The Rival Heirs Part 30

"When my leisure permits, reverendissime pater; at present I seek an immediate audience of the abbot, for whom I bear sad news."

"He is riding to meet the king. Listen, dost thou not hear the trumpets?--that blast tells of their return together."

"Wilt thou grant me a chamber, that I may don meet apparel for the presence?"

"It is my duty; but of thy grace--tell me whom I entertain."

"The Lord of Aescendune, and patron of your branch house there."

The chamberlain bowed low, and turned to lead his guest within the precincts. The rowers cried "largesse," and the young n.o.ble threw them a handful of coin.

Soon Etienne was alone in a comfortable cell, and was attiring his person, a duty a Norman seldom neglected; nor did he despise the luxury of a bath, to the scorn of the un-laving natives. The Norman was the gentleman of the period, alike in etiquette, attire, and food.

And likewise, some of the most beautiful of the animal creation are the fiercest carnivora.

The abbot had put off his riding attire; he had clothed his feet in dainty slippers instead of sandals, and had thrown a soft robe around his monastic garb--contrasting strongly with the stern attire prescribed by St. Benedict, and he was about to descend to the hall, when the chamberlain in person told him of the arrival of Etienne.

"Bid him share our poor meal; we will hear no bad news till we have broken our fast; they sit ill on an empty stomach."

The chamberlain retired.

And there at the guest table in the refectory sat Etienne, and marvelled to see how well the ascetics fared. Yet there was refinement in their dishes; and there was little or no excess; they drank the light wines of France, not the heavier ale and mead of their predecessors.

The Latin grace said, they fell to. The joints of meat were pa.s.sed round, the game, the fish, and each used his fingers in the place of forks, and then washed them in the finger gla.s.ses, which had some purpose then to serve, ere they waved them in the air, and then wiped them on delicate napkins.

The meal over, the abbot retired to his chamber, a pleasant room, overlooking the river, and there he took his seat in a cosy chair near the Gothic window, and sent for the visitor.

Etienne appeared; bent with the grace of youth, kissed the abbot's hand, and then standing before him, with all due modesty, waited to be addressed.

Such etiquette was exacted of those who had not yet won their spurs.

The abbot gave him a short benediction, a brief "Dens te custodiat fili," and quickly added, "I am told thou hast news for me of our little patrimony at Aescendune."

"The wolves have ravaged it, father; our own pious brethren are ejected; English swine root in its precincts."

The abbot coloured.

"Who has dared to do this impiety?" he thundered.

"The English rebels and outlaws, who have long lain hidden in the woods, led by the son of the rebel lord who fell at Senlac."

"The brethren--are they safe?"

"They are on their journey hither; the saints have protected them--no thanks to the English."

"And how dared the stripling thou namest to do such deeds; where was thy father, the Baron?"

"He was foully slain in an ambush:" and Etienne, who strove to keep cool, could not restrain a strange quivering of the lips.

"Come, tell me all, my son; G.o.d comfort thee."

Etienne began his tale, and the reader will easily guess that Wilfred's character fared very badly at his hands--that without any wilful falsehood, of which indeed this proud young Norman was incapable, so distorted a version of the facts known to our readers was presented, that the abbot shuddered at the daring bloodthirstiness and impiety of one so young as this English lad.

"It is enough--thou shalt have audience with the king at once. I can obtain it for thee; G.o.d's justice shall not ever sleep, and William is His chosen instrument. Hark!"

The compline bell began to ring.

"William attends the service tonight. I will crave an audience for thee; meanwhile, compose thy thoughts for G.o.d's holy house. Come, my son, this is the way to the chapel."

If the reader has visited the old colleges in Oxford or Cambridge, he will easily conceive a fair idea of the general appearance of the abbey of Abingdon.

There were the same quadrangles (vulgarly called "quads"), the same cloisters, open to the air, but sheltered from sun and rain; which find their fairest modern example, perhaps, in Magdalene College, Oxen. The cells of the monks resembled in size and position the rooms of the undergraduates at the olden colleges, although they were far less luxuriously furnished.

Nor was the element of learning wanting. The Benedictines were indeed the scholars of Europe, and some hundred boys were educated, free of cost, at Abingdon--the cloisters in summer serving as their cla.s.srooms. And let me tell my schoolboy readers, the fare and the discipline were alike very hard.

But the chapel in great abbeys--like the one we are writing about--resembled a cathedral rather than a college chapel. And he who has the general plan of a cathedral in his mind can easily imagine the abbey church of St. Mary's at Abingdon.

The choir was devoted to the monks alone; the nave and aisles apportioned to the laity; the side chapels contained altars dedicated to special saints, and occasional services.

Such was the building into which Etienne de Malville entered, not without religious awe, as the pealing organ--then recently introduced by the Normans--rolled its volume of sound through the vaulted aisles.

The monks were all in the choir, which was lighted by torches and tapers. In the nave a few laity of the town were scattered--here a knight or soldier, there a mechanic.

Suddenly, as Etienne took his place, the tread of many armed heels broke the silence, and penetrated up the aisle.

The sound ceased; those who caused it were already in their chosen places, and the monks had begun the Psalms, when Etienne heard a peculiarly stern and deep voice near at hand taking up the sacred words of Israel's royal singer, with which the worshipper seemed familiar.

Then, for the first time, he perceived that the Conqueror--the mightiest of earth's warriors--was he from whom the voice proceeded, kneeling without state in the midst of his subjects, lords and va.s.sals, to join in the late evening service of the church {xix}.

CHAPTER XIX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CONQUEROR.

The mighty Conqueror of England was the central figure of the age in which he lived--the greatest soldier of an age of soldiers, and not less statesman than warrior.

Born to a life of warfare, the Conquest had been but the culminating point of a career spent in the tented field--but on that one event he staked his all.

For had he been vanquished at Senlac there was no hope of flight; the English commanded the sea, while his suzerain of France, ever on the watch to regain those Norman dominions which Rollo had won, would have taken instant advantage of the loss of its military leaders to re-annex Normandy to the French crown, and must have succeeded.

Had William fallen in England the Norman name and glory would have perished at Hastings.

Doubtless, he felt how great was the stake he had placed at the hazard of the die, and having won it, he used it as his own.

Yet he was not all of stone. The Anglo-Saxon chronicler says of him--"He was mild to those good men who loved G.o.d, although stern beyond measure to those who resisted his will."

Hence the power which men like Lanfranc or Anselm had over him; and it must be added that his life was exemplary as a private individual, his honour unsullied, his purity unstained.