The Rival Heirs Part 5

"Matter! I cannot bear it any longer. I must break the promise thou hast forced me to give."

"Break thy promise, Wilfred? What would thy sainted father say, did he hear thee? And how dost thou know that he does not hear?"

"If he were here he would exact no such promise, I am sure; he would not at least make me appear as a coward in outlandish eyes, and cringe before these proud Frenchmen."

Wilfred used the word Frenchmen with the greatest scorn. He knew that the Normans scorned the name as much as they did the name Englishmen, of which their descendants lived to be so proud.

What was this promise which bound the poor lad as in a chain of iron?

Not on any account to let himself be drawn into a quarrel with Etienne.

"Thy father would feel as I do, dear son, were he in our place.

Dost thou not see that we poor English only hold our own by sufferance, and that any pretext upon which they could seize would be used ruthlessly against us? Yes, thy death might be the result of any ill-timed quarrel, and thou mightest leave thy mother alone.

Nay, dear, dear son, at least while thy mother lives."

"Oh, how can I?"

"Bear as a Christian, then, if thou canst not as an Englishman. The time will not be long that I shall live to implore thee."

"Nay, dear mother, surely thou art not ailing."

"Sick unto death, Wilfred, I fear; nay, but for thee I should say, I hope; for shall I not then rejoin thy dear father in a land where war and violence are unknown? But for thy sake, dear son, I would fain live."

Poor Wilfred was sobbing by her side, overcome by the blank vision thus opening before him. What would the world be to him, left alone amidst fierce and hateful foreigners, who had slain his father, and would willingly slay him?

"Mother, I cannot live without you. If you die--" and he could say no more, for it shamed his manhood to weep, as he would have said, "like a girl."

Poor lad, we must excuse him.

"Now, my dear Wilfred, wilt thou not renew thy promise, and pray G.o.d for help to keep it?"

"Yes, by G.o.d's help, at least while you live; but dost thou think thou art so ill, dear mother?--it is but fancy."

"Nay, I feel I am daily, hourly, drawing nearer my end, as if the lamp of life were burning more and more dimly. Morning after morning I rise weaker from my bed, and mortal strength seems slowly and surely forsaking me. But it will be but a short parting; thou must pray that we may live for ever together. G.o.d will grant it for His dear Son's sake."

And the mother and son knelt down to pray.

It was too true, the English lady of Aescendune was slowly declining--pa.s.sing away, drawing nearer daily to the bright land where her lost Edmund had gone before.

It was a complaint which no one understood, although a Jewish physician, whom her husband in his anxiety consulted, prescribed a medicine which he said would ensure her recovery in a few weeks.

This medicine the baron--for to such rank had Hugo de Malville been raised, on his accession to the lands of Aescendune--this medicine he would always administer with his own hand. Sometimes Wilfred was standing by, and noticed that, dropped in water, it diffused at first a sapphire hue, but that upon exposure to the air, that of the ruby succeeded.

Oh, those days of anxiety and grief--those days when the loved patient was so manifestly loosing her hold upon life, although sometimes there would come a tantalising change for the better, and bring back hopes never to be realised.

The boyish reader will easily imagine what Wilfred had to bear all this time from his Norman companions, from whose society there was no escape--with whom he had to share not only the very few hours allotted to study, but those of recreation also. Study, indeed, meant chiefly the use and practice of warlike weapons, the learning of the technical terms of chivalry, and the acquirement, it may be, of sufficient letters to spell through a challenge.

So thoroughly was war the Norman instinct, that every occupation of life was more or less connected with it; and the only recreation which varied the hours of fencing, jousting, tilting, etc., was the kindred excitement of the chase, pursued with the greatest avidity amongst the wooded hills around Aescendune.

Wilfred was not backward either in mimic war or in love of the chase; but he was growing taciturn and sullen, scarcely ever speaking, save when spoken to, and even in the latter case he generally replied with brief and curt words.

