CHAPTER VII.

DELILAH SHEARS SAMSON.

On the morning following the bride-ale, Waltheof should have been early astir, to the end that he might be present at the bride-chamber to witness the presentation of the 'morning gift' from the bridegroom to the bride, according to the fashion of the times.

But alas! the recreant hero lay stretched upon his cushions in the oblivion of slumber, his gigantic limbs outspread in the most complete repose, and his heavy breathing witnessing to the depth of the potations of the night before.

By his couch watched Judith, niece to the man against whom the English hero had raged so potently, when the generous wine had stolen away the caution that was wont to ward his speech.

Her magnificent attire of the previous day was laid aside, and she was dressed in a simple travelling gown of grey cloth.

Her face wore a strange expression of triumphant malice, as she stooped over the sleeping giant, and whenever he stirred or showed any signs of waking, she passed her cool and slender fingers over his heated forehead, and stroked back the thick golden curls that clustered on his brow, mesmerising him to sleep again with her gentle touches.

The day wore on, and the sun was high in the heavens, and Judith's sharp, cold face grew more and more triumphant.

A time came at last, however, when even her deft fingers could no longer bind the wings of sleep, and the earl opened his blue eyes with a mighty yawn, springing into consciousness with an uneasy sense of having undertaken heavy responsibilities. For Waltheof, like most giants, was lazy, and though terrible when roused, had a strong preference for quietness and peace.

Therefore he gave a great sigh when he remembered the vows of the night before, and wished he were well out of his hazardous undertaking. Ambition had small hold of his nature, and he had far rather be an earl in peace, than a monarch who had to fight for his throne. Moreover, his religious sentiments were strong, and inclined to an ascetic renunciation. Judith swept back the curtain from the lattice, and let a flood of noonday light into the hitherto carefully darkened chamber.

Waltheof started.

'It is noon!' he said. 'Why didst thou not wake me? By St. John of Beverley! it was meet that I should have attended the presentation of the morning gift.'

Judith knew that her lord was deeply moved, by his invocation of the Northumbrian saint, whose name was connected with all the wrongs that he preferred to forget when he was in an amiable mood. Yet she answered calmly, and with scorn in her voice, 'Who can wake a drunken man?'

And the champion who had struck off the heads of the Norman warriors, one after another, with a single blow of his terrible seax, at the gates of York, was so ignominiously under the rule of his Norman wife, that he swallowed his wrath and made no reply.

Judith made haste to improve her advantage, and to carry the war into the enemy's camp.

'How I hate these Saxon excesses!' she continued; 'only befitting barbarians, lowering men below the level of the brutes, who eat when they are hungry, and drink when they are thirsty, and abstain when want is satisfied. Thou madest not a fair picture, Waltheof, lying sprawled out and insensible in thy tipsy sleep, a prey to any evil creature who had chanced to come thy way. Cyning of the Saxons, indeed! Learn first to be king of thine own appetites!'

Waltheof started, and his brows knitted over his still heavy eyes.

'How knewest thou that, witch of Endor?' he demanded.

'Nay, thou hast experience that the spirits of the air are at my beck, and that my power serves me to gain knowledge of all that concerns my dearly-beloved spouse,' returned Judith, with a sneer.

'Sorceress! I believe, in sooth, thou art leagued with the devil!' quoth Waltheof furiously, and his expression was no metaphor. He was superstitious by nature, and his sharp-witted wife had done her utmost to impress him with the notion that her intellectual gifts were replenished from supernatural sources. Hence her power over him. 'But I tell thee, thou hadst better never have been born than meddle in this concern of thy husband's. For this concern, is the concern not of my poor unworthy self, but of my country, of my people! And I tell thee, foreign harridan, I had liefer strangle thee with mine own hands than be frustrated!'

''Tis pity,' quoth Judith calmly, 'since the matter is marred already.'

'What meanest thou, viper?' shouted Waltheof, fully aroused and springing to his feet, and advancing towards Judith with a threatening gesture, his mighty fist, which could have struck the life from her frail body at a blow, clenched into an iron ball, and the knots in his massive throat working with nervous excitement.

But Judith faced him unmoved, her proud face flashing with scorn. For the blood of Robert the Devil and Arlète of Falaise was hot in her veins, and perhaps she opined, also, that even in his wrath her heroic lord was too generous to hurt her. She did not quail before him but stood looking at him with her defiant, steadfast eyes.

'Slay me if thou wilt,' she said, without a falter in her tone. 'That which is done cannot be undone. My death will not hinder the stout messenger that sped through the night, ere thou hadst reeled from the banquet to thy chamber, from bearing the news of thy treason to Lanfranc. In vain wilt thou seek to overtake him, for he hath nigh a twelve hours' start, and he is mounted on thine own Spanish destrier, the swiftest steed in England--William's gift!'

The oath with which Waltheof answered was too terrible for repetition. He sprang at his wife, and clutched her slender throat with his strong fingers, as if he were in very truth about to execute his threat and strangle her.

