"And I care not for them," said Reinold; "those of gentle Norman
blood hold the wines of Gascony and France, generous, light, and
cordial, worth all the acid potations of the Rhine and the
Neckar."

"All is matter of taste," said the Fleming; "but hark ye--Is there
much of this wine in the cellar?"

"Methought but now it pleased not your dainty palate?" said
Reinold.

"Nay, nay, my friend," said Wilkin, "I said it had savour--I may
have drunk better--but this is right good, where better may not be
had.--Again, how much of it hast thou?"

"The whole butt, man," answered the butler; "I have broached a
fresh piece for you."

"Good," replied Flammock; "get the quart-pot of Christian measure;
heave the cask up into this same buttery, and let each soldier of
this castle be served with such a cup as I have here swallowed. I
feel it hath done me much good--my heart was sinking when I saw
the black smoke arising from mine own fulling-mills yonder. Let
each man, I say, have a full quart-pot--men defend not castles on
thin liquors."

"I must do as you will, good Wilkin Flammock," said the butler;
"but I pray you, remember all men are not alike. That which will
but warm your Flemish hearts, will put wildfire into Norman
brains; and what may only encourage your countrymen to man the
walls, will make ours fly over the battlements."

"Well, you know the conditions of your own countrymen best; serve
out to them what wines and measure you list--only let each Fleming
have a solemn quart of Rhenish.--But what will you do for the
English churls, of whom there are a right many left with us?"

The old butler paused, and rubbed his brow.--"There will be a
strange waste of liquor," he said; "and yet I may not deny that
the emergency may defend the expenditure. But for the English,
they are, as you wot, a mixed breed, having much of your German
sullenness, together with a plentiful touch of the hot blood of
yonder Welsh furies. Light wines stir them not; strong heavy
draughts would madden them. What think you of ale, an
invigorating, strengthening liquor, that warms the heart without
inflaming the brain?"

"Ale!" said the Fleming.--"Hum--ha--is your ale mighty, Sir
Butler?--is it double ale?"

"Do you doubt my skill?" said the butler.--"March and October have
witnessed me ever as they came round, for thirty years, deal with
the best barley in Shropshire.--You shall judge."

He filled, from a large hogshead in the corner of the buttery, the
flagon which the Fleming had just emptied, and which was no sooner
replenished than Wilkin again drained it to the bottom.

"Good ware," he said, "Master Butler, strong stinging ware. The
English churls will fight like devils upon it--let them be
furnished with mighty ale along with their beef and brown bread.
And now, having given you your charge, Master Reinold, it is time
I should look after mine own."

Wilkin Flammock left the buttery, and with a mien and judgment
alike undisturbed by the deep potations in which he had so
recently indulged, undisturbed also by the various rumours
concerning what was passing without doors, he made the round of
the castle and its outworks, mustered the little garrison, and
assigned to each their posts, reserving to his own countrymen the
management of the arblasts, or crossbows, and of the military
engines which were contrived by the proud Normans, and were
incomprehensible to the ignorant English, or, more properly,
Anglo-Saxons, of the period, but which his more adroit countrymen
managed with great address. The jealousies entertained by both the
Normans and English, at being placed under the temporary command
of a Fleming, gradually yielded to the military and mechanical
skill which he displayed, as well as to a sense of the emergency,
which became greater with every moment.




CHAPTER THE FOURTH


  Beside yon brigg out ower yon burn,
  Where the water bickereth bright and sheen,
  Shall many a falling courser spurn,
  And knights shall die in battle keen.
     PROPHECY OF THOMAS THE RHYMER.


The daughter of Raymond Berenger, with the attendants whom we have
mentioned, continued to remain upon the battlements of the Garde
Doloureuse, in spite of the exhortations of the priest that she
would rather await the issue of this terrible interval in the
chapel, and amid the rites of religion. He perceived, at length,
that she was incapable, from grief and fear, of attending to, or
understanding his advice; and, sitting down beside her, while the
huntsman and Rose Flammock stood by, endeavoured to suggest such
comfort as perhaps he scarcely felt himself.

"This is but a sally of your noble father's," he said; "and though
it may seem it is made on great hazard, yet who ever questioned
Sir Raymond Berenger's policy of wars?--He is close and secret in
his purposes. I guess right well he had not marched out as he
proposes, unless he knew that the noble Earl of Arundel, or the
mighty Constable of Chester, were close at hand."

"Think you this assuredly, good father?--Go, Raoul--go, my dearest
Rose--look to the east--see if you cannot descry banners or clouds
of dust.--Listen--listen--hear you no trumpets from that quarter?"

"Alas! my lady," said Raoul, "the thunder of heaven could scarce
be heard amid the howling of yonder Welsh wolves." Eveline turned
as he spoke, and looking towards the bridge, she beheld an
appalling spectacle. The river, whose stream washes on three sides
the base of the proud eminence on which the castle is situated,
curves away from the fortress and its corresponding village on the
west, and the hill sinks downward to an extensive plain, so
extremely level as to indicate its alluvial origin. Lower down, at
the extremity of this plain, where the banks again close on the
river, were situated the manufacturing houses of the stout
Flemings, which were now burning in a bright flame. The bridge, a
high, narrow combination of arches of unequal size, was about half
a mile distant from the castle, in the very centre of the plain.
The river itself ran in a deep rocky channel, was often
unfordable, and at all times difficult of passage, giving
considerable advantage to the defenders of the castle, who had
spent on other occasions many a dear drop of blood to defend the
pass, which Raymond Berenger's fantastic scruples now induced him
to abandon. The Welshmen, seizing the opportunity with the avidity
with which men grasp an unexpected benefit, were fast crowding
over the high and steep arches, while new bands, collecting from
different points upon the farther bank, increased the continued
stream of warriors, who, passing leisurely and uninterrupted,
formed their line of battle on the plain opposite to the castle.

