CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BRIDAL DAY.

"The roads should blossom, the roads should bloom, So fair a bride shall leave her home! Should blossom and bloom with garlands gay, So fair a bride shall pass to-day."

LONGFELLOW.

The dark winter months, with their alternate snows, sheeting the wide moorlands, and roofing the mighty mountain-tops of the lake country with inviolate white, and soft thaws swelling the streamlets into torrents, inundating the grassy meadows, and converting the mountain tarns into inland seas, had passed away; nor passed away all gloomily, or without their appropriate and peculiar pleasures, from the sojourners in Hawkshead Castle.

All over Merrie England, but in no part of it more than in the north country, was Christmas the gladdest and the blythest time of all the circling year; when every door stood open, from that of the baron's castle and the franklin's hall to that of the poorest cotter's cabin; when the yule log was kindled, and the yule candle lighted; when the furmety smoked on every English board, and the wassail bowl was spiced for all comers; when the waits sang Christmas carols under the clear cold moon in the frosty midnights, and the morris-dancers and the mummers rioted and reveled to the rude minstrelsy of the time, and made the most of the short-lived wintery sunshine; when ancient feuds were often reconciled, and ancient friendships riveted by closer ties; when families long dissevered were re-collected and re-united about the old ancestral hearth-stones; when the noble and the rich filled their abundant halls with sumptuous luxury and loud-rejoicing merriment, and the poor were not forgotten by the great.

Indeed, though there was much that was coarse and rude, much that was hard, cruel, and oppressive, in the social life of England, in those old and almost forgotten days, there was much also that was good and generous and genial, much that was sound and hearty, much that was brave and hale and masculine, which has vanished and departed from the world forever, with the vaunted progress of civilization and refinement,

In those old times When the Christmas chimes Were a merry sound to hear, When the squire's wide hall, And the cottage small, Were full of good English cheer.

Above all, there was this great redeeming virtue, conspicuous among the flagrant wrongs and innate evils of society under the feudal system, that between the governors and the governed, between the lord and his lieges, nay, even between the master and his serfs, there was then no such social gulf established, as now yawns, in these boasted days of civilizing progress and political equality, between castes and classes, separated by little else than their worth, estimated by the standard of gold--gold, which seems, daily and hourly, more and more to be over-riding all distinctions of honored ancestry, high name, noble deeds, personal deserts, nay, even of distinguished bearing, of intellect, of education, of accomplishment, much more of truth, integrity or honor.

During these wintery months, accordingly, there had been all the free, open-hearted hospitality of the day, displayed throughout the wide manors of Hawkshead, Coniston, and Yewdale, and in the neighboring demesnes of Rydal, and something more even than the wonted merriment and joviality of that sacred yet joyous season.

Many of the grand baronial families of the vicinity, attracted as much, perhaps, by the singular and romantic interest attaching to the great events, which had filled all the north country with the rumor of their fame as with the blast of a martial trumpet, as by the ties of caste and kindred, had visited the castle palace of Sir Yvo de Taillebois, almost in the guise of bridal guests; for the approaching nuptials of the fair Guendolen with Aradas the Brave were openly announced, although the ceremonial was deferred until the balmy days of spring-time, and the genial month of May. The Cliffords of Barden, the Howards, from Naworth and Carlisle, the Percy, from his already famous strength of Alnwick, the Scropes, the Umfravilles, the Nevilles, from their almost royal principality of Middleham on the Ure, had all in turn tasted the Christmas cheer, and shared the older sports of Yule, in the wild recesses of Kendale; had congratulated the young and noble victor on his double conquest, scarce knowing which was most to be envied, that of the felon knight in the black lists of Lancaster, or that of the soft ladye in the sweetest valley of the lone lake country.

But now, the wintery days had passed away, the snipe was heard drumming every where on vibrated pinions, as he soared and dived in mid-air over the deep morasses, in which he annually bred unmolested; the swallows had returned from their unknown pilgrimage to the spicy isles of ocean, or the central waters of untrodden Africa, and might be seen skimming with rapid wing, the blue mirror of Winandermere, and dimpling its surface in pursuit of their insect prey; the cuckoo had been heard in the birch-woods among the ghylls, and in the huge sycamores around the village garths; the heathcocks blew their clarion call of amorous defiance from every heath-clad knoll of the wide moorlands; the cushat had donned the iris hues which paint his swelling neck in the spring days of love and courtship; the meadows were alive with crocuses, brown-streaked and purple, white and golden; the snow-drops had raised their silvery bells, almost before the earth was clear of its winter covering; the primroses gemmed all the banks with their pale saffron blossoms, the air was redolent with the delicious perfume of the violets.

