Tales from Tennyson Part 7

"If you wish anything, call the woman of the house," Prince Geraint said to Enid as the door closed behind them. "Do not speak to me."

"Yes, my lord," returned Enid, still marvelling at his cold ways.

Silently they sat down, she at one end, he at the other, as quiet as pictures. But suddenly a ma.s.s of voices sounded up the street, and heel after heel echoing upon the pavement. In a twinkling the door to their room was pushed back to the wall while a mob of boisterous young gentlemen tumbled in led by the Earl of Limours, the wild lord of the town, and Enid's old suitor whom her father had rejected long ago, a man as beautiful as a woman and very graceful. He seized the prince's hand warmly, welcomed him to the town and stealthily, out of the corner of his eye, caught a glimpse of unhappy Enid nestled all alone at the farther end of the room.

The prince immediately sent for every sort of delicious things to eat and drink from the town, told the earl, to bid all his friends for a feast and soon was gaily making merry with the men, drinking, laughing, joking.

"May I have your leave, my lord," cried Earl Limours, "to cross the room and speak a word with your lady who seems so lonely?"

"My free leave," cried the merry Prince Geraint, who did not know the earl, "Get her to speak with you; she has nothing to say to me."

As Limours stepped to Enid's side he lifted his eyes adoringly, bowed at her side and said in a whisper:

"Enid, you pilot star of my life, I see that Geraint is very unkind to you and loves you no longer. What a laughing stock he is making of you with that wretched old dress you have on! But I, I love you still as always. Just say the word and I will have him put into the keep and you will come with me. I will be kind to you forever."

The tears fluttered into the earl's eyes as he spoke.

"Earl," replied Enid, "if you love me as you used to do in the years long ago, and are not joking now, come in the morning and take me by force from the prince. But leave me tonight. I am wearied to death."

So the earl made a low bow, brandishing his plumes until they brushed his very insteps, while the stout prince bade him a loud good night, and he moved away talking to his men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EARL MADE A LOW BOW.]

But as soon as he was gone Enid began to plan how she could escape with Geraint before Earl Limours should come after her in the morning. She was too afraid of Geraint to speak with him about it, but when he had fallen asleep she stepped lightly about the room and gathered the pieces of his armor together in one place ready for an early departure on the morrow. Then she dropped off into slumber. But suddenly she heard a loud sound, the earl with his wild following blowing his trumpet to call her to come out, she thought. But it was only the great red c.o.c.k in the yard below crowing at the daylight which had begun to glimmer now across the heap of Geraint's armor. She rose immediately in her fright to see that all was well, went over to examine the weapons and unwittingly let the casque fall jangling to the floor. This woke Geraint, who started up and stared at her.

"My lord," began Enid, and then she told him all that Earl Limours had said to her and how she had put him off by telling him to come this morning.

"Call the woman of the house and tell her to bring the charger and the palfrey," Geraint cried angrily. "Your sweet face makes fools of good fellows." Geraint loved Enid still and he was in as great perplexity as she, for after misunderstanding what she had said he no more knew whether she cared for him truly than she knew what was troubling him and making him act in this unaccountable manner.

Enid slipped through the sleeping household like a ghost to deliver the prince's message to the landlord, hurried back to help Geraint with his armor and came down with him to spring upon her palfrey.

"What do I owe you, friends?" the prince asked his host, but before the man could reply he added "take those five horses and their burdens of arms."

"My lord, I have scarcely spent the price of one of them on you!" cried the landlord astonished.

"You'll have all the more riches then," the prince laughed, then turning to Enid, "today I charge you more particularly than ever before that whatever you may see, hear, fancy or imagine, do not speak to me, but obey."

"Yes, my lord," answered Enid, "I know your wish and should like to obey, but when I go riding ahead, I hear all the violent threats you do not hear and see the danger you cannot see, and then not to give you warning seems hard, almost beyond me. Yet, I wish to obey you."

"Do so, then," said he. "Do not be too wise, seeing that you are married, not to a clown but a strong man with arms to guard his own head and yours, too."

The broad beaten path which they now took pa.s.sed through toward the wasted lands bordering on the castle of Earl Doorm, the Bull, as his people called him, because of his ferocity.

It was still early morning when Enid caught the sound of quant.i.ties of hoofs galloping up the road. Turning round she saw cloudsful of dust and the points of lances sparkling in it. Then, not to disobey the prince, yet to give him warning, she held up her finger and pointed toward the dust. Geraint was pleased at her cunning, and immediately stopped his horse. The moment after, the Earl of Limours dashed in upon him on a charger as black and as stormy as a thunder-cloud.

Geraint closed with the earl, bore down on him with his spear, and in a minute brought him stunned or dead to the ground. Then he turned to the next-comer after Limours, overthrew him and blindly rushed back upon all the men behind. But they were so startled at the flash and movement of the prince that they scrambled away in a panic, leaving their leader lying on the public highway. The horses also of the fallen warriors whisked off from their wounded masters and wildly flew away to mix with the vanishing mob.

"Horse and man, all of one mind," remarked Geraint, smiling, "not a hoof of them left. What do you say, Enid, shall we strip the earl and pay for a dinner or shall we fast? Fast? Then go on and let us pray heaven to send us some Earl of Doorm's men so that we can earn ourselves something to eat."

Enid sadly eyed her bridle-reins and led the way, Geraint coming after, scarcely knowing that he had been p.r.i.c.ked by Limours in his side, and that he was bleeding secretly beneath his armor. But at last his head and helmet began to wag unsteadily, and at a sudden swerving of the road he was tossed from his horse upon a bank of gra.s.s. Enid heard the clashing of the fall, and too terrified to cry out, came back all pale.