At first Father Aldrovand viewed their motions without anxiety,
nay, with the scornful smile of one who observes an enemy in the
act of falling into the snare spread for them by superior skill.
Raymond Berenger, with his little body of infantry and cavalry,
were drawn up on the easy hill which is betwixt the castle and the
plain, ascending from the former towards the fortress; and it
seemed clear to the Dominican, who had not entirely forgotten in
the cloister his ancient military experience, that it was the
Knight's purpose to attack the disordered enemy when a certain
number had crossed the river, and the others were partly on the
farther side, and partly engaged in the slow and perilous
manoeuvre of effecting their passage. But when large bodies of the
white-mantled Welshmen were permitted without interruption to take
such order on the plain as their habits of fighting recommended,
the monk's countenance, though he still endeavoured to speak
encouragement to the terrified Eveline, assumed a different and an
anxious expression; and his acquired habits of resignation
contended strenuously with his ancient military ardour. "Be
patient," he said, "my daughter, and be of good comfort; thine
eyes shall behold the dismay of yonder barbarous enemy. Let but a
minute elapse, and thou shalt see them scattered like dust.--Saint
George! they will surely cry thy name now, or never!"

The monk's beads passed meanwhile rapidly through his hands, but
many an expression of military impatience mingled itself with his
orisons. He could not conceive the cause why each successive
throng of mountaineers, led under their different banners, and
headed by their respective chieftains, was permitted, without
interruption, to pass the difficult defile, and extend themselves
in battle array on the near side of the bridge, while the English,
or rather Anglo-Norman cavalry, remained stationary, without so
much as laying their lances in rest. There remained, as he
thought, but one hope--one only rational explanation of this
unaccountable inactivity--this voluntary surrender of every
advantage of ground, when that of numbers was so tremendously on
the side of the enemy. Father Aldrovand concluded, that the
succours of the Constable of Chester, and other Lord Marchers,
must be in the immediate vicinity, and that the Welsh were only
permitted to pass the river without opposition, that their retreat
might be the more effectually cut off, and their defeat, with a
deep river in their rear, rendered the more signally calamitous.
But even while he clung to this hope, the monk's heart sunk within
him, as, looking in every direction from which the expected
succours might arrive, he could neither see nor hear the slightest
token which announced their approach. In a frame of mind
approaching more nearly to despair than to hope, the old man
continued alternately to tell his beads, to gaze anxiously around,
and to address some words of consolation in broken phrases to the
young lady, until the general shout of the Welsh, ringing from the
bank of the river to the battlements of the castle, warned him, in
a note of exultation, that the very last of the British had
defiled through the pass, and that their whole formidable array
stood prompt for action upon the hither side of the river.

This thrilling and astounding clamour, to which each Welshman lent
his voice with all the energy of defiance, thirst of battle, and
hope of conquest, was at length answered by the blast of the
Norman trumpets,--the first sign of activity which had been
exhibited on the part of Raymond Berenger. But cheerily as they
rang, the trumpets, in comparison of the shout which they
answered, sounded like the silver whistle of the stout boatswain
amid the howling of the tempest.

At the same moment when the trumpets were blown, Berenger gave
signal to the archers to discharge their arrows, and the men-at-
arms to advance under a hail-storm of shafts, javelins, and
stones, shot, darted, and slung by the Welsh against their steel-
clad assailants.

The veterans of Raymond, on the other hand, stimulated by so many
victorious recollections, confident in the talents of their
accomplished leader, and undismayed even by the desperation of
their circumstances, charged the mass of the Welshmen with their
usual determined valour. It was a gallant sight to see this little
body of cavalry advance to the onset, their plumes floating above
their helmets, their lances in rest, and projecting six feet in
length before the breasts of their coursers; their shields hanging
from their necks, that their left hands might have freedom to
guide their horses; and the whole body rushing on with an equal
front, and a momentum of speed which increased with every second.
Such an onset might have startled naked men, (for such were the
Welsh, in respect of the mail-sheathed Normans,) but it brought no
terrors to the ancient British, who had long made it their boast
that they exposed their bare bosoms and white tunics to the lances
and swords of the men-at-arms, with as much confidence as if they
had been born invulnerable. It was not indeed in their power to
withstand the weight of the first shock, which, breaking their
ranks, densely as they were arranged, carried the barbed horses
into the very centre of their host, and well-nigh up to the fatal
standard, to which Raymond Berenger, bound by his fatal vow, had
that day conceded so much vantage-ground. But they yielded like
the billows, which give way, indeed, to the gallant ship, but only
to assail her sides, and to unite in her wake. With wild and
horrible clamours, they closed their tumultuous ranks around
Berenger and his devoted followers, and a deadly scene of strife
ensued.

The best warriors of Wales had on this occasion joined the
standard of Gwenwyn; the arrows of the men of Gwentland, whose
skill in archery almost equalled that of the Normans themselves,
rattled on the helmets of the men-at-arms; and the spears of the
people of Deheubarth, renowned for the sharpness and temper of
their steel heads, were employed against the cuirasses not without
fatal effect, notwithstanding the protection, which these afforded
to the rider.

