrill of joy and gratitude to the poor unknown soldier who cared about his safety, so infinitely precious had the humblest human sympathy become to him since those dreadful hours when he had thought himself doomed to quit the cheerful earth and the faces of his fellow-men for evermore!

Inside the enclosure a party of wild-looking ceorls surrounded them, with shaggy locks and rude jerkins of sheepskin, armed with pikes and staves for the most part, but some few better clad, and bearing the terrible seax; their brawny necks half hidden by their unshorn beards, which hung in tow-coloured elf-locks round their weather-beaten and scarred faces. Amongst them were one or two tall fellows, dressed, like those in the party of rescuers who had attracted De Guader's attention, in Danish mode.

This much he gathered by the fitful moonlight and the feeble light of lanterns carried by the men. Question and answer followed quick between his bearers and their rough colleagues, but he could comprehend little of what they said, for they spoke in all manner of tongues and dialects.

'Thou hast had a harsh ride, I fear me, good nuncle,' said Grillonne, bending over his beloved master with tender solicitude. 'Gramercy! 'Tis a God-forsaken hole we have brought thee to; but beggars must not be choosers, and let us hope that the archbishop's people will keep their pious noses from sniffing thee out in it! Troth! if they venture them here, I parry, some of these stout carles will slit them for them parlous quick!'

'Methinks any corner of the earth is better than being quite out of it, Grillonne,' returned the earl, with a gentle smile. 'I am not like to be critical; but in good sooth I would fain know the title of my host?'

'I scarce know it myself, good my lord,' replied the jester. ''Tis a Saxon, or more properly Anglo-Danish thegn, whose son went shares in thy escapade, and has got a maimed foot for his share of the booty, they tell me. The father and son have had a price on their heads since Hereward Leofricsson's downfall, and have a natural fellow-feeling for thy discomfiture, sweet nuncle.'

Meanwhile they had reached the entrance of the house, and the earl was borne into a long barnlike hall, very sparsely furnitured, with a table running almost from one end of it to the other, and rude settles and stools placed against it, as in preparation for a meal. At one end was an archway leading into another apartment, which seemed, to judge by the heat and the savoury odours, the noises of pots and kettles and other indications which came from it, to be a kitchen; while at the other end was a cheerful fire of peat, beside which sat an aged warrior wearing the Anglo-Danish tunic and cross-gartered hose, his white hair flowing back over his shoulders and his grizzled beard growing close up his cheeks, so that it seemed almost to meet the bushy white eyebrows that shaded his bright blue eyes. His baldric was richly worked with gold, and he wore massive gold bracelets on his arms.

Beside him stood a broad-shouldered, athletic young man in similar garb; his thick fair hair surrounding his head like a lion's mane, and his long moustaches and golden beard showing lighter than the bronzed skin of his cheeks and chest; his eyes as bright and blue as those of his father, and his neck and sinewy arms covered with tattoo marks. But the linen tunic he wore was drabbled with mud and gore, and one of his feet was swathed in bandages, through which the crimson stains would force their way, and his muscular hand grasped the arm of his father's carved oak chair to ease his weight somewhat from the wounded foot.

On the opposite side of the large open fireplace sat a monk in the habit of the Black Friars, and near by a stately lady, wearing the headrail and flowing robes which had been the fashion in the time of the Confessor; while a bevy of damsels waited behind her, looking towards the wounded earl with curious eyes.

The old thegn rose as the bearers brought their noble burden forward, advanced to the litter, and, bowing with great dignity, said in his own tongue,—

'By the Holy Cross! my heart is glad to see thee safe beneath my roof, oh, valorous earl! Would that Ealdred Godwinsson had means to offer fitting hospitality to the son of Ralph the Staller, in whose hand his own has been placed and under whose standard he has fought in many a hard field! Alas! the glory of his house has faded! Barely can he save his last days from the fury of his foes by hiding in this wilderness of the meres! But to such as he possesses, thrice welcome, noble earl! Had not age and infirmity clogged his steps as securely as chains of iron, he had sallied forth to thy rescue himself. Had not a spear-thrust in the instep, got this morn while fighting in thy ranks, crippled Leofric his son, that son had gone forth to seek thee.' Here the younger man bowed deeply in token of assent and reverence. 'It boots not! His followers have been true, and thou art here.'

