CHAPTER XIII.
THE PROGRESS.
"Great mountains on his right hand, Both does and roes, dun and red, And harts aye casting up the head. Bucks that brays and harts that hailes, And hindes running into the fields, And he saw neither rich nor poor, But moss and ling and bare wild moor."
SIR EGER, SIR GREYSTED, AND SIR GRYME.
In this life there was much of that peculiar charm which seems topervade all mankind, of whatever class or country, and in whateverhemisphere; which irresistibly impels him to return to his, perhaps,original and primitive state, as a nomadic being, a rover of theforest and the plain; which, while it often seduces the refined andcivilized man of cities to reject all the conveniences and luxuries ofpolite life, for the excitement and freshness, the inartificialliberty and self-confiding independence of semi-barbarism, has neverbeen known to allow the native savage to renounce his freeborninstincts, or to abandon his natural and truant disposition, for allthe advantage, all the powers, conferred by civilization.
And if, even to the freeborn and lofty-minded noble, the careless,unconventional, equalizing life of the forest was felt as giving astronger pulsation to the free heart, a wider expansion to the lungs,a deeper sense of freedom and power, how must not the same influenceshave been enjoyed by those, who now, for the first time since theywere born, tasted that mysterious thing, liberty--of which they had sooften dreamed, for which they had longed so wistfully, and of whichthey had formed, indeed, so indefinite an idea--for it is one of theparticulars in the very essence of liberty, as it is, perhaps, of thatkindred gift of God, health, that although all men talk of it as athing well understood and perfectly appreciated, not one man in tenunderstands or appreciates it in the least, unless he has once enjoyedit, and then been deprived of its possession.
It is true that, personally, neither Kenric nor Edith had ever knownwhat it is to be free; but they came of a free, nay! even of aneducated stock, and, being children of that Northern blood, whichnever has long brooked even the suspicion of slavery, and, in somesort, of the same race with their conquerors and masters, they hadnever ceased to feel the consciousness of inalienable rights; thegalling sense of injustice done them, of humiliating degradationinflicted on them, by their unnatural position among, but not of,their fellows; had never ceased to hope, to pray, and to labor for arestitution to those self-existing and immutable rights--the rights, Imean, of living for himself, laboring for himself, acquiring forhimself, holding for himself, thinking, judging, acting for himself,pleasing and governing himself, so long as he trench not on theself-same right of others--to which the meanest man that is born of awoman is entitled, from the instant when he is born into the world, asthe heir of God and nature.
The Saxon serf was, it is true, a being fallen, debased, partiallybrutalized, deprived of half the natural qualities of manhood, by thestate of slavery, ignorance, and imbecility, into which he had beendeforced, and in which he was willfully detained by his masters; buthe had not yet become so utterly degraded, so far depressed below thelowest attributes of humanity, as to acquiesce in his own debasement,much less to rejoice in his bondage for the sake of the flesh-pots ofEgypt, or to glory in his chains, and honor the name of master.
From this misery, from this last perversion and profanation of thehuman intellect divine--the being content to be a slave--the Saxonserf had escaped thus far; and, thanks to the great God of nature, ofrevelation, that last curse, that last profanation, he escapedforever. His body the task-master had enslaved; his intellect he hademasculated, debased, shaken, but he had not killed it; for there,there, amid the dust and ashes of the all-but-extinguished fire, therelurked alive, ready to be enkindled by a passing breath into adevouring flame, the sacred spark of liberty.
Ever hoping, ever struggling to be free, when the day dawned offreedom, the Saxon slave was fit to be free, and became free, with nofierce outbreak of servile rage and vengeance, consequent on servileemancipation, but with the calm although enthusiastical gladness whichfitted him to become a freeman, a citizen, and, as he is, the masterof one half of the round world. It is not, ah! it is not the chain, itis not the lash, it is not the daily toil, it is not the disruption ofdomestic ties and affections, that prove, that constitute the sin, thesorrow, and the shameful reproach of slavery.