It was the eve of May, and as the sun was setting over the misty hills that keep guard over high Yewdale, amid a long and joyous train, dragged slowly by ten yoke of milk-white oxen, with nosegays on their horns, and branches of the fragrant May canopying their harness, escorted by troops of village girls, and stout hill shepherds, dancing along and caroling to the cadence of the pipe, the tabor, and the rebeck, the mighty Maypole was brought in triumph up the weary winding road to the green esplanade before the castle gates of Hawkshead; and there, before midnight, was swung into its place, crowned with garlands, and fluttering with gay streamers, and glad with the leafy garniture of Spring, "shrouds and stays holding it fast," holding it erect toward heaven, an emblem of that which never can, whatever fanatics and bigots may declare, be unacceptable on High, the innocent and pure rejoicings of humble loving hearts, forgetting toil and care, and casting away sorrow for one happy day, at least, the merriest and the maddest of the three hundred and sixty-five, which sum the checkered score of man's annual vicissitudes of labor and repose, brief merriment and lasting sorrow.

During the night deep silence and deep slumber fell like a shadow over keep and cottage, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the vernal night, unless it were the quavering cry of some night-bird among the tufted woods, or the shrill bark of the hill fox from the mountain side, or the deep harmonious call "All's well," from the warder on the lofty battlements.

But long before the paly dawn had begun to throw its faint yellow glimmer up the eastern sky, while the moon was yet riding lustrous in the cloudless azure, with the morning-star flashing like a diamond by her side, many a cottage door in the silent hamlet, many a one on the gentle slopes of the green hill sides, many a one in the broad pastoral valley, was unbolted, and revolved on noiseless hinges, to send forth the peasant maids, in shy yet merry bands to gather, with many a mystic rite and ceremonial borrowed, unknown to them, from the mythology of other lands, when Flora ruled the month of flowers, to gather the puissant dews of May.

When the sun rose fair above the eastern hills,

"With blessings on his broad and burnished face,"

his appearance was welcomed by such a burst of joyous and hilarious music from the battlements, as never before had waked the echoes of Scafell and Skiddaw. In that triumphant gush of music there were blended, not only the resounding clangor of the Norman kettle-drums and trumpets, with the clear notes of the mellow bugle, but the tones of a thousand instruments, scarce known on English soil, having been introduced only by the Crusaders from those Oriental climates, in which music is indigenous and native, and from which the retainers of Sir Yvo de Taillebois had imported, not the instruments only but the skill necessary to give them utterance and expression, and the very airs to which, in the cedar-vales, and among the haunted hills of Palestine, they had of old been vocal.

The musical chime of many bells attuned, the silver clash of the cymbals, the roll of the Syrian atabals, the soft tones of the lute, and shrill strains of the Eastern reed-pipes, were blended strangely, but most sonorously with the stirring war-notes of the west. And instantly, as if awakened from sleep by that rejoicing strain, the little chapel bells of Bowness began to tinkle with small merry chimes, across the bright blue lake; and answering, yet further in the distance, though still clearly audible, so apt to the conveyance of sounds is the tranquillity and the clear vibrating air of those mountain regions, the full carillon of the magnificent Abbey of Kendal the stately ruins of which are still extant, as if to teach us boastful men of modern days, the superiority of our semi-barbarous ancestors, as we have the vanity to term them, rang out, proclaiming to the sparse population of the dales,

"How fair a bride shall wed to-day."

Around the Maypole on the green, already were assembled, not the vassals only of the great baron, his free-tenants and his serfs, rejoicing in one happy holiday, and in the prospect of gorging themselves ere nightfall throat-full of solid dainties and sound ale, but half the population of the adjacent valleys, hill-farmers, statesmen, as the small land-holders are still called in those unsophisticated districts, burghers from the neighboring towns, wandering monks and wandering musicians, a merry, motley multitude, all in their best attire, all wearing bright looks and light hearts, and expecting, as it would seem from the eager looks directed constantly toward the castle gates, the forthcoming of some spectacle or pageant, on which their interest was fixed.

Two or three Welsh harpers, who had been lured from their Cambrian wilds by the far-spread report of the approaching festivities, and by the hope of gaining silver guerdon from the bounty of the splendid Normans, were seated on a grassy knoll, not far from the tall garlanded mast, which made itself conspicuous as the emblem--as, perhaps, in former ages, it had been the idol--of the day, and from time to time drew from the horse-hair strings of their rude harps some of those sweet, wild, melancholy airs which are still characteristic of the genius of the Kymric race, which still recall the hours

"When Arthur ruled and Taliessin sung;"

but neither to them, nor to the indigenous strains, more agreeable perhaps to their untutored ears, of two native crowders of the dales, who were dragging out strange discords from the wires of their rude violins--nor yet to the more captivating and popular arts of three or four foreign jongleurs, with apes and gitterns--the Savoyards of that remote age, though coming at that day not from the valleys of the lower Alps, but from the western shores of Normandy and Morbihan--did the eager crowd vouchsafe much of their attention, or many of their pennies.

