Читать книгу The Defence Of The Bride - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 3

He was coming from the altar when the tocsin rang alarm,

With his fair young wife beside him, lovely in her bridal charm;

But he was not one to palter with a duty, or to slight

The trumpet-call of honor for his vantage or delight.

Turning from the bride beside him to his stern and martial train,

From their midst he summoned to him the brothers of Germain;

At the word they stepped before him, nine strong warriors brave and true,

From the youngest to the eldest, Enguerrand to mighty Hugh.

“Sons of Germain, to your keeping do I yield my bride to-day.

Guard her well as you do love me; guard her well and holily.

Dearer than mine own soul to me, you will hold her as your life,

‘Gainst the guile of seeming friendship and the force of open strife.”

“We will guard her,” cried they firmly; and with just another glance

On the yearning and despairing in his young wife’s countenance,

Gallant Beaufort strode before them down the aisle and through the door,

And a shadow came and lingered where the sunlight stood before.

Eight long months the young wife waited, watching from her bridal room

For the coming of her husband up the valley forest’s gloom.

Eight long months the sons of Germain paced the ramparts and the wall,

With their hands upon their halberds ready for the battle-call.

Then there came a sound of trumpets pealing up the vale below,

And a dozen floating banners lit the forest with their glow,

And the bride arose like morning when it feels the sunlight nigh,

And her smile was like a rainbow flashing from a misty sky.

But the eldest son of Germain lifting voice from off the wall,

Cried aloud, “It is a stranger’s and not Sir Beaufort’s call;

Have you ne’er a slighted lover or a kinsman with a heart

Base enough to seek his vengeance at the sharp end of the dart?”

“There is Sassard of the Mountains,” answered she without guile,

“While I wedded at the chancel, he stood mocking in the aisle;

And my maidens say he swore there that for all my plighted vow,

They would see me in his castle yet upon Morency’s brow.”

“It is Sassard and no other then,” her noble guardian cried;

“There is craft in yonder summons,” and he rung his sword beside.

“To the walls, ye sons of Germain! and as each would hold his life

From the bitter shame of falsehood, let us hold our master’s wife.”

“Can you hold her, can you shield her from the breezes that await?”

Cried the stinging voice of Sassard from his stand beside the gate.

“If you have the power to shield her from the sunlight and the wind,

You may shield her from stern Sassard when his falchion is untwined.”

“We can hold her, we can shield her,” leaped like fire from off the wall,

And young Enguerrand the valiant, sprang out before them all.

“And if breezes bring dishonor, we will guard her from their breath,

Though we yield her to the keeping of the sacred arms of Death.”

And with force that never faltered, did they guard her all that day,

Though the strength of triple armies seemed to battle in the fray,

The old castle’s rugged ramparts holding firm against the foe,

As a goodly dyke resisteth the whelming billow’s flow.

But next morning as the sunlight rose in splendor over all,

Hugh the mighty, sank heart-wounded in his station on the wall,

At the noon the valiant Raoul of the merry eye and heart,

Gave his beauty and his jestings to the foeman’s jealous dart.

Gallant Maurice next sank faltering with a death wound ‘neath his hair,

But still fighting on till Sassard pressed across him up the stair.

Generous Clement followed after, crying as his spirit passed,

“Sons of Germain to the rescue, and be loyal to the last!”

Gentle Jaspar, lordly Clarence, Sessamine the doughty brand,

Even Henri who had yielded ne’er before to mortal hand;

One by one they fall and perish, while the vaunting foemen pour

Through the breach and up the courtway to the very turret’s door.

Enguerrand and Stephen only now were left of all that nine,

To protect the single stairway from the traitor’s fell design;

But with might as ‘twere of thirty, did they wield the axe and brand,

Striving in their desperation the fierce onslaught to withstand.

But what man of power so godlike he can stay the billow’s wrack,

Or with single-handed weapon hold an hundred foemen back!

As the sun turned sadly westward, with a wild despairing cry,

Stephen bowed his noble forehead and sank down on earth to die.

“Ah ha!” then cried cruel Sassard with his foot upon the stair,

“Have I come to thee, my boaster?” and he whirled his sword in air.

“Thou who pratest of thy power to protect her to the death,

What think’st thou now of Sassard and the wind’s aspiring breath?”

“What I think let this same show you,” answered fiery Enguerrand,

And he poised his lofty battle-ax with sure and steady hand;

“Now as Heaven loveth justice, may this deathly weapon fall

On the murderer of my brothers and th’ undoer of us all.”

With one mighty whirl he sent it; flashing from his hand it came,

Like the lightning from the heavens in a whirl of awful flame,

And betwixt the brows of Sassard and his two false eyeballs passed,

And the murderer sank before it, like a tree before the blast.

“Now ye minions of a traitor if you look for vengeance, come!”

And his voice was like a trumpet when it clangs a victor home.

But a cry from far below him rose like thunder upward,

“Nay! Let them turn and meet the husband if they hunger for the fray.”

O the yell that sprang to heaven as that voice swept up the stair,

And the slaughter dire that followed in another moment there!

From the least unto the greatest, from the henchman to the lord,

Not a man on all that stairway lived to sheath again his sword.

At the top that flame-bound forehead, at the base that blade of fire—

‘Twas the meeting of two tempests in their potency and ire.

Ere the moon could falter inward with its pity and its woe,

Beaufort saw the path before him unencumbered of the foe.

Saw his pathway unencumbered and strode up and o’er the floor,

Even to the very threshold of his lovely lady’s door,

And already in his fancy did he see the golden beam

Of her locks upon his shoulder and her sweet eyes’ happy gleam:

When behold a form upstarting from the shadows at his side.

That with naked sword uplifted barred the passage to his bride;

It was Enguerrand the dauntless, but with staring eyes and hair

Blowing wild about a forehead pale as snow in moonlit glare.

“Ah my master, we have held her, we have guarded her,” he said,

“Not a shadow of dishonor has so much as touched her head.

Twenty wretches lie below there with the brothers of Germain,

Twenty foemen of her honor that I, Enguerrand, have slain.

“But one other foe remaineth, one remaineth yet,” he cried,

“Which it fits this hand to punish ere you cross unto your bride.

It is I, Enguerrand!” shrieked he;”and as I have slain the rest,

So I smite this foeman also!”—and his sword plunged through his breast.

O the horror of that moment!”Art thou mad my Enguerrand?”

Cried his master, striving wildly to withdraw the fatal brand.

But the stern youth smiling sadly, started back from his embrace,

While a flash like summer lightning, flickered direful on his face.

“Yes, a traitor worse than Sassard;” and he pointed down the stair,

“For my heart has dared to love her whom my hand defended there.

While the others fought for honor, I by passion was made strong,

Set your heel upon my bosom for my soul has done you wrong.

“But,” and here he swayed and faltered till his knee sank on the floor,

Yet in falling turned his forehead ever toward that silent door;

“But your warrior hand my master, may take mine without a stain,

For my hand has e’er been loyal, and your enemy is slain.”