The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1854-11-16
SHERWOOD FOREST,
W AGER BY BATTLE.
A Tale of Saxon Slavery in the Twelfth Century

| w "A " ~ LII ID ID IA l. IL
A Tale Of Saxon Slavery in the Twelfth Century.
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.
CHAP vi /,
| And III be 10 thee Mary.
As thoult be me;
| And never will leave thee, never Mary
As slave man, Is free
For were bound forever and ever, Mary.
| Till death shall set IL free
| Free from the chain of the flesh, Mary,
| Free from the DEVILS chain;
| Free from the collar and gives, Mary,
| And slavery's cursed pain
| And then. when were free in heaven. Mary,
| Old English Song.
1t was with grave and somewhat downcast
brows, and nothing of haughtiness or pride of
port or demeanor, that the lord and his friend
| entered under the lowly roof, invested for the
moment with a majesty which was not its own,
| by the strange sacrednesS of grief and death
There never, probably, in the whole his
tory of the world, has been race of men,
which entertained in their own persons more
boundless contempt of death, or assigned less
value to the mere quality of life, than the war
| like Normans. Not man of them, while in
| the heyday of life and manhood, would have
| hesitated for moment in choosing death I'M
der shield, death of violence and anguish
winning renown and comforting deathless honor,
to the gentlest decay, the most peaceful disso-
| luton. Not man would have shed a tear or
shown sign of sorrow, had he seen his favor
lite son, his most familiar friend, his noblest
brother in arms, felled from his saddle in the
melee, and trampled out of the very form of
humanity beneath the hoofs of the charging
cavalry. Not man but would have ridden
over a battlefield, gorged with carcases and
| drunk with gore, without expressing thought
| of terror, sentiment beyond the victory, the
| glory, and the gain. But such is the sovereign
| ty of death, in the silence and solitude of its
natural gloom, stripped of the pomps and par
aphernalia of funereal honors, and unadorned
by the empty braveries of human praise and
| glory-Such is the empire of humble, SIMPLE
overruling sorrow, that, as they entered the
| low-roofed, undecorated chamber, where lay
the corpse of the neglected, despised serf-the
being, while in life, scarce equal to the animals
of the chase-with his nearest of kin, serfs
| likewise ,abject, ignorant, down-trodden, and
debased-in so far as man can debasc Gods
creations-mourning in Christian sorrow over
him, the mobiles felt, for moment, that aheir
nobility was nothing i'll the presence of the
awful dead and that they, too, for all their
pride of antique blood, for all their strength of
limb and heaven-daring valor, for all their lands
and lordships, must be brought down one day
to the dust, like the poor slave, and go FORTH
as they entered this world, bearing nothing out,
before one common Lord and Master, who
must in the end sit in universal judgment.
Such meditations are not, perhaps, very COM
mon to the great, the powerful, and the fortu-
| nate of men, in any time or place, so long as
the light of this world shine about, and their
ways are ways of pleasantness but if rare al
ways, and under all ordinary circumstances
| with the chvalrous, high-hearted, and hot
| headed knights of the twelfth century, they
were assuredly of the rarest
| Yet now so powerfully did they come over
| the strong minds of the two grave mobiles, that
they paused a moment on the threshold, before
entering; and Yvo de Taiebois, who was the
elder man, and of deeper thoughts and higher
| imagination than his friend. raised his pumed
bonnet from his brow and bowed his head in
| silence.
| 1t was strange and moving scene on which
| they looked. The room, which was the ord-
nary dwelling-placc of the family, was rather a
large, dark parallelogram, lighted only through
| the door and couple of narrow latticed win
dows, which, if closed, would have admitted few
| half-intercepted rays, but which now stood wide
| open, to admit the fresh and balmy air, so that
| from one at the western end of the cottage a
clear rudy beam of the declining sun shot in
a long pencil of lustre, bringing ont certain
objects in strong relief against the surrounding
| gloom.
The door, at which the two knights stood,
| CHANGED to be SO placed under the shadow of one
| of the great trees which overhung the house,
that there was little light for them to intercept.
| Hence, those who were within, occupied by
their own sad and bitter thoughts, did not at
first so much as observe their presence. Facing
| the entrance, large fireplace. with great pro-
| iecting lambs, enclosing each side long
oaken settle, occupied one half the length of
| the room and On one of these, propped up with
some spare bedding and clothing, lay the wound
| ed man. Kenric, to whom the Baron de Taille-
bois owed his beloved chds life, half recum-
bent, pale from the loss of blood, vet chafng
with annoyance, that he should be thus bedrid-
| den, when his strength might have been Of avail
to others, feebler and less able to exert them
selves almost than he. bruised though he was,
and gored from the rude encounter.
A little fire was snoudering on the hearth,
with pot simmering over it-for, in their bit
tercst times of anguish and desolation, the very
poor must bcstr themselves, at least, to house
service-and from the logs, which had rolled
| forward on the hearth, volumes of smoke were
! rolling up and hanging thick about the dingy
| rafters, and the few hams and hitches which
with strings of oat-cakes garnished the roof, its
| only ornament.
| But, wholly unconscious of the poisonous
| reek though it streamed up close under his
| very eyes, and seeing nothing of the chevaliers,
who were watching, not six PAGES from him,
| Kenric lay helpless, straining his lack-lustrc
eyes toward the spot where the ruddy western
sunlight fell, like glory, on the pale quiet fea-
| lures of the dead child and on the cold gray
impressive head of the aged mourner, aged far
| beyond the ordinary course of mortal life, who
| bent over the rude bier; and, strange contrast
on the sunny laxen curls and embrowned rudy
features of two or three younger children, clus-
tered around the grandam's knee, silent through
| awe, rather than sorrow, for they were too
Young as vet to know what death meant, or to
comprehend what was that awful gloom which
| had fallen upon hearth and home.
Everything in that humble and poor apart
ment was scrupulously clean and tidy; white
cloth was on the board, with two or three plat
| tiers and porringers of coarse earthenware, as
| if the evening meal had been prepared, when
| death had entered in, and interposed his awful
veto-some implements of rustic husbandry, an
axe or two, several specimens Of the old Eng
lish bill and Sheffield white and one short
| javelin, with heavy head, hung on the walls,
with all the iron work brightly polished, and in
good order; fresh rushes we're strewn on the
| floor a broken pitcher, full Of newlygathercd
field flowers adorned the window sill ans what
was strange, indeed, at that age, and in such
place, two or three old, much tattered, dingy
| manuscripts graced bare shelf above the chin
| ney corner.
| The aged woman had ceased from the wild
outbreak of grief with which she had bewail
ed the first sign of death on the sick boys
faded brow and was now rocking herself to
and fro above the body, with dull moneto
! nous mnrmur, half articulate, combining frag