'Brave thegn,' returned De Guader, raising himself as far as possible in his litter, 'I thank thee for thy fidelity to a ruined and defeated man! The saints forefend that my presence bring evil to thy retreat!'

'Nay,' answered Ealdred, 'had those who would harm us the wit to track us, we had perished long since. But thou art sore wounded! Berwine, the widow of mine eldest-born, shall leech thy hurts.'

A couch was prepared in a recess near the fireplace, and the earl was placed thereon. Cordials and delicate soups, with omelettes of plovers' eggs, were brought to tempt his appetite, and the young thegn's widow examined his wounds, pansed and dressed them with soothing unguents, and finally bound them up in linen of her own weaving, and with the greatest tenderness and skill.

Meanwhile the stalwart fellows who had borne the stricken noble so far upon their strong shoulders,—no light burden, sheathed as he was in all his mail!—with Grillonne and others, were regaled with the savoury messes whose odours had assailed them with such enticing welcome through the kitchen door as they entered, and, in sooth, they had a ménu fit for a king.

Stewed and fried eel, pike and lampreys in pasties, roast gossander, curlew, and snipe!—fare fit for an epicure, and by no means cavilled at by the hungry men before whom it was served—add thereto good cider and ale.

For this island in the meres was the home of innumerable wildfowl, and fish as many crowded the waters around it. 'Wild swannes, gossanders, water-crows, hernes, hernshaws, cranes, curlewes, mallard, teele, bytters, knotts, styntes, godwytts, widgeons, smeaths, puffins, and many sorts of gulls; eels, pike, pickerel, perch, roach, barbel, lampreys, and sometimes a royal-fish' (turbot or sturgeon?); so that, as the chronicler relates of Hereward's refuge in the neighbouring Isle of Ely, foemen might sit blockading the place for seven years without 'making one hunter cease to set his nets or one fowler to deceive the birds with springe and snare.'

In this asylum we will leave the earl, and see how it fares with Blauncheflour.

  [5] 'D. Have jesters hope? M. None. In their whole design they are the ministers of Satan. Of them it is said: "They have not known God, therefore God hath despised them, and the Lord shall have them in derision, for mockers shall be mocked."'—Lanfranc's Elucidarium, p. 256, quoted by Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury.

CHAPTER XVI.

WIFE OR WIDOW?

The Castellan of Blauncheflour swept hastily from the chamber where she had held council with the two knights, doubting lest her power of self-control should fail her, and that the desperate grief which was gnawing at her heart should gain the upper hand, and mar the stately boldness of mien which she saw affected them not a little, by bringing the weak tears which are accounted a woman's privilege.

She remembered bitterly that almost the last day which she had spent with her dear lord had been clouded for him by her weeping, and she felt as if by maintaining firmness now she was carrying out his wishes.

'I vexed him with my tears,' she said to herself. 'Ah! now I will be the very hero's daughter he bade me to be. I will be bolder than his mailed retainers. While I can get one soldier to fight for me, one warder to pace the walls, I will hold his castle ready to receive him!'

By such brave words she tried to stifle the awful terror that assailed her secret heart that the tidings of Stephen le Hareau were indeed true.

Leaving the room hastily, she nearly fell over the fair figure of Eadgyth, who was kneeling on the threshold.

'Eadgyth! what dost thou here? Is this obeying my behests? I bade thee tend the wounded, from whom other duties called me.'

'Pardon, dear Emma! I feared lest thou shouldst need my service. I have not forgotten the day when I found thee senseless in thy chamber; and these news be so dire.'