Ah! no. But it is the very converse of these--the very point insistedon so complacently, proclaimed so triumphantly, by the advocates ofthis accursed thing--it is that, in spite of the chain, in spite ofthe lash, in spite of the enforced labor, in spite of the absence ordisruption of family ties and affections, the slave is sleek,satisfied, self-content; that he waxes fat among the flesh-pots; thathe comes fawning to the smooth words, and frolics, delighted, freshfrom the lash of his master, in no wise superior to the spaniel,either in aspiration or in instinct. It is in that he envies not thefree man his freedom, but, in his hideous lack of all self-knowledge,self-reliance, self-respect, is content to be a slave, content to eat,and grow fat and die, without a present concern beyond the avoidanceof corporeal pain and the enjoyment of sensual pleasure, without anaspiration for the future, beyond those of the beasts, which graze andperish.
It is in this that lies the mortal sin, the never-dying reproach, ofhim who would foster, would preserve, would propagate, the curse ofslavery; not that he is a tyrant over the body, but that he is adestroyer of the soul--that he would continue a state of things whichreduces a human being, a fellow-man, whether of an inferior race orno--for, as of congenerous cattle there are many distinct tribes, soof men, and of Caucasian men too, there be many races, distinct inphysical, in moral, in animal, in intellectual qualities, as well asin color and conformation, if not distinct in origin--to the level ofthe beast which knoweth not whence he cometh or whither he goeth, norwhat is to him for good, or what for evil, which hopes not to rise orto advance, either here or hereafter, but toils day after day,contented with his daily food, and lies down to sleep, and rises up tolabor and to feed, as if God had created man with no higher purposethan to sleep and eat alternately, until the night cometh from which,on earth, there shall be no awakening.
But of this misery the Saxon serf was exempt: and, to do him justice,of this reproach was the Norman conqueror exempt also. Of the use ofarms, and the knowledge of warfare, he indeed deprived his serfs, foras they outnumbered him by thousands in the field, equalled him inresolution, perhaps excelled him in physical strength, to grant suchknowledge would have been to commit immediate suicide--but of no otherknowledge, least of all of the knowledge that leads to immortality,did he strive to debar him. Admittance to holy orders was patent tothe lowest Saxon, and in those days the cloister was the gate to allknowledge sacred or profane, to all arts, all letters, allrefinements, and above all to that knowledge which is the greatestpower--the knowledge of dealing with the human heart, to governit--the knowledge, which so often set the hempen sandal of the Saxonmonk upon the mailed neck of the Norman king, and which, in the veryreign of which I write, had raised a low-born man of the common Saxonrace to be Archbishop of Canterbury, the keeper of the conscience ofthe king, the primate, and for a time the very ruler of the realm.
Often, indeed, did the superior knowledge of the cowled Saxon avengeon his masters the wrongs of his enslaved brethren; and while thelearned priesthood of the realm were the brethren of its most abjectslaves, no danger that those slaves should ever become whollyignorant, hopeless, or degraded--and so it was seen in the end; forthat very knowledge which it was permitted to the servile race togain, while it taught them to cherish and fitted them to deservefreedom, in the end won it for them; at the expense of no floods ofnoble blood, through the sordure and soil of no savage Saturnalia,such as marked the emancipation alike of the white serfs ofrevolutionized France, and the black slaves of disenthralled St.Domingo.
And so it was seen in the deportment of Kenric the serf, and of theslave girl Edith, even in these first days of their newly-acquiredfreedom.
Self-respect they had never los
t altogether; and their increased senseof it was shown in the increased gravity and calmness and becomingnessof their deportment.
