The House of Walderne | Page 4

priest as chaplain; without either font or bell."
It was granted upon the condition that to avoid any appearance of schism, she should attend the parish church in state with her whole household thrice in the year.
Six Hundred Years Ago: they have all been dead and buried these six centuries; a dense wood, within which the moat can be traced, covers the site of Sybil's castle and chapel, yet in these old records they seem to live again. A sojourner for a brief summer holiday amidst their former haunts--the same yet so changed--the writer has striven to revivify the dry bones, and to make the family live again in the story he now presents to his readers.
Chapter 1
: The Knight And Squire.
The opening scene of our tale is a wild tract of common land, interspersed with forest and heath, which lies northward at the foot of the eastern range of the Sussex downs. The time is the year of grace twelve hundred and fifty and three; the month a cold and seasonable January. The wild heath around is crisp with frost and white with snow, it appears a dense solitude; away to the east lies the town of Hamelsham, or Hailsham; to the west the downs about Lewes; to the south, at a short distance, one sees the lofty towers and monastic buildings of a new and thriving community, surrounded by a broad and deep moat; to the north copse wood, brake, heath, dell, and dense forest, in various combinations and endless variety, as far as the lodge of Cross in Hand, so called from the crusaders who took the sacred sign in their hands, and started for the earthly Jerusalem not so many years agone.
Across this waste, as the dark night was falling, rode a knight and his squire. The knight was a man of some fifty years of age, but still strong, tall, and muscular; his dark features indicated his southern blood, and an indescribable expression and manner told of one accustomed to command. His face bore the traces of scars, doubtless honourably gained; seen beneath a scarlet cap, lined with steel, but trimmed with fur. A flexible coat of mail, so cunningly wrought as to offer no more opposition to the movements of the wearer than a greatcoat might nowadays, was covered with a thick cloak or mantle, in deference to the severity of the weather; the thighs were similarly protected by linked mail, and the hose and boots defended by unworked plates of thin steel. In his girdle was a dagger, and from the saddle depended, on one side, a huge two-handed sword, on the other a gilded battle axe.
It was, in short, a knight of the olden time, who thus travelled through this dangerous country, alone with his squire, who bore his master's lance and carried his small triangular shield, broad at the summit to protect the breast, but thence diminishing to a point.
"Dost thou know, my Stephen, thy way through this desolate country? for verily the traces of the road are but slight."
"My lord, the night grows darker, and the air seems full of snow. Had we not better return and seek shelter within the walls of Hamelsham? I fear we have lost the way utterly, and shall never reach Michelham Priory tonight."
"Nay, the motives that led me forth to face the storm still press upon me, I must reach Michelham tonight."
An angry hollow gust of wind almost impeded his further progress as he spoke, and choked his utterance.
"An inhospitable reception England affords us, after an absence of so many years. Methinks I like Gascony the better in regard to climate."
"For five happy years have I followed thy banner there, my lord."
"Yet I love England better, foreign although my blood, or I had thought more of the French king's offer."
"It was a noble offer, my lord."
"To be regent of an unquiet realm while my revered suzerain and friend, Louis, went upon his crusade--mark me, Stephen, England has higher destinies than France; this land is fated to be the mother of a race of freemen such as once ruled the world from Rome of old. The union of the long hostile races, Norman and English, is producing a people which shall in time rule the world; and if I can do aught to help to lay the foundation of such a polity as befits the union, please God, I shall feel well repaid: in short, Leicester is a dearer name to me than Montfort; England than France."
"Thy noble father, my lord, adorned the latter country."
"God grant he has not left an inheritance of judgment to his children; the cries of the slaughtered Albigenses ever rang in my poor mother's ears, and ring too often in mine."
"I have never heard the story fairly told."
"Thou shalt now. The