It was in vain that the archery belonging to Raymond's little
band, stout yeomen, who, for the most part, held possession by
military tenure, exhausted their quivers on the broad mark
afforded them by the Welsh army. It is probable, that every shaft
carried a Welshman's life on its point; yet, to have afforded
important relief to the cavalry, now closely and inextricably
engaged, the slaughter ought to have been twenty-fold at least.
Meantime, the Welsh, galled by this incessant discharge, answered
it by volleys from their own archers, whose numbers made some
amends for their inferiority, and who were supported by numerous
bodies of darters and slingers. So that the Norman archers, who
had more than once attempted to descend from their position to
operate a diversion in favour of Raymond and his devoted band,
were now so closely engaged in front, as obliged them to abandon
all thoughts of such a movement.

Meanwhile, that chivalrous leader, who from the first had hoped
for no more than an honourable death, laboured with all his power
to render his fate signal, by involving in it that of the Welsh
Prince, the author of the war. He cautiously avoided the
expenditure of his strength by hewing among the British; but, with
the shock of his managed horse, repelled the numbers who pressed
on him, and leaving the plebeians to the swords of his companions,
shouted his war-cry, and made his way towards the fatal standard
of Gwenwyn, beside which, discharging at once the duties of a
skilful leader and a brave soldier, the Prince had stationed
himself. Raymond's experience of the Welsh disposition, subject
equally to the highest flood, and most sudden ebb of passion, gave
him some hope that a successful attack upon this point, followed
by the death or capture of the Prince, and the downfall of his
standard, might even yet strike such a panic, as should change the
fortunes of the day, otherwise so nearly desperate. The veteran,
therefore, animated his comrades to the charge by voice and
example; and, in spite of all opposition, forced his way gradually
onward. But Gwenwyn in person, surrounded by his best and noblest
champions, offered a defence as obstinate as the assault was
intrepid. In vain they were borne to the earth by the barbed
horses, or hewed down by the invulnerable riders. Wounded and
overthrown, the Britons continued their resistance, clung round
the legs of the Norman steeds, and cumbered their advance while
their brethren, thrusting with pikes, proved every joint and
crevice of the plate and mail, or grappling with the men-at-arms,
strove to pull them from their horses by main force, or beat them
down with their bills and Welsh hooks. And wo betide those who
were by these various means dismounted, for the long sharp knives
worn by the Welsh, soon pierced them with a hundred wounds, and
were then only merciful when the first inflicted was deadly.

The combat was at this point, and had raged for more than half an
hour, when Berenger, having forced his horse within two spears'
length of the British standard, he and Gwenwyn were so near to
each other as to exchange tokens of mutual defiance.

"Turn thee, Wolf of Wales," said Berenger, "and abide, if thou
darest, one blow of a good knight's sword! Raymond Berenger spits
at thee and thy banner."

"False Norman churl!" said Gwenwyn, swinging around his head a
mace of prodigious weight, and already clottered with blood, "thy
iron headpiece shall ill protect thy lying tongue, with which I
will this day feed the ravens."

Raymond made no farther answer, but pushed his horse towards the
Prince, who advanced to meet him with equal readiness. But ere
they came within reach of each other's weapons, a Welsh champion,
devoted like the Romans who opposed the elephants of Pyrrhus,
finding that the armour of Raymond's horse resisted the repeated
thrusts of his spear, threw himself under the animal, and stabbed
him in the belly with his long knife. The noble horse reared and
fell, crushing with his weight the Briton who had wounded him; the
helmet of the rider burst its clasps in the fall, and rolled away
from his head, giving to view his noble features and gray hairs.
He made more than one effort to extricate himself from the fallen
horse, but ere he could succeed, received his death-wound from the
hand of Gwenwyn, who hesitated not to strike him down with his
mace while in the act of extricating himself.

During the whole of this bloody day, Dennis Morolt's horse had
kept pace for pace, and his arm blow for blow, with his master's.
It seemed as if two different bodies had been moving under one act
of volition. He husbanded his strength, or put it forth, exactly
as he observed his knight did, and was close by his side, when he
made the last deadly effort. At that fatal moment, when Raymond
Berenger rushed on the chief, the brave squire forced his way up
to the standard, and, grasping it firmly, struggled for possession
of it with a gigantic Briton, to whose care it had been confided,
and who now exerted his utmost strength to defend it. But even
while engaged in this mortal struggle, the eye of Morolt scarcely
left his master; and when he saw him fall, his own force seemed by
sympathy to abandon him, and the British champion had no longer
any trouble in laying him prostrate among the slain.

The victory of the British was now complete. Upon the fall of
their leader, the followers of Raymond Berenger would willingly
have fled or surrendered. But the first was impossible, so closely
had they been enveloped; and in the cruel wars maintained by the
Welsh upon their frontiers, quarter to the vanquished was out of
question. A few of the men-at-arms were lucky enough to
disentangle themselves from the tumult, and, not even attempting
to enter the castle, fled in various directions, to carry their
own fears among the inhabitants of the marches, by announcing the
loss of the battle, and the fate of the far-renowned Raymond
Berenger.