'Faint heart!' cried Emma contemptuously, taking refuge in indignation. 'Dost thou then credit the wild stories of these runaways? How but by telling of slain leader and ruined cause could they excuse their own cowardice? The cousin of Harold Godwinsson should despise them for nodings!'

Her eyes blazed with the light of fierce determination, as she hissed out the word which in the ears of Saxon or Dane was the most degrading that could be applied to a warrior.

The mild-natured Eadgyth, whose courage was of the moral order, and with whom fortitude and fidelity were greater than high spirit, gazed wonderingly at her friend. She had seen Emma cry over a fawn the dogs had lacerated, or over the dead body of a pet bird, when her own eyes had been tearless, and this strange strength of Emma's made her shiver, for she fully believed that the earl was slain.

Emma looked in her startled face and laughed. 'Tend them, bonnibell, and ease the pain of their wounds; but credit them not. Let my lord deal with them when he comes back at the head of a victorious army.'

Eadgyth, like the knights, thought that the countess was going mad. Perhaps she was; but her madness saved the garrison.

Yet, to say truth, her high spirit quailed when she re-entered the spital. The draggled, blood-stained, dejected warriors who lay, and leaned, and stood around, with every variety of wound to be dressed, were no cheering sight. Nor, when she saw their pale, stern faces, grave with defeat and haggard from fatigue, did she stigmatise them in her heart, as she had stigmatised them in words, as cowards—nodings. Her woman's heart went out in sympathy to the suffering humanity around her. She did not pause to settle the question whether they had fled prematurely or stood by their leader—in whom was all her joy—to the last bitter gasp, as brave men should. She dared not investigate too closely, lest they should convince her that she had wronged them, and so daunt the hope that was her only comfort.

With tireless industry she busied herself in the manual labour of the leech, in such crude forms as the medical science of the day allowed. How rudimentary they were may be guessed from the story told us by old Robert of Gloucester, of the Duke of Austria in Cœur de Lion's time, some fifty years later, a patient who doubtless had at his command whatever skill the times afforded. The duke fell from his palfrey and hurt his foot, which mortified, and the doctors advised him that his only hope lay in having it taken off. Nobody, however, could be found bold enough to undertake the operation, and the poor duke at last held a keen axe with his own hands upon his ankle, and bade his chamberlain smite upon it with all his strength, the foot being severed at the third blow.

Such being the best surgical aid that a royal duke could obtain, it may be imagined that little could be done to ease the pangs of humbler men.

A stream of fugitives came straggling in before the day was done, and, alas! all told the same tale. They were mostly Bretons or Normans, for the Saxons and Anglo-Danes who had followed the earl sought refuge, not in the Norman stronghold, but in the forest retreats where their countrymen had already found shelter, and in the fastnesses of wold and fen, which were familiar to their steps.

The bride of a month before tended them with feverish assiduity, refusing rest and food, dreading that time for thought should force her to yield belief to the tidings they all brought—that she was a widow.

When evening came, Sir Alain de Gourin demanded another audience, at which he appeared alone, averring that Sir Hoël could not leave the direction of the defence at the same time as himself.

He faced the countess doggedly, with a defiant gleam in his bulging blue eyes which she did not find it pleasant to meet. His cheeks were more purple than ever, and it seemed to Emma that his red moustache almost quivered with flame, while his brawny figure was adorned with an unusual display of finery, the flashing jewels on his baldric attracting her eyes even in that moment of distress.

He urged that what had seemed a doubtful rumour in the morning had become certain news by night, since fugitive after fugitive had confirmed the tidings first brought by Stephen le Hareau, and begged her once more to think of her own safety, and allow himself and his trusty Bretons to escort her to Bretagne.

'Is it but to repeat to mine ears the idle plaints of these runaways that thou hast summoned me to solemn conclave, good knight? My answer of the morning stands.'