Then she dismounted, loosed the fastenings of his armor and bound up his wounds with her veil. Then she sat down desolately and began to cry, wondering what ever she should do.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENID SAT DOWN DESOLATELY AND BEGAN TO CRY.]

Many men pa.s.sed by but no one took any notice of her. For in that lawless, turbulent earldom no one minded a woman weeping for a murdered lover than they now mind a summer shower. One man scurrying as fast as ever he could travel toward the bandit earl's castle, drove the sand sweeping into her poor eyes, and another coming in the opposite direction from out the earl's castle park in seeming hot haste, turned all the long dusty road into a column of smoke behind him, and frightened her little palfrey so that it scoured off into the coppices and was lost. But the prince's charger stood beside them and grieved over the mishap like a man.

At noon a huge warrior with a big face and russet beard and eyes rolling about in search of prey, came riding hard by with a hundred spearmen at his back all bound for some foray. It was the frightful Earl Doorm.

"What, is he dead?" cried the earl loudly to Enid, as he spied her on the wayside.

"No, no, not dead," she quickly answered. "Would some of your kind people take him up and bear him off somewhere out of this cruel sun? I am very sure, quite sure that he is not dead."

"Well, if he isn't dead, why should you cry for him so? Dead or not dead, you just spoil your pretty face with idiotic tears. They will not help him. But since it is a pretty face, come fellows, some of you, and take him to our hall. If he lives he will be one of our band, and if not, why there is earth enough to bury him in. See that you take his charger, too, a n.o.ble one."

And so saying, the rude earl pa.s.sed on, while two brawny hors.e.m.e.n came forward growling to think they might lose their chance of booty from the morning's raid all for this dead man. They raised the prince upon a litter, laying him in the hollow of his shield, and brought him into the barren hall of Doorm, while Enid and the gentle charger followed after. They tossed him and his litter down on an oaken settle in the hall, and then shot away for the woods.

Enid sat through long hours all alone with Geraint besides the oaken settle, propping his head and chafing his hands, but in the late afternoon she saw the huge Earl Doorm returning with his l.u.s.ty spearmen and their plunder. Each hurled down a heap of spoils on the floor, threw aside his lance and doffed his helmet, while a tribe of brightly gowned gentle-women fluttered into the hall and began to talk with them. Earl Doorm struck his knife against the table and bellowed for meat, and wine. In a moment the place fairly steamed and smoked with whole roast hogs and oxen, and everybody sat down in a hodge-podge and ate like cattle feeding in their stalls, while Enid shrank far back startled, into her nook.

But suddenly, when Earl Doorm had eaten all he would, and all he could for the moment, he revolved his eyes about the bare hall and caught a glimpse of the fair little lady drooping in her niche. Then he recollected how she had crouched weeping by the roadside for her fallen lord that morning. A wild pity filled his gruff heart.

"Eat, eat!" he shouted. "I never before saw any thing so pale. Be yourself. Isn't your lord lucky, for were I dead who is there in all the world who would mourn for me? Sweet lady, never have I ever seen a lily like you. If there were a bit of color living in your cheeks there is not one among my gentle-women here who would be fit to wear your slippers for gloves. But listen to me and you will share my earldom with me, girl, and we will live like two birds in a nest and I will bring you all sorts of finery from every part of the world to make you happy."

As the earl spoke his two cheeks bulged with the two tremendous morsels of meat which he had tucked into his mouth.

Enid was more alarmed than ever.

"How can I be happy over anything," replied she, "until my lord is well again?"

The earl laughed, then plucked her up out of the corner, carried her over to the table, thrust a dish of food before her and held a horn of wine to her lips.

"By all heaven," cried Enid, "I will not drink until my lord gets up and drinks and eats with me. And if he will not rise again I will not drink any wine until I die."

At this the earl turned perfectly red and paced up and down the hall, gnawing first his upper and then his lower lip.

"Girl," shouted he, "why wail over a man who shames your beauty so, by dressing it in that rag? Put off those beggar-woman's weeds and robe yourself in this which my gentle-woman has brought you."

It was a gorgeous, wonderful dress, colored in the tints of a shallow sea with the blue playing into the green, and gemmed with precious stones all down the front of it as thick as dewdrops on the gra.s.s. But Enid was harder to move than any cold tyrant on his throne, and said:

"Earl, in this poor gown my dear lord found me first and loved me while I was living with my father; in this poor gown I rode with him to court and was presented to the queen; in this poor gown he bade me ride as we came out on this fatal quest of honor, and in this poor gown I am going to stay until he gets up again, a live, strong man, and tells me to put it away. I have griefs enough, pray be gentle with me, let me be. O G.o.d!

I beg of your gentleness, since he is as he is, to let me be."

Then the brutal earl strode up and down the hall and cried out:

"It is of no more use to be gentle with you than to be rough. So take my salute," and with that he slapped her lightly on her white cheek.

Enid shrieked. Instantly the fallen Geraint was up on his feet with the sword that had laid beside him in the hollow of the shield, making a single bound for the earl, and with one sweep of it sheared through the swarthy neck. The rolling eyes turned gla.s.sy, the russet-bearded head tumbled over the floor like a ball, and all the bandit knights and the gentle-women in the hall flitted, scampering pell-mell away, yelling as if they had seen a ghoul. Enid and Geraint were left alone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUSSET-BEARDED HEAD TUMBLED OVER THE FLOOR LIKE A BALL.]