Slaves may be merry, or they may be sullen. But they can not bethoughtful, or calm, or careworn. The French, while they werefeudal slaves, before the Revolution, were the blithest, the mostthoughtless, the merriest, and most frolicsome, of mortals; they hadno morrows for which to take care, no liberties which to study, norights which to guard. The English peasant was then, as the French isfast becoming now, grave rather than frivolous, a thinker more than afiddler, a doer very much more than a dancer. Was he, is he, the lesshappy, the less respectable, the lower in the scale of intellect, thathe is the farther from the monkey, and the nearer to the man?
The merriment, the riotous glee, the absolute abandonment of theplantation African to the humor, the glee of the moment, isunapproached by any thing known of human mirthfulness.
The gravity, the concentrated thought, the stern abstractedness,the careworn aspect of the free American is proverbial--the firstthing observable in him by foreigners. He has more to guard, moreat which to aspire, more on which he prides himself, at times almostboastfully, more for which to respect himself, at times almost to thecontempt of others, than any mortal man, his co-equal, under any otherform of government, on any other soil. Is he the less happy for hiscares, or would he change them for the recklessness of the well-clad,well-fed slave--for the thoughtlessness of the first subject in adespotic kingdom?
Kenric had been always a thinker, though a serf; his elder brother hadbeen a monk, a man of strong sense and some attainment; his mother hadbeen the daughter of one who had known, if he had lost, freedom. Withhis mother's milk he had imbibed the love of freedom; from hisbrother's love and teachings he had learned what a freeman should be;by his own passionate and energetic will he had determined to becomefree. He would have become so ere long, had not accident anticipatedhis resolve; for he had laid by, already, from the earnings of hisleisure hours, above one half of the price whereby to purchaseliberty. He was now even more thoughtful and calmer; but his step wasfreer, his carriage bolder, his head was erect. He was neither afraidto look a freeman in the eye, nor to render meet deference to hissuperior. For the freeman ever knows, nor is ashamed to acknowledge,that while the equality of man in certain rights, which may be called,for lack of a better title, natural and political, is co-existent withhimself, inalienable, indefeasible, immutable, and eternal, there isno such thing whatever, nor can ever be, as the equality of man inthings social, more than there can be in personal strength, grace, orbeauty, in the natural gifts of intellect, or in the development ofwisdom. Of him who boasts that he has no superior, it may almost besaid that he has few inferiors.
Thereof Kenric--as he rode along with his harness on his back, and hisweapons in his hand, a freeman among freemen, a feudal retainer amongthe retainers, some Norman, some Saxon, of his noble lord--was neitherlouder, nor noisier, nor more exultant, perhaps the reverse, than hiswont, though happier far than he had conceived it possible for him tobe.
And by his bearing, his comrades and fellows judged him, and ruledtheir own bearing toward him. The Saxons of the company naturallyrejoiced to see their countryman free by his own merit, and, seeinghim in all things their equal, gladly admitted him to be so. Thehaughtier Normans, seeing that he bore his bettered fortunes asbecame a man, ready for either fortune, admitted him as one whohad won his freedom bravely, and wore it as if it had been his fromhis birth--they muttered beneath their thick mustaches, that hedeserved to be a Norman.
Edith, on the contrary, young yet, and unusually handsome, who hadbeen the pet of her own people, and the favorite of her princelymasters, who had never undergone any severe labor, nor suffered anypoignant sorrow, who knew nothing of the physical hardships ofslavery, more than she did of the real and tangible blessings ofliberty, had ever been as happy and playful as a kitten, and astuneful as a bird among the branches.
But now her voice was silent of spontaneous song, subdued inconversation, full fraught with a suppressed deeper feeling. The verybeauty of the fair face was changed, soberer, more hopeful, fartherseeing, full no longer of an earthly, but more with something of anangel light.
The spirit had spoken within her, the statue had learned that it had asoul.
And Guendolen had noted, yet not fully understood the change or itsnature. More than once she had called her to her bridle-rein andconversed with her, and tried to draw her out, in vain. At last, sheput the question frankly--
"You are quieter, Edith, calmer, sadder, it seems to me," she said,"than I have ever seen you, since I first came to Waltheofstow. I havedone all that lies in me to make you happy, and I should be sorry thatyou were sad or discontented."