She broke into a laugh that was low and silvery enough, but which caused even the thick-skinned mercenary to shiver, and she would have swept from the room, but, recovering himself, De Gourin stepped forward, and, laying his mailed hand on her arm, detained her.

'By the Rood!' he exclaimed, 'thou shalt not go! Thou alone in all this castle dost refuse to believe the inevitable. I tell thee, knights of my following, whose word is sacred as my own, saw Ralph de Guader struck down by the mace of Odo of Bayeux; none could live after such a blow, were his harness sevenfold thick! Besides, the press of battle was upon the spot where he fell, and the feet of the horses must have achieved what Odo began, if his mace completed it not.'

Eadgyth, who attended the countess, uttered a scream of horror, and endeavoured to stop his speech. 'Wouldst thou kill her?' she cried.

Emma shook herself free from his grasp, and faced him with flashing eyes of scorn.

'By the mass, noble lady, pardon me! I would have spared thee these rude details, but perforce I must have thee comprehend.'

'If the earl indeed be perished,' said Emma bitterly, 'life will not be so sweet to me that I should take such care to save it. Save thyself and thy Bretons if thou wilt. If ye go, there will be less to man the walls, but fewer mouths to feed.'

The last words were uttered with a careless contempt that was absolutely sublime, and the blustering mercenary no longer ventured to detain her.

'Certes, the donzelle is mad!' he asserted, with a round oath, when she had left the chamber, for her absolute refusal to leave Blauncheflour had thrown to the winds his plan for becoming her second husband, and becoming lord of her fair manors.

Outside the chamber door Emma turned to her loving bower-maiden like a creature of the woods at bay. Eadgyth's sympathy was more dreadful to her than the Breton's brutal frankness. 'I would be alone, Eadgyth. I am going to the oratory,' she forced her white lips to murmur, and almost fled from her side down the circling stairway.

Eadgyth followed at a distance, and, when Emma had disappeared within the sacred portal, threw herself prostrate at the threshold, like a faithful hound, as she had thrown herself at the door of the council-chamber in the morning.

Emma, alone at last, knelt before the shrine of the Virgin. She chose that rather than the one dedicated to St. Nicholas, for it seemed to her in her anguish that her husband's patron saint had forsaken his votaries in their distress.

The grief she had so long held at bay shook her from head to foot with a long quivering sob that held her speechless, and almost stopped her breath. She stretched out her arms in mute supplication to Heaven. Scalding tears formed slowly in her eyes, and rolled one by one down her bloodless cheeks.

Then a fresh gust of agony shook her like a leaf. 'Ah, Dieu merci!' she moaned; 'the horses! the horses! They achieved if Odo failed, he said! Oh, Christ! it cannot be! That dear head that has pillowed on my bosom!'

Quivering and shuddering, she sank upon the cold flags of the floor. The grey light of morning creeping through the narrow oriel found her still there.

'Oh, countess! sweet countess! one waits without who will not deliver his message to any but thee, and he bears the earl's signet!'

Eadgyth was in the oratory, bending over the stiffened form of the unhappy Châtelaine of Blauncheflour.

Emma passed her hands across her brow in blank bewilderment, and Eadgyth cried to her again.

'Oh, Heaven be praised!' cried Emma, a great light of joy springing into her eyes; and, rising from her knees, 'Where is he? where is he?' she asked. 'Take me to him without delay. What manner of man is this whose advent doth so raise my hopes? The earl's signet, sayest thou?'

'He wears a Danish helm, and looks as if he had travelled over land and through water,' said Eadgyth. 'Our Lady and good St. Nicholas grant that our hopes be well founded!'

'Fetch me my golden torc, which was my wedding gift from the false Waltheof,' said Emma; 'I will meet this Dane as one who knows somewhat of his race.'

She went to her chamber to wash away the signs of her night's vigil from her cheeks, and, when her hasty toilette was made, Eadgyth saw with surprise the change in her: hope had brought back the bloom to her cheek and the elasticity to her step, and she looked well fit to be the bride of one who aspired to the third of a kingdom for his earldom.