There was a higher interest awake, a more earnest expectation, and these were brought to their climax, when, just as the castle bell tolled eight, the wild and startling blast of a single trumpet rose clear and keen from the inner court, and the great gates flew open.

A gay and gallant sight it was, which, as the heavy drawbridge descended, the huge portcullis slowly rose, creaking and clanking, up its grooves of stone, and the iron-studded portals yawned, revealed itself to the eyes of the by-standers; and loud and hearty was the cheer which it evoked from the assembled multitude.

The whole inner court was thronged with men and horses, gayly clad, lightly armed, and splendidly caparisoned; and, as obedient to the signals of the officers who marshaled them, the vaunt-couriers of the company rode out, four by four, arrayed in Kendal green, with the silver badges and blue sarsenet scarfs of their lord, and white satin favors with long silver streamers, waving from their bonnets, the gleam of embroideries and the fluttering of female garments might be discovered within the long-withdrawing avenue. Four hundred strong, the retainers of the high-sheriff, swept forward, with bow and spear, and were succeeded by a herald in his quartered tabard, and a dozen pursuivants with trumpets.

Behind these came, in proud procession, six tall priests, nobly mounted on ambling palfreys, each bearing a gilded cross, and then the crozier of the abbot of Furness Abbaye, followed by that proud prelate, with his distinctive, hierarchal head-tire, cope, and dalmatique, and all the splendid paraphernalia of his sacred feudal dignity, supported by all his clergy in their full canonicals, and a long train of monks and choristers, these waving perfumed chalices, those raising loud and clear the hymns appointed for the ceremonial.

A hundred gentlemen of birth and station, on foot, bare-headed, clad in the liveries of the house of Taillebois, blue velvet slashed and lined with cloth of silver laid down on white satin, came next, the escort of the bridal party, and were followed by a multitude of beautiful girls, dressed in virgin white, strewing flowers before the feet of the bride's palfrey.

But when she appeared, mounted on a snow-white Andalusian jennet, whose tail and mane literally swept the ground in waves of silver, in her robes of white sendal and cloth of silver, with the bridal head-tire of long-descending gauzy fillets floating around her like a wreath of mist about a graceful cypress, and her long auburn ringlets disheveled in their mazes of bright curls, powdered with diamond dust and garlanded with virgin roses, the very battlements shook to the shouts of applause, which made the banners toss and rustle as if a storm-wind smote them.

Two pages, dressed in cloth of silver, tended her bridle-reins on either hand, and two more bore up the long emblazoned foot-cloths of white and silver, which would otherwise have embarrassed the paces of the beautiful and docile steed which bore her, timing its tread to the soft symphony of lutes and dulcimers which harbingered the progress; while no less than six belted knights, with their chains of gold about their necks, bore the staves of the satin canopy, or baldacchino, which sheltered her fair beauties from the beams of the blythe May morning.

Twelve bridesmaids, all of noble birth, mounted like herself on snow-white palfreys, all robed and filleted in white and silver, and garlanded with pale blush roses, nymphs worthy of the present goddess, bridled and blushed behind her. And there, radiant with love and triumph, making his glorious charger--a red roan, with a mane and tail white and redundant as the surges of the creamy sea--caracole, and bound from the dull earth in sobresaults, croupades and balotades, which would have crazed a professor of equitation with admiration, apart from envy, rode Aradas de Ratcliffe, with his twelve groom's-men glittering with gems, and glorious with silk upon silk, silver upon silver.

Sir Yvo de Taillebois, with twenty or thirty of the greatest barons of the north country, his cotemporaries, and many of them his brothers-in-arms, and fellows at the council-table of their puissant Norman monarch, whom they admitted only to be first baron of the English barons, _primus inter pares_, brought up the rear of the procession, while yet behind them filed a long band of spears and pennoncelles, and again after these a countless multitude, from all the country side, rejoicing and exulting, to form a portion of the pageant which added so much to the customary pleasures of the Maying.

Thus, for miles, they swept onward through the pleasant meadow-land, tufted and gemmed with unnumbered flowers, between tall hedges white with the many-blossomed May, and overrun with flaunting clusters of the delicious woodbine.

Once and again they were met by troops of country girls scattering flowers, and as often rode beneath triumphal arches, deftly framed of green leaves and gay wild-flowers by rustic hands, in token of the heart's gratitude, until they reached the shores of the blue lake, where Sir Yvo's yacht awaited them, convoyed by every barque and boat that could be pressed into the service from all the neighboring meres and lakelets of the county.

