Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (238 page)

Hung round with work of choicest loom;

And erst it was the resting-place

Of our dear Lady Baroness,

Before she went to stranger-land.

My lord yet strays on foreign strand.

The chamber has another stair,

Leading to many chambers fair;

But no step goes by night so far,

Since my lord baron went to war.”

XXII.

The page stept on with torch before,

Far as that stately chamber’s door.

“Page! lift that light — fain would I know,

Whither that second flight doth go?”

“It goes to a battlement up on high,

And to a turret perching by.”

“Doth none keep watch on that turret high?”

“None, but the raven with his cry!

Your rest, Sir knight, he will not break;

To traitors only doth he speak.

They say he scents the new spilt blood.”

Upon the stair the raven stood!

He turn’d his dark eye on the knight,

And, screaming, upward winged his flight.

The wondering page looked back with fright,

And met the stranger’s fiery glance;

Then, hardly daring to advance,

Lingered he at that chamber-door;

“On,” said the knight, “with torch before!”

Scarce was the page the threshold o’er,

When check he made, and pale he turn’d;

Dim and more dim the torch-flame burn’d.

The knight look’d on, but nothing saw,

That might explain this sudden awe.

XXIII.

A spacious chamber there was spread,

And, for his rest, a stately bed;

Fresh rushes on the floor were strewn;

Faint on the arras’d walls were shown

The heroes of some antient story,

Now faded, like their mortal glory.

Another form, as dark as doom,

Stood within that chamber’s gloom,

Unseen by those who entered there.

His cause of dread the page thus said:

“Methought I saw, within that chair,

The baron’s self, my very lord;

I saw it, on a true man’s word:

I saw my lord return’d from far,

Arrayed, as he went forth to war!

He fixed his very eyes on me,

But looked not, as he wont to look.

Yet now no living shape I see,

And know that here he could not be;

For, long since, he these walls forsook:

Yet is it strange such visions pale,

Should o’er my waking sight prevail.”

“Whose are these antient walls, I pray?”

The sullen stranger ‘gan to say:

“Sir, know you not these towers and halls

Watch where the foaming Conway falls?

Who should these walls and towers own?

And the wide woods and forest round,

Even to Snowdon’s utmost bound,

Save the brave lord of Eglamore?”

The knight explained his ignorance,

He was a wanderer late from France.

The page surveyed him o’er again;

He thought the wily knight did feign:

A deadly hue was on his cheek;

His looks spoke more than words may speak.

Yet to the page, though much it told,

He read not all it might unfold.

The knight perceived his doubting thought,

And drew a badge forth from his breast;

Some noble Order’s golden crest,

Upon a field of silver wrought.

“This badge,” he said, “with blood was bought.”

He turn’d with haughty frown away.

The page did not more doubt betray;

But service offered to undo

His casque and linked harness true;

But the stranger gravely said him Nay,

And refused that night to disarray.

XXVI.

Wondering, yet fearing to demand,

Why to these towers from distant land,

The knight had come, without his train,

Pondered the youth his doubts again;

Again, as though his thoughts he read,

The knight look’d sternly down and said,

“My squire and my foot-page I missed

At night-fall, when the woods betwixt.

But they perchance may shelter find,

From this bitter-blowing wind,

In the deep hollow of some hill,

Till the dawn break, and the storm be still.”

XXVII.

“But the wolf bays in the blast afar;

Sir knight, how may they scape such war?

I hear him now — he nearer howls!

Mercy! mercy! save their souls!”

“Hark!” said the knight, and stood aghast;

It was no wolf-howl in the blast;

It was a blood-hound’s dreadful bay,

The stranger heard, with such dismay —

The blood-hound at the tower below;

That over pathless hill and dale,

Had tracked a murderer in the gale,

And came to claim his master’s foe.

While listening to the lengthen’d yell,

The stranger seemed to hear his knell.

“A blood-hound loose, and at this hour!

Your rest, sir knight, had ill been kept;

Nor one within these gates had slept,

Had I been in my distant tower.”

The page he lighted a lamp on high;

The stranger stifled scarce a sigh,

That heavily for utterance pressed.

He heard the page’s steps descend,

And go where the long chambers bend,

Down to the halls, and th’ outer walls.