Hence it may be easily guessed that he was not popular.

For this he cared little; all his leisure was spent by the bedside of his dying mother, whom he felt he was so soon about to lose, and when with her and his sister Edith he felt that home--the home of his happy childhood--was not yet a mere remembrance of the vanished past.

But the sad day, so long foreseen, at length arrived.

She was in her chamber, with her son and daughter--the three were together for the last time on earth. They had been talking of the happy days when the husband and father was yet alive, before the fatal day of Senlac. Alone with her children, she felt far more at peace than usual; it seemed, she said, like the dear old times.

But this evening the presentiment of the coming end seemed strong upon her, and she spoke to her darling boy of the duties which would devolve upon him when she was gone, bidding him be obedient and loyal to his Norman stepfather, that he might have the more power to protect the poor oppressed people of Aescendune, and to shield his dear sister from harm in a world of wrong and violence.

She bade him look forward to a better world, where parents and children, separated by death, would meet together never to part, and to live as a Christian man should, that he might not lose so dear a hope. The sun was slowly sinking in the west, amidst gorgeous clouds, and she gazed into the glowing depths, as if she saw the gate of Paradise therein.

It was but a few moments, while they yet lingered in conversation, that her children observed a deadly paleness, a strange gray hue, come over her face; suddenly she extended her arms, and fell back upon her couch.

Wilfred ran for help. Even the Norman servants loved their mistress, and hurried to her chamber; baron, priest, all were there; she lay as if insensible, but when Father Elphege, the prior, arrived, and began the litany for the dying, she raised her head and strove to follow.

That morning she had received the Holy Communion at his hands; and of the familiar rites prescribed by the Church of those days for the comfort of the dying, only the last anointing, after the example of Him, whose body was anointed for His burial, remained, and with humble faith she received the holy rite.

This done, she made signs for her children to approach; she threw her arms fondly around them in turn, but could not speak.

The priest bade them all kneel down, and he recommenced the litany for the dying. Soon he came to the solemn words:

"Per Crucem et Pa.s.sionem Tuam, Libera eam Domine {viii}."

She strove to make the holy sign of our redemption, and in making it, yielded her chaste soul to the hands of her merciful Father and loving Redeemer. She had gone to rejoin her own true love, and her poor children were orphans in a world of violence and wrong.

They laid her by the side of Edmund, and the same solemn rites we have described before were yet once more repeated. There were many, many true mourners, all the poor English who felt that her intercession alone had interposed between them and a cruel lord--and the very foreigners themselves, whom her meekness and gentle beauty had strangely touched--all mourned the lily of Aescendune.

But her children!--Who shall describe the sense of desolation which fell upon them as they stood by the open grave?

"Comfort them, O Father of the fatherless," prayed the good prior; "comfort them and defend them with Thy favourable kindness as with a shield."

CHAPTER V. A FRAY IN THE GREENWOOD.

After the last sad rites were paid to the Lady Winifred, a deep gloom fell upon Wilfred, and his sorrow was so great that it won respect from his Norman companions, at least for a time.

He was indeed alone, for the baron had sent his sister Edith to a convent for her better education, as he said, and as Wilfred had none of his own kith and kin about him, he avoided all company, save when the routine of each day forced him into the society of his fellow pages.

Such was the case one fine morning in early spring, a few months after the loss of his mother.

The four pages were in the tilt yard, where there stood a wooden figure, called a "quintain," which turned round upon an axis, and held a wooden sword in one hand and a buckler in the other.

It was the duty of each of the athletes to mount his horse, and strike the buckler full in the centre with his lance, while riding by at full speed, under certain penalties, which will soon be perceived.

Etienne rode first, and acquitted himself with remarkable dexterity; after him Wilfred was invited by the maitre d'armes to make the trial, but he was comparatively unaccustomed to the game.

"Let Pierre or Louis try next," said he.