The archers of the fallen leader, as they had never been so deeply
involved in the combat, which had been chiefly maintained by the
cavalry, became now, in their turn, the sole object of the enemy's
attack. But when they saw the multitude come roaring towards them
like a sea, with all its waves, they abandoned the bank which they
had hitherto bravely defended, and began a regular retreat to the
castle in the best order which they could, as the only remaining
means of securing their lives. A few of their lightfooted enemies
attempted to intercept them, during the execution of this prudent
manoeuvre, by outstripping them in their march, and throwing
themselves into the hollow way which led to the castle, to oppose
their retreat. But the coolness of the English archers, accustomed
to extremities of every kind, supported them on the present
occasion. While a part of them, armed with glaives and bills,
dislodged the Welsh from the hollow way, the others, facing in the
opposite direction, and parted into divisions, which alternately
halted and retreated, maintained such a countenance as to check
pursuit, and exchange a severe discharge of missiles with the
Welsh, by which both parties were considerable sufferers.

At length, having left more than two-thirds of their brave
companions behind them, the yeomanry attained the point, which,
being commanded by arrows and engines from the battlements, might
be considered as that of comparative safety. A volley of large
stones, and square-headed bolts of great size and thickness,
effectually stopped the farther progress of the pursuit, and those
who had led it drew back their desultory forces to the plain,
where, with shouts of jubilee and exultation, their countrymen
were employed in securing the plunder of the field; while some,
impelled by hatred and revenge, mangled and mutilated the limbs of
the dead Normans, in a manner unworthy of their national cause and
their own courage. The fearful yells with which this dreadful work
was consummated, while it struck horror into the minds of the
slender garrison of the Garde Doloureuse, inspired them at the
same time with the resolution rather to defend the fortress to the
last extremity, than to submit to the mercy of so vengeful an
enemy. [Footnote: This is by no means exaggerated in the text. A
very honourable testimony was given to their valour by King Henry
II., in a letter to the Greek Emperor, Emanuel Commenus. This
prince having desired that an account might be sent him of all
that was remarkable in the island of Great Britain, Henry, in
answer to that request, was pleased to take notice, among other
particulars, of the extraordinary courage and fierceness of the
Welsh, who were not afraid to fight unarmed with enemies armed at
all points, valiantly shedding their blood in the cause of their
country, and purchasing glory at the expense of their lives.]




CHAPTER THE FIFTH


  That baron he to his castle fled,
  To Barnard Castle then fled he;
  The uttermost walls were eathe to win,
  The Earls have won them speedilie;-
  The uttermost walls were stone and brick;
  But though they won them soon anon,
  Long ere they won the inmost walls,
  For they were hewn in rock of stone.
     PERCY'S RELICS OF ANCIENT POETRY.


The unhappy fate of the battle was soon evident to the anxious
spectators upon the watch-towers of the Garde Doloureuse, which
name the castle that day too well deserved. With difficulty the
confessor mastered his own emotions to control those of the
females on whom he attended, and who were now joined in their
lamentation by many others--women, children, and infirm old men,
the relatives of those whom they saw engaged in this unavailing
contest. These helpless beings had been admitted to the castle for
security's sake, and they had now thronged to the battlements,
from which Father Aldrovand found difficulty in making them
descend, aware that the sight of them on the towers, that should
have appeared lined with armed men, would be an additional
encouragement to the exertions of the assailants. He urged the
Lady Eveline to set an example to this group of helpless, yet
intractable mourners.

Preserving, at least endeavouring to preserve, even in the
extremity of grief, that composure which the manners of the times
enjoined--for chivalry had its stoicism as well as philosophy--
Eveline replied in a voice which she would fain have rendered
firm, and which was tremulous in her despite--"Yes, father, you
say well--here is no longer aught left for maidens to look upon.
Warlike meed and honoured deed sunk when yonder white plume
touched the bloody ground.--Come, maidens, there is no longer
aught left us to see--To mass, to mass--the tourney is over!"

There was wildness in her tone, and when she rose, with the air of
one who would lead out a procession, she staggered, and would have
fallen, but for the support of the confessor. Hastily wrapping her
head in her mantle, as if ashamed of the agony of grief which she
could not restrain, and of which her sobs and the low moaning
sounds that issued from under the folds enveloping her face,
declared the excess, she suffered Father Aldrovand to conduct her
whither he would.

"Our gold," he said, "has changed to brass, our silver to dross,
our wisdom, to folly--it is His will, who confounds the counsels
of the wise, and shortens the arm of the mighty. To the chapel--to
the chapel, Lady Eveline; and instead of vain repining, let us
pray to God and the saints to turn away their displeasure, and to
save the feeble remnant from the jaws of the devouring wolf."

Thus speaking, he half led, half supported Eveline, who was at the
moment almost incapable of thought and action, to the castle-
chapel, where, sinking before the altar, she assumed the attitude
at least of devotion, though her thoughts, despite the pious words
which her tongue faltered out mechanically, were upon the field of
battle, beside the body of her slaughtered parent. The rest of the
mourners imitated their young lady in her devotional posture, and
in the absence of her thoughts. The consciousness that so many of
the garrison had been cut off in Raymond's incautious sally, added
to their sorrows the sense of personal insecurity, which was
exaggerated by the cruelties which were too often exercised by the
enemy, who, in the heat of victory, were accustomed to spare
neither sex nor age.

The monk, however, assumed among them the tone of authority which
his character warranted, rebuked their wailing and ineffectual
complaints, and having, as he thought, brought them to such a
state of mind as better became their condition, he left them to
their private devotions to indulge his own anxious curiosity by
inquiring into the defences of the castle. Upon the outward walls
he found Wilkin Flammock, who, having done the office of a good
and skilful captain in the mode of managing his artillery, and
beating back, as we have already seen, the advanced guard of the
enemy, was now with his own hand measuring out to his little
garrison no stinted allowance of wine.

