The Truce of God. George Henry Miles
THE TRUCE OF GOD
CHAPTER I
Of ancient deeds so long forgot;
Of feuds whose memory was not;
Of forests now laid waste and bare;
Of towers which harbor now the hare;
Of manners long since changed and gone;
Of chiefs who under their gray stone
So long had slept, that fickle fame
Hath blotted from her rolls their name.
SCOTT.
Reader! if your mind, harassed with the cares of a utilitarian age, require an hour of recreation; if a legend of a far different and far distant day have aught that can claim your sympathy or awaken your attention; if the "Dark Ages" be to you Ages of Faith, or even lit with the gray morning-light of civilization, come wander back with me beyond the experimental revolution of the sixteenth century, to the time when the Gothic temples of the living God were new.
It was the eleventh century: the sun shone as brightly then as now; ay, and virtue too, though sympathy for a lustful tyrant has stamped the age with infamy. Through an extensive forest in Suabia, as the old chronicle from which I copy relates, a gallant youth was urging on, with voice and rein, a steed that seemed as bold and fiery as his rider. The youth's flashing eye, and the spear in his hand, told clearly enough that the boar was before him. On he went, as if the forest were his element, now bending low beneath the knotted bough, now swerving aside from the stern old trunk which sturdily opposed his progress, and seemed to mock him as he passed. On he went, as if danger were behind and safety before him; as if he galloped to save his own life, not to risk it in taking a boar's. An angry bark and a fearful howl rang in the distance, and the hunter's bugle sounded a merry blast. On he went, faster than before, and now as if he sought his mortal foe. The boar was at bay; monarch of the wood, he had turned to defend his realm, and his white tusks were soon red with the blood of the noble hounds who fearlessly disputed his right. The youth leaped from his horse with the speed of thought. Bred to the chase, the well-trained animal stood firm while his master cautiously, but with the calmness of the victor of a hundred frays, advanced against the bristling monster. Quitting the dogs for this new assailant, the boar came madly on; the huntsman sank upon one knee, and so true was his eye, and so firm his hand, that the heart of the savage was cloven by the spear. The youth rose to his feet, dizzy from the shock, and, springing nimbly upon the grim body of his prostrate victim, his fine form swelling with the rapture of his recent triumph, brought his horn to his lips, and again its notes went ringing merrily through the woods.
Echoes, like fading memories, growing fainter and fainter as they receded, gave the only response.
"Where can they be?" said the youth, "their steeds were fleet. Out of sight and out of hearing! How completely I have beaten them."
He laughed triumphantly as he said this, and, sitting down upon the long grass, began to caress an enormous hound that panted at his feet, as unconcernedly as though the forest now contained nothing more formidable than doves or lambs. His horse, thoroughly domesticated, strayed a little from the dead boar, feeding as it went.
The youth took off his plumed bonnet, and, flinging back his long black hair, fell into one of those light, smiling day-dreams which belong only to the young and innocent. He built fifteen air-castles in as many minutes. But at last he grew impatient; he sounded blast after blast; still no answer came. The trees kept up their sleepy sigh, and the sapless branches creaked, but no human voice, no human foot save his own, broke the silence.
"Thou hast given me a goodly chase," exclaimed the youth, springing up and addressing the boar, "and I shall wear this in remembrance of thee."
He drew his hunting-knife, and soon uprooted one of the monster's tusks. Depositing the precious relic in a hunting pouch he wore at his side, he mounted his horse, rather puzzled where to go.
"It is easier to get in this oaken field than to get out of it," said our hunter, "but if the forest have an end, I'll find it. Now, my dear loitering friends, we hunt each other."
Giving his horse the spur, and allowing the creature to choose its course, he called on the lagging hounds, and dashed away as rapidly as he had come. The wood was light as ever, and here and there sunbeam lay, like a golden spear, along the ground yet the rich lustre of the sky, wherever it was visible the hum of numberless insects, the fresh flight of the awakened bird, and the freer and cooler breeze, warned the youth that sunset was near. On went the noble steed, with steady step and trembling nostril while his finely veined ears spoke so rapidly that the rider could scarcely understand their language. They passed through long lines of trees that opened into other lines, from one limited horizon to another, yet all was green before and behind, to the right and to the left, one interminable emerald. The light turned from a rich gold to a golden red, and yet it played only on whispering leaves and on the long grass at their feet. Still the youth felt no fear, but hummed some old ballad, or drew a lively peal from his horn. He dismounted to refresh himself at a spring that had nestled among some rocks, and was murmuring there like a spoiled child. Having cared for the gallant animal which had borne him so well, he stretched himself a moment upon the green bank.
"Ha! what is that!" he exclaimed, bending forward to listen; "a horseman? Let him come; friend or foe, I shall be glad to see him."
He was on his horse in a moment. As he turned to look behind, he saw a gentleman, richly dressed, and admirably mounted, coming at full speed from another quarter of the wood. The stranger was quite young, perhaps a year or two older than our hunter, but certainly not over twenty-three. The youth knit his brows as the horseman approached, and eyed him keenly and sternly. When within a few yards of the spring, the stranger dismounted and drew his sword. The youth did the same. His handsome features were now distorted with anger and disdain, and it was difficult to recognize in the fierce figure, that seemed the guardian dragon of the fountain, the laughing boy who sat there so quietly a moment before. The stranger appeared to return the bitter hatred.
"I have found you, Gilbert de Hers," he muttered; "your bugle has rung your knell."
Gilbert replied but by a laugh of scorn, and the next instant their swords gleamed in the air. But just as the two blades met with a sharp clang, there came stealing through the wood the mellow sound of a distant bell. It was like the voice of an angel forbidding strife. Those soft, lingering notes seemed to have won a sweetness from the skies to pour out upon the world, and, filling the space between field and cloud, connected for a moment heaven and earth—for they wake in the heart of man the same emotions more perfectly felt in paradise.
For many centuries after the destruction of the Roman Empire, when all human institutions were swept away by the resistless torrent that poured from the North, and the Church of God alone stood safe and firm, with the rainbow of heaven around her, the stern warriors of Germany asserted their rights, or redressed their wrongs with the sword, and scorned to bow before the impotent decrees of a civil tribunal. A regular system of private warfare gradually sprang up, which falsely led every man of honor to revenge any real or fancied offence offered to any of his kindred. The most deadly enmity frequently existed between neighboring chiefs, and the bitter feeling was transmitted unimpaired from father to son. The most dreadful consequences inevitably resulted from this fatal installation of might in the outraged temple of justice. Until lately a blind prejudice and a perverted history have charged this unfortunate state of things to the pernicious influence of the Church of Rome. But the wiser Protestants of the present day, considering it rather a poor compliment to their faith to assign its birth to the sixteenth century, are beginning to be awake to the powerful instrumentality of the Christian Church in the regeneration of mankind, and the production