The Talisman & The Betrothed (Illustrated Edition). Walter Scott
She ventured to kiss her cheek, and throw her arms around Eveline’s neck while she spoke; but a mute caress, which expressed her sense of the faithful girl’s kind intentions to minister if possible to her repose, was the only answer returned. They remained for many minutes silent in the same posture,—Eveline, like an upright and tender poplar,—Rose, who encircled her lady in her arms, like the woodbine which twines around it.
At length Rose suddenly felt her young mistress shiver in her embrace, and then Eveline’s hand grasped her arm rigidly as she whispered, “Do you hear nothing?”
“No—nothing but the hooting of the owl,” answered Rose, timorously.
“I heard a distant sound,” said Eveline,—”I thought I heard it— hark, it comes again!—Look from the battlements, Rose, while I awaken the priest and thy father.”
“Dearest lady,” said Rose, “I dare not—what can this sound be that is heard by one only?—You are deceived by the rush of the river.”
“I would not alarm the castle unnecessarily,” said Eveline, pausing, “or even break your father’s needful slumbers, by a fancy of mine—But hark—I hear it again—distinct amidst the intermitting sounds of the rushing water—a low tremulous sound, mingled with a tinkling like smiths or armourers at work upon their anvils.”
Rose had by this time sprung up on the banquette, and flinging back her rich tresses of fair hair, had applied her hand behind her ear to collect the distant sound. “I hear it,” she cried, “and it increases—Awake them, for Heaven’s sake, and without a moment’s delay!”
Eveline accordingly stirred the sleepers with the reversed end of the lance, and as they started to their feet in haste, she whispered in a hasty but cautious voice, “To arms—the Welsh are upon us!” “What—where?” said Wilkin Flammock,—”where be they?”
“Listen, and you will hear them arming,” she replied.
“The noise is but in thine own fancy, lady,” said the Fleming, whose organs were of the same heavy character with his form and his disposition. “I would I had not gone to sleep at all, since I was to be awakened so soon.”
“Nay, but listen, good Flammock-the sound of armour comes from the northeast.”
“The Welsh lie not in that quarter, lady,” said Wilkin; “and besides, they wear no armour.”
“I hear it—I hear it!” said Father Aldrovand, who had been listening for some time. “All praise to St. Benedict!—Our Lady of the Garde Doloureuse has been gracious to her servants as ever!— It is the tramp of horses—it is the clash of armour—the chivalry of the Marches are coming to our relief-Kyrie Eleison!”
“I hear something too,” said Flammock,—”something like the hollow sound of the great sea, when it burst into my neighbour Klinkerman’s warehouse, and rolled his pots and pans against each other. But it were an evil mistake, father, to take foes for friends—we were best rouse the people.”
“Tush!” said the priest, “talk to me of pots and kettles?—Was I, squire of the body to Count Stephen Mauleverer for twenty years, and do I not know the tramp of a warhorse, or the clash of a mail-coat?—But call the men to the walls at any rate, and have me the best drawn up at the base-court—we may help them by a sally.”
“That will not be rashly undertaken with my consent,” murmured the Fleming; “but to the wall if you will, and 111 good time. But keep your Normans and English silent, Sir Priest, else their unruly and noisy joy will awaken the Welsh camp, and prepare them for their unwelcome visitors.”
The monk laid his finger on his lip in sign of obedience, and they parted in opposite directions, each to rouse the defenders of the castle, who were soon heard drawing from all quarters to their posts upon the walls, with hearts in a very different mood from that in which they had descended from them. The utmost caution being used to prevent noise, the manning of the walls was accomplished in silence, and the garrison awaited in, breathless expectation the success of the forces who were rapidly advancing to their relief.
The character of the sounds which now loudly awakened the silence of this eventful night, could no longer be mistaken. They were distinguishable from the rushing of a mighty river, or from the muttering sound of distant thunder, by the sharp and angry notes which the clashing of the rider’s arms mingled with the deep bass of the horses’ rapid tread. From the long continuance of the sounds, their loudness, and the extent of horizon from which they seemed to come, all in the castle were satisfied that the approaching relief consisted of several very strong bodies of horse. [Footnote: Even the sharp and angry clang made by the iron scabbards of modern cavalry ringing against the steel-tipp’d saddles and stirrup, betrays their approach from a distance. The clash of the armour of knights, armed cap-a-pie, must have been much more easily discernible.] At once this mighty sound ceased, as if the earth on which they trod had either devoured the armed squadrons or had become incapable of resounding to their tramp. The defenders of the Garde Doloureuse concluded that their friends had made a sudden halt, to give their horses breath, examine the leaguer of the enemy, and settle the order of attack upon them. The pause, however was but momentary.
The British, so alert at surprising their enemies, were themselves, on many occasions, liable to surprise. Their men were undisciplined, and sometimes negligent of the patient duties of the sentinel; and, besides, their foragers and flying parties, who scoured the country during the preceding day, had brought back tidings which had lulled them into fatal security. Their camp had been therefore carelessly guarded, and confident in the smallness of the garrison, they had altogether neglected the important military duty of establishing patrols and outposts at a proper distance from their main body. Thus the cavalry of the Lords Marchers, notwithstanding the noise which accompanied their advance, had approached very near the British camp without exciting the least alarm. But while they were arranging their forces into separate columns, in order to commence the assault, a loud and increasing clamour among the Welsh announced that they were at length aware of their danger. The shrill and discordant cries by which they endeavoured to assemble their men, each under the banner of his chief, resounded from their leaguer. But these rallying shouts were soon converted into screams, and clamours of horror and dismay, when the thundering charge of the barbed horses and heavily armed cavalry of the Anglo-Normans surprised their undefended camp.
Yet not even under circumstances so adverse did the descendants of the ancient Britons renounce their defence, or forfeit their old hereditary privilege, to be called the bravest of mankind. Their cries of defiance and resistance were heard resounding above the groans of the wounded, the shouts of the triumphant assailants, and the universal tumult of the night-battle. It was not until the morning light began to peep forth, that the slaughter or dispersion of Gwenwyn’s forces was complete, and that the “earthquake voice of victory” arose in uncontrolled and unmingled energy of exultation.
Then the besieged, if they could be still so termed, looking from their towers over the expanded country beneath, witnessed nothing but one widespread scene of desultory flight and unrelaxed pursuit. That the Welsh had been permitted to encamp in fancied security upon the hither side of the river, now rendered their discomfiture more dreadfully fatal. The single pass by which they could cross to the other side was soon completely choked by fugitives, on whose rear raged the swords of the victorious Normans. Many threw themselves into the river, upon the precarious chance of gaining the farther side, and, except a few, who were uncommonly strong, skilful, and active, perished among the rocks and in the currents; others, more fortunate, escaped by fords, with which they had accidentally been made acquainted; many dispersed, or, in small bands, fled in reckless despair towards the castle, as if the fortress, which had beat them off when victorious, could be a place of refuge to them in their present forlorn condition; while others roamed wildly over the plain, seeking only escape from immediate and instant danger, without knowing whither they ran.
The Normans, meanwhile, divided into small parties, followed and slaughtered them at pleasure; while, as a rallying point for the victors, the banner of Hugo de Lacy streamed from a small mount, on which Gwenwyn had lately pitched his