"Have a care, good Wilkin," said the father, "that thou dost not
exceed in this matter. Wine is, thou knowest, like fire and water,
an excellent servant, but a very bad master."

"It will be long ere it overflow the deep and solid skulls of my
countrymen," said Wilkin Flammock. "Our Flemish courage is like
our Flanders horses--the one needs the spur, and the other must
have a taste of the winepot; but, credit me, father, they are of
an enduring generation, and will not shrink in the washing.--But
indeed, if I were to give the knaves a cup more than enough, it
were not altogether amiss, since they are like to have a platter
the less."

"How do you mean!" cried the monk, starting; "I trust in the
saints the provisions have been cared for?"

"Not so well as in your convent, good father," replied Wilkin,
with the same immoveable stolidity of countenance. "We had kept,
as you know, too jolly a Christmas to have a very fat Easter. Yon
Welsh hounds, who helped to eat up our victuals, are now like to
get into our hold for the lack of them."

"Thou talkest mere folly," answered the monk; "orders were last
evening given by our lord (whose soul God assoilzie!) to fetch in
the necessary supplies from the country around!

"Ay, but the Welsh were too sharp set to permit us to do that at
our ease this morning, which should have been done weeks and
months since. Our lord deceased, if deceased he be, was one of
those who trusted to the edge of the sword, and even so hath come
of it. Commend me to a crossbow and a well-victualled castle, if I
must needs fight at all.--You look pale, my good father, a cup of
wine will revive you."

The monk motioned away from him the untasted cup, which Wilkin
pressed him to with clownish civility. "We have now, indeed," he
said, "no refuge, save in prayer!"

"Most true, good father;" again replied the impassible Fleming;
"pray therefore as much as you will. I will content myself with
fasting, which will come whether I will or no."--At this moment a
horn was heard before the gate.--"Look to the portcullis and the
gate, ye knaves!--What news, Neil Hansen?"

"A messenger from the Welsh tarries at the Mill-hill, just within
shot of the cross-bows; he has a white flag, and demands
admittance."

"Admit him not, upon thy life, till we be prepared for him," said
Wilkin. "Bend the bonny mangonel upon the place, and shoot him if
he dare to stir from the spot where he stands till we get all
prepared to receive him," said Flammock in his native language.
"And, Neil, thou houndsfoot, bestir thyself--let every pike,
lance, and pole in the castle be ranged along the battlements, and
pointed through the shot-holes--cut up some tapestry into the
shape of banners, and show them from the highest towers.--Be ready
when I give a signal, to strike _naker_, [Footnote:
_Naker_,--Drum. ] and blow trumpets, if we have any; if not,
some cow-horns--anything for a noise. And hark ye, Neil Hansen, do
you, and four or five of your fellows, go to the armoury and slip
on coats-of-mail; our Netherlandish corslets do not appal them so
much. Then let the Welsh thief be blindfolded and brought in
amongst us--Do you hold up your heads and keep silence--leave me
to deal with him--only have a care there be no English among us."

The monk, who in his travels had acquired some slight knowledge of
the Flemish language, had well-nigh started when he heard the last
article in Wilkin's instructions to his countryman, but commanded
himself, although a little surprised, both at this suspicious
circumstance, and at the readiness and dexterity with which the
rough-hewn Fleming seemed to adapt his preparations to the rules
of war and of sound policy.

Wilkin, on his part, was not very certain whether the monk had not
heard and understood more of what he said to his countryman, than
what he had intended. As if to lull asleep any suspicion which
Father Aldrovand might entertain, he repeated to him in English
most of the directions which he had given, adding, "Well, good
father, what think you of it?"

"Excellent well," answered the father, "and done as if you had
practised war from the cradle, instead of weaving broad-cloth."

"Nay, spare not your jibes, father," answered Wilkin.--"I know
full well that you English think that Flemings have nought in
their brainpan but sodden beef and cabbage; yet you see there goes
wisdom to weaving of webs."

"Right, Master Wilkin Flammock," answered the father; "but, good
Fleming, wilt thou tell me what answer thou wilt make to the Welsh
Prince's summons?"

"Reverend father, first tell me what the summons will be," replied
the Fleming.

"To surrender this castle upon the instant," answered the monk.
"What will be your reply?"

"My answer will be, Nay--unless upon good composition."

"How, Sir Fleming! dare you mention composition and the castle of
the Garde Doloureuse in one sentence?" said the monk.

"Not if I may do better," answered the Fleming. "But would your
reverence have me dally until the question amongst the garrison
be, whether a plump priest or a fat Fleming will be the better
flesh to furnish their shambles?"

"Pshaw!" replied Father Aldrovand, "thou canst not mean such
folly. Relief must arrive within twenty-four hours at farthest.
Raymond Berenger expected it for certain within such a space."

"Raymond Berenger has been deceived this morning in more matters
than one," answered the Fleming.

"Hark thee, Flanderkin," answered the monk, whose retreat from the
world had not altogether quenched his military habits and
propensities, "I counsel thee to deal uprightly in this matter, as
thou dost regard thine own life; for here are as many English left
alive, notwithstanding the slaughter of to-day, as may well
suffice to fling the Flemish bull-frogs into the castle-ditch,
should they have cause to think thou meanest falsely, in the
keeping of this castle, and the defence of the Lady Eveline."

"Let not your reverence be moved with unnecessary and idle fears,"
replied Wilkin Flammock--"I am castellane in this house, by
command of its lord, and what I hold for the advantage of mine
service, that will I do."

