“If thou beest Saxon, shame us not with thy ceorlish manners; crave pardon of this Norman thegn, who will doubtless yield it to thee in pity. Uncover thy face—and—”
Here the Saxon’s rebuke was interrupted; for one of the servitors just then approaching Godrith’s side with a spit, elegantly caparisoned with some score of plump larks, the unmannerly giant stretched out his arm within an inch of the Saxon’s startled nose, and possessed himself of larks, broche, and all. He drew off two, which he placed on his friend’s platter, despite all dissuasive gesticulations, and deposited the rest upon his own. The young banqueters gazed upon the spectacle in wrath too full for words.
At last spoke Mallet de Graville, with an envious eye upon the larks—for though a Norman was not gluttonous, he was epicurean—“Certes, and foi de chevalier! a man must go into strange parts if he wish to see monsters; but we are fortunate people,” (and he turned to his Norman friend, Aymer, Quen 56 or Count, D’Evreux,) “that we have discovered Polyphemus without going so far as Ulysses;” and pointing to the hooded giant, he quoted, appropriately enough,
“Monstrum, horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.”
The giant continued to devour his larks, as complacently as the ogre to whom he was likened might have devoured the Greeks in his cave. But his fellow intruder seemed agitated by the sound of the Latin; he lifted up his head suddenly, and showed lips glistening with white even teeth, and curved into an approving smile, while he said: “Bene, me fili! bene, lepidissime, poetae verba, in militis ore, non indecora sonant.” 57
The young Norman stared at the speaker, and replied, in the same tone of grave affectation: “Courteous sir! the approbation of an ecclesiastic so eminent as I take you to be, from the modesty with which you conceal your greatness, cannot fail to draw upon me the envy of my English friends; who are accustomed to swear in verba magistri, only for verba they learnedly substitute vina.”
“You are pleasant, Sire Mallet,” said Godrith, reddening; “but I know well that Latin is only fit for monks and shavelings; and little enow even they have to boast of.”
The Norman’s lip curled in disdain. “Latin!—O, Godree, bien aime!—Latin is the tongue of Caesars and senators, fortes conquerors and preux chevaliers. Knowest thou not that Duke William the dauntless at eight years old had the Comments of Julius Caesar by heart?—and that it is his saying, that ‘a king without letters is a crowned ass?’ 58 When the king is an ass, asinine are his subjects. Wherefore go to school, speak respectfully of thy betters, the monks and shavelings, who with us are often brave captains and sage councillors—and learn that a full head makes a weighty hand.”
“Thy name, young knight?” said the ecclesiastic, in Norman French, though with a slight foreign accent.
“I can give it thee,” said the giant, speaking aloud for the first time, in the same language, and in a rough voice, which a quick ear might have detected as disguised—“I can describe to thee name, birth, and quality. By name, this youth is Guillaume Mallet, sometimes styled De Graville, because our Norman gentilhommes, forsooth, must always now have a ‘de’ tacked to their names; nevertheless he hath no other right to the seigneurie of Graville, which appertains to the head of his house, than may be conferred by an old tower on one corner of the demesnes so designated, with lands that would feed one horse and two villeins—if they were not in pawn to a Jew for moneys to buy velvet mantelines and a chain of gold. By birth, he comes from Mallet 59, a bold Norwegian in the fleet of Rou the Sea-king; his mother was a Frank woman, from whom he inherits his best possessions—videlicet, a shrewd wit, and a railing tongue. His qualities are abstinence, for he eateth nowhere save at the cost of another—some Latin, for he was meant for a monk, because he seemed too slight of frame for a warrior—some courage, for in spite of his frame he slew three Burgundians with his own hand; and Duke William, among their foolish acts, spoilt a friar sans tache, by making a knight sans terre; and for the rest—”
“And for the rest,” interrupted the Sire de Graville, turning white with wrath, but speaking in a low repressed voice, “were it not that Duke William sate yonder, thou shouldst have six inches of cold steel in thy huge carcase to digest thy stolen dinner, and silence thy unmannerly tongue.—”
“For the rest,” continued the giant indifferently, and as if he had not heard the interruption; “for the rest, he only resembles Achilles, in being impiger iracundus. Big men can quote Latin as well as little ones, Messire Mallet the beau clerc!”
Mallet’s hand was on his dagger; and his eye dilated like that of the panther before he springs; but fortunately, at that moment, the deep sonorous voice of William, accustomed to send its sounds down the ranks of an army, rolled clear through the assemblage, though pitched little above its ordinary key:—
“Fair is your feast, and bright your wine, Sir King and brother mine! But I miss here what king and knight hold as the salt of the feast and the perfume to the wine: the lay of the minstrel. Beshrew me, but both Saxon and Norman are of kindred stock, and love to hear in hall and bower the deeds of their northern fathers. Crave I therefore from your gleemen, or harpers, some song of the olden time!”
A murmur of applause went through the Norman part of the assembly; the Saxons looked up; and some of the more practised courtiers sighed wearily, for they knew well what ditties alone were in favour with the saintly Edward.
The low voice of the King in reply was not heard, but those habituated to read his countenance in its very faint varieties of expression, might have seen that it conveyed reproof; and its purport soon became practically known, when a lugubrious prelude was heard from a quarter of the hall, in which sate certain ghost-like musicians in white robes—white as winding-sheets; and forthwith a dolorous and dirgelike voice chaunted a long and most tedious recital of the miracles and martyrdom of some early saint. So monotonous was the chaunt, that its effect soon became visible in a general drowsiness. And when Edward, who alone listened with attentive delight, turned towards the close to gather sympathising admiration from his distinguished guests, he saw his nephew yawning as if his jaw were dislocated—the Bishop of Bayeux, with his well-ringed fingers interlaced and resting on his stomach, fast asleep—Fitzosborne’s half-shaven head balancing to and fro with many an uneasy start—and, William, wide awake indeed, but with eyes fixed on vacant space, and his soul far away from the gridiron to which (all other saints be praised!) the saint of the ballad had at last happily arrived.
“A comforting and salutary recital, Count William,” said the King.
The Duke started from his reverie, and bowed his head: then said, rather abruptly, “Is not yon blazon that of King Alfred?”
“Yea. Wherefore?”
“Hem! Matilda of Flanders is in direct descent from Alfred: it is a name and a line the Saxons yet honour!”
“Surely, yes; Alfred was a great man, and reformed the Psalmster,” replied Edward.
The dirge ceased, but so benumbing had been its effect, that the torpor it created did not subside with the cause. There was a dead and funereal silence throughout the spacious hall, when suddenly, loudly, mightily, as the blast of the trumpet upon the hush of the grave, rose a single voice. All started—all turned—all looked to one direction; and they saw that the great voice pealed from the farthest end of the hall. From under his gown the gigantic stranger had drawn a small three-stringed instrument—somewhat resembling the modern lute—and thus he sang—
THE BALLAD OF ROU. 60 I. From Blois to Senlis, wave by wave, roll’d on the Norman flood, And Frank on Frank went drifting down the weltering tide of blood; There was not left in all the land a castle wall to fire, And not a wife but wailed a lord, a child but mourned a sire. To Charles the king, the mitred monks, the mailed barons flew, While, shaking earth, behind them strode the thunder march of Rou. II. “O King,” then cried those barons bold, “in vain are mace and mail, We fall before the Norman axe, as corn before the hail.” “And vainly,” cried the pious monks, “by Mary’s shrine we kneel, For prayers, like arrows, glance aside, against