She swept from the lodge to the great tower, and entered the council-chamber, where Sir Hoël and Sir Alain awaited her, curious enough to know the contents of the missive guarded by the fair-haired, long-limbed Dane with such jealous care, Sir Alain eyeing him as he stood before them with no very gracious countenance.

When Emma came into the room, the Dane saluted her profoundly, his tow-coloured locks almost touching his knee, and his formidable double-edged axe rattling on the floor as he bent; then he put into the hands of the countess a packet tied with a slender silken cord.

Emma started with joy, for her quick eyes noted the many joins in that silken cord, and recognised it as composed of the fringe with which Ralph's surcoat had been decked.

The Dane then drew from his finger a ring, and handed it to her, and, truly enough, it was De Guader's signet.

Emma's fingers trembled so violently that she could scarce read the superscripture, endorsed with a clerkly scroll,—

She drew the little miséricorde at her girdle and severed the silk.

'Bid the chaplain hither,' she said, for in truth she had little learning, and her literary attainments did not extend far beyond the reading of her own name; notwithstanding which, her eyes questioned eagerly the fairly illumined page before her, which was the work of the monk who has been mentioned as sitting by the hearth of Ealdred Godwinsson in his Fenland refuge, for the earl's clerkly skill was little greater than that of his wife.

Impatiently she awaited the coming of the chaplain, and, when he came, thrust the cherished parchment into his hand, and followed his reading, word by word, with hungry avidity.

'The holy saints be praised!' ejaculated Sir Hoël fervently.

'Ay!—the holy saints be praised!, echoed Sir Alain, with somewhat halting zeal, for this resuscitated earl put an end to all his schemes.

The missive was signed by the earl's own hand, and sealed with his wedding ring, on which was graven the cognisance of Hereford.

'Ah, fair sirs,' cried Emma exultingly, looking, however, at Sir Alain, and with contemptuous defiance in her flashing eyes, 'ye see the instinct of the true wife was more trustworthy than the eye-witness of belted knights! Let us charitably suppose that their poor heads were somewhat flustered with the hurly-burly of battle. Methinks they were over quick to believe their leader slain.'

Then, turning to the messenger, she questioned him regarding the battle and the retreat, and the manner of the earl's escape; and heard the story we already know of Grillonne's ready wit, and the refuge in the fens.

The Dane was one of those who had helped to carry the wounded earl, and had been chosen as a messenger because he was trustworthy, renowned as a swift runner, and could carry messages of importance to such Danish seamen as might be with their vessels at Norwich for trading purposes, besides his message to the countess. Dependence had not been placed on him alone; other messengers had been despatched from the Fenland camp, in case he fell into the hands of the enemy, but he had outstripped his competitors.

He said that the earl had desired to return to Norwich, but had been overpersuaded by those about him that it would be a wiser course to take ship at Wells by the sea, which he could do privily by aid of Ealdred Godwinsson, and those over whom the thegn had influence. So it was agreed that the earl should make sail for Denmark, where, without doubt, he would be nobly welcomed by King Sweyn, who had already promised him men and vessels. From thence he would go with all speed to Bretagne, and arm his retainers, and gather all help he might among the Breton nobles; and with the host thus gathered would haste to the relief of Blauncheflour, which would thus be rendered sure and certain.

The countess listened with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks.

'A device worthy of a hero!' she exclaimed. 'Let the garrison be summoned to the courtyard of the castle, and I will tell them these brave news. I would they should receive them from mine own lips. See also that this worthy messenger enjoys all hospitality the castle may afford.'

She unfastened a golden collar from her neck, and added it to the many bracelets which already glittered upon the Dane's muscular arms.

The warrior thanked her earnestly, with the frank reverence which characterised the wild sea-kings in their behaviour to women.