"But I," said the angry monk, "I am the servant of the Pope--the
chaplain of this castle, with power to bind and unloose. I fear me
thou art no true Christian, Wilkin Flammock, but dost lean to the
heresy of the mountaineers. Thou hast refused to take the blessed
cross--thou hast breakfasted, and drunk both ale and wine, ere
thou hast heard mass. Thou art not to be trusted, man, and I will
not trust thee--I demand to be present at the conference betwixt
thee and the Welshman."

"It may not be, good father," said Wilkin, with the same smiling,
heavy countenance, which he maintained on all occasions of life,
however urgent. "It is true, as thou sayest, good father, that I
have mine own reasons for not marching quite so far as the gates
of Jericho at present; and lucky I have such reasons, since I had
not else been here to defend the gate of the Garde Doloureuse. It
is also true that I may have been sometimes obliged to visit my
mills earlier than the chaplain was called by his zeal to the
altar, and that my stomach brooks not working ere I break my fast.
But for this, father, I have paid a mulet even to your worshipful
reverence, and methinks since you are pleased to remember the
confession so exactly, you should not forget the penance and the
absolution."

The monk, in alluding to the secrets of the confessional, had gone
a step beyond what the rules of his order and of the church
permitted. He was baffled by the Fleming's reply, and finding him
unmoved by the charge of heresy, he could only answer, in some
confusion, "You refuse, then, to admit me to the conference with
the Welshman?"

"Reverend father," said Wilkin, "it altogether respecteth secular
matters. If aught of religious tenor should intervene, you shall
be summoned without delay."

"I will be there in spite of thee, thou Flemish ox," muttered the
monk to himself, but in a tone not to be heard by the by-standers;
and so speaking he left the battlements.

Wilkin Flammock, a few minutes afterwards, having first seen that
all was arranged on the battlements, so as to give an imposing
idea of a strength which did not exist, descended to a small
guard-room, betwixt the outer and inner gate, where he was
attended by half-a-dozen of his own people, disguised in the
Norman armour which they had found in the armoury of the castle,--
their strong, tall, and bulky forms, and motionless postures,
causing them to look rather like trophies of some past age, than
living and existing soldiers. Surrounded by these huge and
inanimate figures, in a little vaulted room which almost excluded
daylight, Flammock received the Welsh envoy, who was led in
blindfolded betwixt two Flemings, yet not so carefully watched but
that they permitted him to have a glimpse of the preparations on
the battlements, which had, in fact, been made chiefly for the
purpose of imposing on him. For the same purpose an occasional
clatter of arms was made without; voices were heard as if officers
were going their rounds; and other sounds of active preparation
seemed to announce that a numerous and regular garrison was
preparing to receive an attack.

When the bandage was removed from Jorworth's eyes,--for the same
individual who had formerly brought Gwenwyn's offer of alliance,
now bare his summons of surrender,--he looked haughtily around him
and demanded to whom he was to deliver the commands of his master,
the Gwenwyn, son of Cyvelioc, Prince of Powys.

"His highness," answered Flammock, with his usual smiling
indifference of manner, "must be contented to treat with Wilkin
Flammock of the Fulling-mills, deputed governor of the Garde
Doloureuse."

"Thou deputed governor!" exclaimed Jorworth; "thou?--a Low-country
weaver!--it is impossible. Low as they are, the English Crogan
[Footnote: This is a somewhat contumelious epithet applied by the
Welsh to the English.] cannot have sunk to a point so low, as to
be commanded by _thee!_--these men seem English, to them I
will deliver my message."

"You may if you will," replied Wilkin, "but if they return you any
answer save by signs, you shall call me _schelm_."

"Is this true?" said the Welsh envoy, looking towards the men-at-
arms, as they seemed, by whom Flammock was attended; "are you
really come to this pass? I thought that the mere having been born
on British earth, though the children of spoilers and invaders,
had inspired you with too much pride to brook the yoke of a base
mechanic. Or, if you are not courageous, should you not be
cautious?--Well speaks the proverb, Wo to him that will trust a
stranger! Still mute--still silent?--answer me by word or sign--Do
you really call and acknowledge him as your leader?"

The men in armour with one accord nodded their casques in reply to
Jorworth's question, and then remained motionless as before.

The Welshman, with the acute genius of his country, suspected
there was something in this which he could not entirely
comprehend, but, preparing himself to be upon his guard, he
proceeded as follows: "Be it as it may, I care not who hears the
message of my sovereign, since it brings pardon and mercy to the
inhabitants of this Castell an Carrig, [Footnote: Castle of the
Craig.] which you have called the Garde Doloureuse, to cover the
usurpation of the territory by the change of the name. Upon
surrender of the same to the Prince of Powys, with its
dependencies, and with the arms which it contains, and with the
maiden Eveline Berenger, all within the castle shall depart
unmolested, and have safe-conduct wheresoever they will, to go
beyond the marches of the Cymry."

"And how, if we obey not this summons?" said the imperturbable
Wilkin Flammock.

"Then shall your portion be with Raymond Berenger, your late
leader," replied Jorworth, his eyes, while he was speaking,
glancing with the vindictive ferocity which dictated his answer.
"So many strangers as be here amongst ye, so many bodies to the
ravens, so many heads to the gibbet!--It is long since the kites
have had such a banquet of lurdane Flemings and false Saxons."