The wind blew fair and soft, and swelled the sails of cloth of silver, and waved the long azure pennants forward, as omens of happy days ahead; and smoothly over the rippling waters, to the sound of the soft bridal music, galleys and horse-boats, barques and barges, careered in fair procession, while the great multitude, afoot, rushed, like an entering tide, through the horse-roads and lanes around the head of the lake, eager to share the wedding-feast and the wedding dance, at least, if not to witness the nuptial ceremonial.

At Bowness they took horse again, and escorted by the bailiff and burghers of Kendall, proceeded, at an increased pace, to the splendid Abbey Church, dim with the religious light which streamed through its deeply tinted window-panes, and was yet further obscured by the thick clouds from the tossed chalices of incense, through which swelled, like an angel's choir, the pure chant of girls and children, and the deep diapason of the mighty organ.

The nuptial ceremony was followed by a feast fit for kings, served up in the grand hall of Kendal Castle, wherein, before the Norman conquest, the proud Saxon Earls, Morcar and Edwin, maternal ancestors of the fair bride, had banqueted and rioted in state, and where, as tradition related, they had held revel for the last time on the eve of their departure for the fatal field of Hastings, fatal to Saxon liberty, but harbinger of a prouder era, and first cause and creatrix of a nobler race, to rule in Merrie England.

It needs not, here, to dwell on the strange dainties, the now long-disused and unaccustomed viands and beverages of those old days, more than on the romantic feudal usages and abstruse ceremonials of the day; suffice it that, to their palates, heronshaw, egret and peacock, venison and boar's-meat, and chines of the wild bull, were no less dainty than the choicest of our modern luxuries to the beaux and belles of the nineteenth century; and that hypocras and pigment, morat and mead and clary, made the pulses burn and the cheeks mantle as blythely and as brightly as Champagne or Burgundy. The ball, for the nobles in the castle-hall, for the commons on the castle-green, followed the feast; but not till the stocking had been thrown, and the curtain drawn, and the beautiful bride fairly bedded, was the nuptial ceremony esteemed fully ended, which gave the lovely Guendolen, for weal and not for woe, to the brave and faithful Aradas de Ratcliffe.

The raptures of lovers are not to be described; and if the pen of the ready-writer may gain inspiration to delineate the workings of strong mental passions, of intense moral or physical excitements, to depict stormy wrath, the agonies of hope deferred, the slow-consuming pangs of hopeless regret, there is one thing that must ever defy his powers of representation--the calm enjoyment of every-day domestic happiness; the easy and unvarying pleasures of contentment; the placid routine of hourly duties, hourly delights, hourly labors, hourly affections; and that soft intermixture of small cares and passing sorrows, with great blessings tasted, and great gratitudes due, which make up the sum of the most innocent and blessed human life.

And such was the life of Sir Aradas and the fair Guendolen de Ratcliffe, until, to borrow the quaint phrase of the narrator of those incomparable tales of the Thousand and One Nights, "they were visited by the terminator of delights, and the separator of companions. Extolled be the perfection of the Living, who dieth not!"

Sir Yvo de Taillebois lived long enough to see his child's children gathered to his knee; to prognosticate, in their promise, fresh honors to his high-born race; but not so long as to outlive his intellect, his powers to advise, console, enjoy, and, above all, to trust in God. Full of years and full of honors, he was gathered to his fathers in the ripeness of his time, and he sleeps in a quiet churchyard in his native valley, where a green oak-tree shades his ashes, and the ever-vocal music of the rippling Kent sings his sweet, natural requiem.

Eadwulf the Red never recovered from the starvation and exposure endured in his escape and subsequent wanderings; and, though he received the priceless boon of liberty, and the king's free pardon for his crimes, though he passed his declining days in the beautiful cottage nigh Kentmere, with his noble brother, his fair wife, and all the treasured little ones about him, who grew up like olive-branches round Kenric's happy, honored board, with every thing to soothe his stubborn heart and soften his morose and bitter spirit, he lived and died a gloomy, disappointed, bitter, and bad-hearted man, a victim in some sort of the vicious and cruel system which had debased his soul more even than it had degraded his body.

Yet it was not in that accursed system, altogether; for the gallant and good Kenric, and his sweet wife, Edith the Fair, were living proofs, even, as the noble poet sings--

"That gentleness and love and trust Prevail o'er angry wave and gust;"

and it was no less "the spur, that the clear spirit doth raise," than the grand force of that holiest Saxon institution, Trial by Jury, that raised Kenric from a Saxon serf to be an English freeman.

End of Project Gutenberg's Wager of Battle, by Henry William Herbert