The page knew not the chance he ran;

He was marked with the blood of a murder’d man!

XXVIII.

The knight, he listened in silent dread,

Till now, the blood-hound’s voice was stilled;

But soon a low voice near him sped,

That every nerve with horror thrilled.

He looked the way that lone voice came,

And saw, by the lamp’s tall spiring flame,

A portraiture on the wall beneath,

Of noble dame, that seemed to breathe.

Robed in sable weeds was she:

The gleam fell on that lady’s brow;

There, written dimly, you might see,

The characters of hopeless woe.

XXIX.

Soon as that lady’s face he saw,

All other dread his heart forsook;

He gazed with fixt and frenzied awe,

And vainly tried away to look:

For to his fearful sight it seemed,

As though her eyes on his were bent;

And, where the pale flame wavering gleamed,

As if her varying cheek were blent

With lights and shades of death;

While round her lips a grim smile drew,

And the rose paled that on them blew;

And, with faint lingering breath,

“Prepare,” she said, “thy hour is nigh!

Unpitying, thou hast seen me die;

Unpitied be thy mortal sigh!”

XXX.

He heard the words — the words alone;

He heard not that deep solemn groan;

He heard not the clang of the ‘larum bell,

Nor from the gates that horn-blast swell;

Nor heard the many-trampling hoofs,

Nor voices calling in the gale,

And ringing round the castle roofs,

Till they made the ‘battled raven quail;

Nor heard the funeral shriek, that broke

Through every hall and lofty tower;

He heard alone the words she spoke.

XXXI.

Nor saw he in the court below,

By the torches’ umbered glow,

Borne upon his bleeding bier,

With wounds unclosed and open eyes,

A warrior stretched in death draw near;

Nor heard the loud and louder cries,

This piteous sight of horror drew

From every friend and vassal true.

But he knew that voice at his chamber-door.

And straight the witch-veil of glamour

Falls, and his wonder-trance is o’er.

He hears his summons in that sound;

It is the bark of the true blood-hound.

True to his murdered lord is he;

He has traced the steps he could not see —

Traced them o’er darkened miles and miles.,

O’er glen and mountain, wood and moor,

Through all their swift and winding wiles,

Till he stopped before his master’s door,

And bayed the murderer in his bower.

XXXII.

The castle gates were strait unbarred,

And he sprang before his bleeding lord;

He passed the page unheeded by,

And tracked the stranger’s steps on high;

Till at the door, that closed him in,

Loud and dread became his din.

The doors are burst, and the spectre-light

Betrayeth the form of the blood-tracked knight:

He was armed all over in coat of mail,

But nothing did steel that night avail;

He fell a torn corpse, beside that chair,

Whereunto the page did late appear,

By the dark glamour-art revealed,

His murdered lord with lance and shield.

The
murderer
fell, and his death-wound found

In the terrible fangs of the true blood-hound.

Here the voice of the minstrel ceased; and, after striking a few notes of his harp, full and deep, he rested with a look of sorrow. His eyes dwelt on the Lady Barbara — but she heeded him not; but sat with head inclined, as if still listening to his dismal tale. There followed a dread silence in the room, as of expectation of that which was to follow. Some there were, who said the ditty was already ended; yet they would fain have heard something of the pitiful history of that unhappy lady, whose portraiture was in the tower-chamber, and would have known what was the guilty motive of the knight against the Lord of Eglamore; and how it chanced he came so unwittingly to his castle. Others there were then present, who, having noticed the young Gaston de Blondeville to be ill at ease, the while the minstrel sung, and being, perchance, already moved by the merchant’s strange accusation, scrupled not to think the story touched him nearly; and that Pierre rested, not because his ditty was at an end, or from weariness; but that he doubted whether it would be well to proceed to the second part.

However this may be, he needed not have stayed his strain, for Sir Gaston was no longer in the chamber. Whether Pierre knew this or not, he began once more to strike upon the harp; when, on a sudden, the King’s trumpets were heard blowing up near the stair; and anon, his Highness entered the bower, it being almost time that he should go to his rest for “all-night.”

There was no more harping; Pierre tuning not up his second fit; and belike, if his Highness had been there at first, he would have bidden him to shorten his ballad by one-half.