"Friend Jorworth," said Wilkin, "if such be thy only message, bear
mine answer back to thy master, That wise men trust not to the
words of others that safety, which they can secure by their own
deeds. We have walls high and strong enough, deep moats, and
plenty of munition, both longbow and arblast. We will keep the
castle, trusting the castle will keep us, till God shall send us
succour."

"Do not peril your lives on such an issue," said the Welsh
emissary, changing his language to the Flemish, which, from
occasional communication with those of that nation in
Pembrokeshire, he spoke fluently, and which he now adopted, as if
to conceal the purport of his discourse from the supposed English
in the apartment. "Hark thee hither," he proceeded, "good Fleming.
Knowest thou not that he in whom is your trust, the Constable De
Lacy, hath bound himself by his vow to engage in no quarrel till
he crosses the sea, and cannot come to your aid without perjury?
He and the other Lords Marchers have drawn their forces far
northward to join the host of Crusaders. What will it avail you to
put us to the toil and trouble of a long siege, when you can hope
no rescue?"

"And what will it avail me more," said Wilkin, answering in his
native language and looking at the Welshman fixedly, yet with a
countenance from which all expression seemed studiously banished,
and which exhibited, upon features otherwise tolerable, a
remarkable compound of dulness and simplicity, "what will it avail
me whether your trouble be great or small?"

"Come, friend Flammock," said the Welshman, "frame not thyself
more unapprehensive than nature hath formed thee. The glen is
dark, but a sunbeam can light the side of it. Thy utmost efforts
cannot prevent the fall of this castle; but thou mayst hasten it,
and the doing so shall avail thee much." Thus speaking, he drew
close up to Wilkin, and sunk his voice to an insinuating whisper,
as he said, "Never did the withdrawing of a bar, or the raising of
a portcullis, bring such vantage to Fleming as they may to thee,
if thou wilt."

"I only know," said Wilkin, "that the drawing the one, and the
dropping the other, have cost me my whole worldly subsistence."

"Fleming, it shall be compensated to thee with an overflowing
measure. The liberality of Gwenwyn is as the summer rain."

"My whole mills and buildings have been this morning burnt to the
earth--"

"Thou shalt have a thousand marks of silver, man, in the place of
thy goods," said the Welshman; but the Fleming continued, without
seeming to hear him, to number up his losses.

"My lands are forayed, twenty kine driven off, and--"

"Threescore shall replace them," interrupted Jorworth, "chosen
from the most bright-skinned of the spoil."

"But my daughter--but the Lady Eveline"--said the Fleming, with
some slight change in his monotonous voice, which seemed to
express doubt and perplexity--"You are cruel conquerors, and--"

"To those who resist us we are fearful," said Jorworth, "but not
to such as shall deserve clemency by surrender. Gwenwyn will
forget the contumelies of Raymond, and raise his daughter to high
honour among the daughters of the Cymry. For thine own child, form
but a wish for her advantage, and it shall be fulfilled to the
uttermost. Now, Fleming, we understand each other."

"I understand thee, at least," said Flammock.

"And I thee, I trust?" said Jorworth, bending his keen, wild blue
eye on the stolid and unexpressive face of the Netherlander, like
an eager student who seeks to discover some hidden and mysterious
meaning in a passage of a classic author, the direct import of
which seems trite and trivial.

"You believe that you understand me," said Wilkin; "but here lies
the difficulty,--which of us shall trust the other?"

"Darest thou ask?" answered Jorworth. "Is it for thee, or such as
thee, to express doubt of the purposes of the Prince of Powys?"

"I know them not, good Jorworth, but through thee; and well I wot
thou art not one who will let thy traffic miscarry for want of aid
from the breath of thy mouth."

"As I am a Christian man," said Jorworth, hurrying asseveration on
asseveration--"by the soul of my father--by the faith of my
mother--by the black rood of--"

"Stop, good Jorworth--thou heapest thine oaths too thickly on each
other, for me to value them to the right estimate," said Flammock;
"that which is so lightly pledged, is sometimes not thought worth
redeeming. Some part of the promised guerdon in hand the whilst,
were worth an hundred oaths."

"Thou suspicious churl, darest thou doubt my word?"

"No--by no means," answered Wilkin;--"nevertheless, I will believe
thy deed more readily."

"To the point, Fleming," said Jorworth--"What wouldst thou have of
me?"

"Let me have some present sight of the money thou didst promise,
and I will think of the rest of thy proposal."

"Base silver-broker!" answered Jorworth, "thinkest thou the Prince
of Powys has as many money-bags, as the merchants of thy land of
sale and barter? He gathers treasures by his conquests, as the
waterspout sucks up water by its strength, but it is to disperse
them among his followers, as the cloudy column restores its
contents to earth and ocean. The silver that I promise thee has
yet to be gathered out of the Saxon chests--nay, the casket of
Berenger himself must be ransacked to make up the tale."

"Methinks I could do that myself, (having full power in the
castle,) and so save you a labour," said the Fleming.

"True," answered Jorworth, "but it would be at the expense of a
cord and a noose, whether the Welsh took the place or the Normans
relieved it--the one would expect their booty entire--the other
their countryman's treasures to be delivered undiminished."

"I may not gainsay that," said the Fleming. "Well, say I were
content to trust you thus far, why not return my cattle, which are
in your own hands, and at your disposal? If you do not pleasure me
in something beforehand, what can I expect of you afterwards?"

"I would pleasure you in a greater matter," answered the equally
suspicious Welshman. "But what would it avail thee to have thy
cattle within the fortress? They can be better cared for on the
plain beneath."

