my troth to do what a plain man may for the protection of my Lady Eveline—”
“How, sirrah!” said Raymond; “you do not propose to leave the castle? Who gives you right to propose or dispose in the case, until my pleasure is known?”
“I shall be sorry to have words with you, Sir Castellane,” said the imperturbable Fleming;—”but I hold here, in this township, certain mills, tenements, clothyards, and so forth, for which I am to pay man-service in defending this Castle of the Garde Doloureuse, and in this I am ready. But if you call on me to march from hence, leaving the same castle defenceless, and to offer up my life in a battle which you acknowledge to be desperate, I must needs say my tenure binds me not to obey thee.”
“Base mechanic!” said Morolt, laying his hand on his dagger, and menacing the Fleming.
But Raymond Berenger interfered with voice and hand—”Harm him not, Morolt, and blame him not. He hath a sense of duty, though not after our manner; and he and his knaves will fight best behind stone walls. They are taught also, these Flemings, by the practice of their own country, the attack and defence of walled cities and fortresses, and are especially skilful in working of mangonels and military engines. There are several of his countrymen in the castle, besides his own followers. These I propose to leave behind; and I think they will obey him more readily than any but thyself—how think’st thou? Thou wouldst not, I know, from a miscontrued point of honour, or a blind love to me, leave this important place, and the safety of Eveline, in doubtful hands?”
“Wilkin Flammock is but a Flemish clown, noble sir,” answered Dennis, as much overjoyed as if he had obtained some important advantage; “but I must needs say he is as stout and true as any whom you might trust; and, besides, his own shrewdness will teach him there is more to be gained by defending such a castle as this, than by yielding it to strangers, who may not be likely to keep the terms of surrender, however fairly they may offer them.”
“It is fixed then,” said Raymond Berenger. “Then, Dennis, thou shalt go with me, and he shall remain behind.—Wilkin Flammock,” he said, addressing the Fleming solemnly, “I speak not to thee the language of chivalry, of which thou knowest nothing; but, as thou art an honest man, and a true Christian, I conjure thee to stand to the defence of this castle. Let no promise of the enemy draw thee to any base composition—no threat to any surrender. Relief must speedily arrive, if you fulfil your trust to me and to my daughter, Hugo de Lacy will reward you richly—if you fail, he will punish you severely.”
“Sir Knight,” said Flammock, “I am pleased you have put your trust so far in a plain handicraftsman. For the Welsh, I am come from a land for which we were compelled—yearly compelled—to struggle with the sea; and they who can deal with the waves in a tempest, need not fear an undisciplined people in their fury. Your daughter shall be as dear to me as mine own; and in that faith you may prick forth—if, indeed, you will not still, like a wiser man, shut gate, down portcullis, up drawbridge, and let your archers and my crossbows man the wall, and tell the knaves you are not the fool that they take you for.”
“Good fellow, that must not be,” said the Knight. “I hear my daughter’s voice,” he added hastily; “I would not again meet her, again to part from her. To Heaven’s keeping I commit thee, honest Fleming.—Follow me, Dennis Morolt.”
The old Castellane descended the stair of the southern tower hastily, just as his daughter Eveline ascended that of the eastern turret, to throw herself at his feet once more. She was followed by the Father Aldrovand, chaplain of her father; by an old and almost invalid huntsman, whose more active services in the field and the chase had been for some time chiefly limited to the superintendence of the Knight’s kennels, and the charge especially of his more favourite hounds; and by Rose Flammock, the daughter of Wilkin, a blue-eyed Flemish maiden, round, plump, and shy as a partridge, who had been for some time permitted to keep company with the highborn Norman damsel, in a doubtful station, betwixt that of an humble friend and a superior domestic. Eveline rushed upon the battlements, her hair dishevelled, and her eyes drowned in tears, and eagerly demanded of the Fleming where her father was.
Flammock made a clumsy reverence, and attempted some answer; but his voice seemed to fail him. He turned his back upon Eveline without ceremony, and totally disregarding the anxious inquiries of the huntsman and the chaplain, he said hastily to his daughter, in his own language, “Mad work! mad work! look to the poor maiden, Roschen—Der alter Herr ist verruckt.” [Footnote: The old lord is frantic.]
Without farther speech he descended the stairs, and never paused till he reached the buttery. Here he called like a lion for the controller of these regions, by the various names of Kammerer, Keller-master, and so forth, to which the old Reinold, an ancient Norman esquire, answered not, until the Netherlander fortunately recollected his Anglo-Norman title of butler. This, his regular name of office, was the key to the buttery-hatch, and the old man instantly appeared, with his gray cassock and high rolled hose, a ponderous bunch of keys suspended by a silver chain to his broad leathern girdle, which, in consideration of the emergency of the time, he had thought it right to balance on the left side with a huge falchion, which seemed much too weighty for his old arm to wield.
“What is your will,” he said, “Master Flammock? or what are your commands, since it is my lord’s pleasure that they shall be laws to me for a time?”
“Only a cup of wine, good Meister Keller-master—butler, I mean.”
“I am glad you remember the name of mine office,” said Reinold, with some of the petty resentment of a spoiled domestic, who thinks that a stranger has been irregularly put in command over him.
“A flagon of Rhenish, if you love me,” answered the Fleming, “for my heart is low and poor within me, and I must needs drink of the best.”
“And drink you shall,” said Reinold, “if drink will give you the courage which perhaps you want.”—He descended to the secret crypts, of which he was the guardian, and returned with a silver flagon, which might contain about a quart.—”Here is such wine,” said Reinold, “as thou hast seldom tasted,” and was about to pour it out into a cup.
“Nay, the flagon—the flagon, friend Reinold; I love a deep and solemn draught when the business is weighty,” said Wilkin. He seized on the flagon accordingly, and drinking a preparatory mouthful, paused as if to estimate the strength and flavour of the generous liquor. Apparently he was pleased with both, for he nodded in approbation to the butler; and, raising the flagon to his mouth once more, he slowly and gradually brought the bottom of the vessel parallel with the roof of the apartment, without suffering one drop of the contents to escape him.
“That hath savour, Herr Keller-master,” said he, while he was recovering his breath by intervals, after so long a suspense of respiration; “but, may Heaven forgive you for thinking it the best I have ever tasted! You little know the cellars of Ghent and of Ypres.”
“And I care not for them,” said Reinold; “those of gentle Norman blood hold the wines of Gascony and France, generous, light, and cordial, worth all the acid potations of the Rhine and the Neckar.”
“All is matter of taste,” said the Fleming; “but hark ye—Is there much of this wine in the cellar?”
“Methought but now it pleased not your dainty palate?” said Reinold.
“Nay, nay, my friend,” said Wilkin, “I said it had savour—I may have drunk better—but this is right good, where better may not be had.—Again, how much of it hast thou?”
“The whole butt, man,” answered the butler; “I have broached a fresh piece for you.”