Half-an-hour later, the countess, arrayed in her richest robes, with steel-cap on her head, and her gorget glistening in the morning sun as it rose and fell with the swift heaving of her bosom, stood at the great east portal, with the Danish messenger at her side, and looked down upon the eager faces of the hastily assembled garrison.

A rumour had gone forth that the earl had escaped, and would yet return in triumph, and a glow of excitement lighted every eye. As Emma saw the stalwart forms and the strong determined countenances before her, a thrill of pride swelled her heart at the thought that her warrior husband should have given her command over them. The spirit of William Fitzosbern lived again in the breast of his daughter. 'I will be worthy of the honour that Ralph's choice bestowed on me,' she thought. 'If aught a woman can say or do may inspire men to gallant deeds, these men shall not fail their lord.'

Emotion brought high words to her lips and fire to her eyes. Her heart verily shouted with delight for the joyful message which she had to deliver. 'Brave knights and soldiers!' she cried, and her voice rang through the fresh morning air like the clang of a silver trumpet, 'glad news have I for loyal ears. Earl Ralph yet lives! See, this missive is signed by his own noble hand! His signet blazes on my finger!'

She held the scroll aloft in her hands, and the sunshine flashed on the ring.

'A Guader! a Guader!' shouted the assembled host; and arms were raised and weapons clashed, while some three hundred stout throats echoed the shout, 'St. Nicholas for Guader!'

'Yesterday your countess and her counsellors were sore distressed,' Emma went on; 'for, as ye know, the unfortunate squire, Stephen le Hareau, and those who followed him, believed that the earl was slain; but we would not vex ye with our grief till doubt was changed into certainty. Doubt is changed into certainty;—but a certainty of life, not death!'

A roar of cheers rent the air again.

'Yes, your lord lives!' cried Emma. 'His first field is lost, but it will not be his last! He is wounded, sorely, but not dangerously. See! so the letter says! His way is open to Denmark. This gallant Dane has borne his message across field and over flood, faithfully, as he helped to carry the earl himself from the battlefield.'

She turned to the messenger beside her, who clashed his great axe upon his round wooden shield, with its strange embossing of iron nails, and shouted 'Waes hael!'

Then Emma told again the story of the earl's rescue, though she did not reveal his hiding-place, lest there should be traitors in the camp, and how he intended to take ship for Denmark to ask aid of King Sweyn, 'who,' she said,'has already promised it. Then the earl will seek his own fair lands in Bretagne, and he will call his vassals to his standard, and come across the sea at the head of a great host to relieve his faithful garrison in Blauncheflour. Is any man so mean of heart that he will not vow to good St. Nicholas to do his best to keep the castle to that hour? If so, let him declare himself a noding, and quit the company of gallant men!'

'Not one! Not one!' rang round the castle yard, and echoed back from the high stone tower of the keep, reverberating in tumultuous thunder from base to summit.

Then old Sir Hoël de St. Brice took off his plumed barret, and waved it in the air, where he stood behind his lady, his eyes humid and his lips quivering, as he echoed, 'Not one!'

Sir Alain de Gourin, listening with a strange expression of satirical disdain on his florid countenance, rattled his sword from its sheath and waved it in the air, where he stood behind his lady, and shouted with a lusty voice, 'Not one!'

'I thank ye, friends!' cried the countess. 'To your strong arms and your loyal hearts I commit my fate and that of my lord. St. Nicholas give ye fortitude!'

Turning to a page who stood beside her with a silver tray, she took a velvet purse from it, and scattered broad pieces amongst the soldiery.

'A largesse! a largesse!' they cried; and all was joy and hilarity.

'Ye shall taste a vintage better than ever grew even in the vineyards of Hereford or Kent,' cried the countess; and she gave orders to the steward to broach a cask of French wine which had been amongst her brother's gifts at the bride-ale; an order which called forth a fresh burst of applause.

'Drink it,' cried Emma, 'to the safe return of your lord!'