"In faith," replied the Fleming, "thou sayst truth--they will be
but a trouble to us here, where we have so many already provided
for the use of the garrison.--And yet, when I consider it more
closely, we have enough of forage to maintain all we have, and
more. Now, my cattle are of a peculiar stock, brought from the
rich pastures of Flanders, and I desire to have them restored ere
your axes and Welsh hooks be busy with their hides."

"You shall have them this night, hide and horn," said Jorworth;
"it is but a small earnest of a great boon."

"Thanks to your munificence," said the Fleming; "I am a simple-
minded man, and bound my wishes to the recovery of my own
property."

"Thou wilt be ready, then, to deliver the castle?" said Jorworth.

"Of that we will talk farther to-morrow," said Wilkin Flammock;
"if these English and Normans should suspect such a purpose, we
should have wild work--they must be fully dispersed ere I can hold
farther communication on the subject. Meanwhile, I pray thee,
depart suddenly, and as if offended with the tenor of our
discourse."

"Yet would I fain know something more fixed and absolute," said
Jorworth.

"Impossible--impossible," said the Fleming: "see you not yonder
tall fellow begins already to handle his dagger--Go hence in
haste, and angrily--and forget not the cattle."

"I will not forget them," said Jorworth; "but if thou keep not
faith with us--"

So speaking, he left the apartment with a gesture of menace,
partly really directed to Wilkin himself, partly assumed in
consequence of his advice. Flammock replied in English, as if that
all around might understand, what he said,

"Do thy worst, Sir Welshman! I am a true man; I defy the proposals
of rendition, and will hold out this castle to thy shame and thy
master's!--Here--let him be blindfolded once more, and returned in
safety to his attendants without; the next Welshman who appears
before the gate of the Garde Doloureuse, shall be more sharply
received."

The Welshman was blindfolded and withdrawn, when, as Wilkin
Flammock himself left the guardroom, one of the seeming men-at-
arms, who had been present at this interview, said in his ear, in
English, "Thou art a false traitor, Flammock, and shalt die a
traitor's death!"

Startled at this, the Fleming would have questioned the man
farther, but he had disappeared so soon as the words were uttered.
Flammock was disconcerted by this circumstance, which showed him
that his interview with Jorworth had been observed, and its
purpose known or conjectured, by some one who was a stranger to
his confidence, and might thwart his intentions; and he quickly
after learned that this was the case.




CHAPTER THE SIXTH


  Blessed Mary, mother dear,
  To a maiden bend thine ear,
  Virgin undefiled, to thee
  A wretched virgin bends the knee.
    HYMN TO THE VIRGIN.


The daughter of the slaughtered Raymond had descended from the
elevated station whence she had beheld the field of battle, in the
agony of grief natural to a child whose eyes have beheld the death
of an honoured and beloved father. But her station, and the
principles of chivalry in which she had been trained up, did not
permit any prolonged or needless indulgence of inactive sorrow. In
raising the young and beautiful of the female sex to the rank of
princesses, or rather goddesses, the spirit of that singular
system exacted from them, in requital, a tone of character, and a
line of conduct, superior and something contradictory to that of
natural or merely human feeling. Its heroines frequently resembled
portraits shown by an artificial light--strong and luminous, and
which placed in high relief the objects on which it was turned;
but having still something of adventitious splendour, which,
compared with that of the natural day, seemed glaring and
exaggerated.

It was not permitted to the orphan of the Garde Doloureuse, the
daughter of a line of heroes, whose stem was to be found in the
race of Thor, Balder, Odin, and other deified warriors of the
North, whose beauty was the theme of a hundred minstrels, and her
eyes the leading star of half the chivalry of the warlike marches
of Wales, to mourn her sire with the ineffectual tears of a
village maiden. Young as she was, and horrible as was the incident
which she had but that instant witnessed, it was not altogether so
appalling to her as to a maiden whose eye had not been accustomed
to the rough, and often fatal sports of chivalry, and whose
residence had not been among scenes and men where war and death
had been the unceasing theme of every tongue, whose imagination
had not been familiarized with wild and bloody events, or,
finally, who had not been trained up to consider an honourable
"death under shield," as that of a field of battle was termed, as
a more desirable termination to the life of a warrior, than that
lingering and unhonoured fate which comes slowly on, to conclude
the listless and helpless inactivity of prolonged old age.
Eveline, while she wept for her father, felt her bosom glow when
she recollected that he died in the blaze of his fame, and amidst
heaps of his slaughtered enemies; and when she thought of the
exigencies of her own situation, it was with the determination to
defend her own liberty, and to avenge her father's death, by every
means which Heaven had left within her power.

The aids of religion were not forgotten; and according to the
custom of the times, and the doctrines of the Roman church, she
endeavoured to propitiate the favour of Heaven by vows as well as
prayers. In a small crypt, or oratory, adjoining to the chapel,
was hung over an altar-piece, on which a lamp constantly burned, a
small picture of the Virgin Mary, revered as a household and
peculiar deity by the family of Berenger, one of whose ancestors
had brought it from the Holy Land, whither he had gone upon
pilgrimage. It was of the period of the Lower Empire, a Grecian
painting, not unlike those which in Catholic countries are often
imputed to the Evangelist Luke. The crypt in which it was placed
was accounted a shrine of uncommon sanctity--nay, supposed to have
displayed miraculous powers; and Eveline, by the daily garland of
flowers which she offered before the painting, and by the constant
prayers with which they were accompanied, had constituted herself
the peculiar votaress of Our Lady of the Garde Doloureuse, for so
the picture was named.