She stood like a statue, though the weight of his hands upon her shoulders almost bore her to the ground.

'My people are as dear to me as thine to thee,' she said, expecting the death-grip to follow her bold speech. 'Thou hast sworn fealty to William, nay, thou hast done him homage, and put thy hands between his and vowed to be his man; thou hast married me, his niece! The struggle and the bloodshed are over, the Normans and Saxons should be one, and thou wouldst renew the strife and divide them again!'

With a moan like that of a wounded bull, the son of Siward cast the grand-daughter of Robert the Devil from him, and, covering his face with his hands, threw himself back on his couch in an agony of thwarted and impotent rage.

'Hadst thou been a man!' he muttered,--'hadst thou been a man, that I could do battle with thee hand to hand!'

'Had I been a man, Waltheof,' said Judith softly kneeling on one knee beside her prostrate warrior,--'had I been a man, Waltheof, I had not been here to save thee, and thy country, and thy people from the consequences of thy drunken folly. Holy Mary be praised that made me a woman! Waltheof, what is thy love for thy people, if thou wouldst plunge them again in blood and fire for the vain hope of satisfying an impossible ambition? Was not the harrying of Northumberland enough, that thou wouldst have the whole country ravaged from north to south?'

No man of many words was the hero of York, and his only reply to this eloquent appeal was to mutter an occasional curse in his beard, nor did he raise his face from the pillows among which he had plunged it.

'I tell thee,' Judith went on, 'William would harry the land from York to Hastings, as he harried it from Durham to York, rather than lose it from his grip. And thinkest thou that he whom Harold Godwinsson could not baulk nor drive from the land ere one Norman castle or stronghold was built in it, though he had the full force of the Saxon chivalry at his back, could be so easily ousted from the saddle into which he has climbed, now the most part of the nation are dead, or ruined and torn by dissensions and rivalry? Thinkest thou I would not gladly be a queen if there were any hope of such an ending to thine exploit? But seeing it not, I have chosen rather to endeavour to save thy life.'

'Save my life? Thou hast rather lost it! Say'st thou not that thou hast betrayed me to Lanfranc?' He raised his head at last, and looked her in the face.

'Nay, Waltheof!' answered Judith, softly laying her slender hand upon his huge shoulder. 'The foreign harridan loves her husband! I would save thee, not destroy thee. The letter was couched in thy name and sealed with thy seal, and so writ as though thou hadst but seemed to join the plot the better to discomfit the king's enemies.'

'Thou fiend infernal!' cried Waltheof, starting up again in an agony. 'Hast thou so dared to sully my good name?--to paint me so black a traitor?'

'Softly, my husband! The vow that is first made counts most binding. I would save thy name from the foul stain of treachery to thy generous liege-lord, William of Normandy, to whom thou didst homage in person on the banks of the Tees, coming of thine own free will to tender it, and accepting his forgiveness, his friendship, and the hand of his kinswoman. Yes--the hand of thy poor wife Judith, who would fain lead thee back to thy nobler self.'

The logic of this speech bore heavily on Waltheof, who threw himself down again upon the couch with a curse and a moan.

'Would that the sun had never risen on the day I first saw light!' he muttered.

Judith stretched out her hand and raised the golden crucifix which was suspended by a chain from her husband's neck, so that it was on a level with his eyes.

'Though we be of two nations, Waltheof,' she said gently, 'we are servants of one Lord. The abbot who bade thee plunge thy country afresh in blood and fire is no true priest of God. And for my countryman, Roger of Hereford, thinkest thou Lanfranc excommunicated him for nought?--Lanfranc, who loved him as a son. Wouldst thou associate with one accursed? What motive can he have in this save the slaking of his over-weening pride? As for the Breton, or the Englishman, or whatsoever he be called, Ralph of Guader, he who fought against his people at Hastings can have little spur save his own ambition. Wilt thou be the tool of such as these? I tell thee, Waltheof, if thou by timely return to thy sober senses dost frustrate the plottings of these men, thy memory will be green in the pages of the chroniclers, but if thou dost strengthen them in their folly, the ages will curse thee. Without thee they are powerless. It is thy name they conjure with, son of Siward. What Saxon would fight for Roger of Hereford, the son of their mightiest foe, or for the renegade, half-bred Ralph de Guader? Go now to Lanfranc, throw thyself at his feet, and all bloodshed will be stopped.'

And Waltheof groaned, and kissed the crucifix as she held it to his lips, for he was deeply religious after the wild manner of his times; humble in his faith, and little dreaming that the Saxon Church he loved so well would one day account him a martyr, and accord the power of miracle-working to the tomb in which his headless corse would repose, the trysting-place of countless pilgrims.

'I would not willingly bring further suffering on my unhappy country,' he said thoughtfully.

A gleam of triumph passed over the face of Judith, for the fury was gone from his voice, and she knew that she had conquered.