"Sad, discontented! Oh! no, lady, no!" she replied, smiling among hertears. "Only too happy--too happy, to be loud or joyous. All happiestthings, I think, have a touch of melancholy in them. Do you think,lady, yonder little stream," pointing to one which wound along by theroadside, now dancing over shelvy rapids, now sleeping in silenteddies, "is less happy where it lies calm and quiet, reflectingheaven's face from its deep bosom, and smiling with its hundredtranquil dimples, than where it frolics and sings among the pebbles,or leaps over the rocks which toss it into noisy foam-wreaths? No!lady, no. There it gathers its merriment and its motion, from the mereforce of outward causes; here it collects itself from the depth of itsown heart, and manifests its joy and love, and thanks God in silence.It is so with me, Lady Guendolen. My heart is too full for music, butnot too shallow to reflect boundless love and gratitude forever."
The lady smiled, and made some slight reply, but she was satisfied;for it was evident that the girl's poetry and gratitude both camedirect from her heart; and in the smile of the noble demoiselle therewas a touch of half-satiric triumph, as she turned her quick glance toSir Yvo, who had heard all that passed, and asked him, slyly, "And doyou, indeed, think, gentle father, that these Saxons are so hopelesslyinferior, that they are fitting for nothing but mere toil; or is thisthe mere inspiration that springs from the sense of freedom?"
"I think, indeed," he replied, "that my little Guendolen is but aspoiled child at the best; and, as to my thoughts in regard to theSaxons, them I shall best consult my peace of mind and pocket bykeeping my own property; since, by our Lady's Grace! you may take itinto your head to have all the serfs in the north emancipated; andthat is a little beyond my powers of purchase. But see, Guendolen, seehow the sunbeams glint and glitter yonder on the old tower of Barden,and how redly it stands out from those purple clouds which loom sodark and thunderous over the peaceful woods of Bolton. Give yourjennet her head, girl, and let her canter over these fair meadows,that we may reach the abbey and taste the noble prior's hospitalitybefore the thunder gust is upon us."
And quickening its pace, the long train wound its way upward, by thebright waters of the beautiful Wharfe, and speedily obtained theshelter, and the welcome they expected from the good and generousmonks of Bolton, the noblest abbaye in the loveliest dale of all thebroad West Riding.
The next morning found them traversing the broken green country thatlies about the head of the romantic Eyre, and threading the wildpasses of Ribbledale, beneath the shadow of the misty peaks ofPennigant and Ingleborough, swathed constantly in volumed vapor,whence the clanging cry of the eagle, as he wheeled far beyond the kenof mortal eyes, came to the ears of the voyagers, on whom he lookedsecurely down as he rode the storm.
That night, no castle or abbey, no village even, with its humblehostelry, being, in those days, to be found among those wild fells anddeep valleys, bowers were built of the materials with which thehillsides were plentifully feathered throughout that sylvan andmountainous district, of which the old proverbial distich holds goodto this very day:
"O! the oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree, They flourish best at home in the north countree."
Young sprouts of the juniper, soft ferns, and the delicious purpleheather, now in its most luxurious flush of summer
bloom and perfume,furnished agreeable and elastic couches; and, as the stores carried bythe sumpter mules had been replenished by the large hospitality of theprior of Bolton, heronshaw and egret, partridge and moorgame, wildfowland venison, furnished forth their board, with pasties of carp andeels, and potted trout and char from the lakes whither they werewending, and they fared most like crowned heads within the precinctsof a royal city, there, under the shadow of the gray crags and barestorm-beaten brow of bleak Whernside, there where, in this nineteenthcentury, the belated wayfarer would deem himself thrice happy, if hesecured the rudest supper of oat-cakes and skim-milk cheese, with adraught of thin ale, the luxuries of the hardy agricultural populationof the dales.
Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest Page 15