The King looked about for Sir Gaston; and, espying him not, asked wherefore he was not there; but, before any answer could be given, the knight had returned, and now approached his Highness. He was then commanded to dance a round with the Lady Barbara, and he obeyed; but many there noted the sadness on his brow, though his steps were light and gay.

A more pleasureful sight could not be than the Queen’s bower, as it was at that time, where she sat in estate, under a cloth of gold, her ladies standing about her chair, and her maidens on either hand, below the steps of her throne; and two young damsels of surpassing beauty and richly bedight, sitting on the first step, at her feet; the same, that were used so to sit, when her Highness kept state in the great hall at festivals.

Behind them, half encircling the throne, stood twenty household esquires, holding great wax torches, right richly beseen in the King’s livery, and proud to wear it, gentils as they were, as I said before, and of ancient families in the countries from whence they came.

The arched roof was curiously wrought in that fashion, which King Henry had newly brought into favour; and, besides these lights, a great crystal lamp, that hung from the roof, shone over the chamber and upon the goodly assemblage, as they looked upon the Lady Barbara, passing so winningly in the dance. That night, the Earl of Richmond bore the Queen’s spice-plate, and Sir Philip de Kinton her cup.

When the Lady Barbara had ended her dance, the Queen called her to her chair; and, making her take of the sweetmeats from her own plate, spoke commendable words to her, as did his Highness King Henry. Then the Queen, turning to the Lady Gloucester, took from her hands a girdle, richly beset with jewels, and, clasping it on the Lady Barbara, kissed her, and bade her wear it ever, for her sake and for her honour. Her Highness then stretched out her hand to Sir Gaston, who, kneeling, put it to his lips. “May you, Sir knight,” said her Highness, “as well deserve this lady, as she deserves this token of my regard!”

Then, the King said many gracious things, and seemed so merry of heart, that he made all around him gladsome; till, the Voide being ended, he went forth with the Queen, the trumpets blowing before them; and the chamber was then speedily avoided for all night.

While these things were passing in the chambers of estate, there were divers wassailings and merriments making in other places of the castle. In the great hall were feasting and revelling, but not of estate. There were tumblers and jugglers and morrice-dancers and mimicks and mummers, with pipings and blowings, that made the roofs ring.

The monks at the priory heard them afar, while at the last even-song, and long after; and well I wote, that had it not been the King’s castle, there had been some rebuke, as indeed due, for such noise made. The Prior in his chamber sat alone; listening, I guess, in gloomy mood to the revelry; and, all that night, only Edmund the monk and mass Peter with him: he came not forth to midnight-song.

But now I must return, and so must ye that hear, or read, to the castle. In the hall there was a dancer on stilts, playing the while on a recorder; there were dancers on one leg, and dancers upon the head; but that which most rejoiced many of the beholders, were the disguisings and the quaint antics of the mummers. There came a whole troop, some wearing the heads of asses, some of bulls, some of calves, some of cats, who brayed and kicked, bellowed and tossed, scratched and mewed, to the very life. Others, like stags and hares, hounds and apes, kept not so pertinently to their pretended natures, but marched on with solemn state, as much as might be, hand in hand, as if they had been loving friends and neighbours; yet each with a dagger stuck in his girdle. And others again, with fools’ girdles and bells hanging to them; tossing their heads, and cutting such strange capers, to the noise of pipes and drums, as made the sides of many to shake with laughter, and roused up every hawk on perch there to shake his bells in concert.

But all this was child’s play, though it was often done before the worshipfullest estates, in comparison of the sayer’s art; which, when he could be heard between whiles, when the loud revelry paused and held breath, was marvellous to hear: and, as soon as those mad-heads caught the words of that tale-teller, sooth to say, they soon were still and hushed, as though no living soul but he breathed there; listening to his dismal tradey, with tears in their eyes, or quaking for fear of the strange things he told them. He, the while, with solemn visage, showing as though he himself believed all the marvels he related, and not showing roguish smiles, as some do, kept on always to the far end of his long tale: though some learned clerks would oft-times comment to their neighbours upon his marvels, as if he had purported lofty matter worth their notice, and did not merely strive to while an idle tide away.