Wulf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest by G. A. Henty (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📗

In two or three minutes the baroness returned, leading Agnes, to whom she had told the reason of her summons. The baron stepped forward and took her hand.

"My daughter," he said, "the Thane of Steyning has asked for your hand in marriage, and your mother and I have given our free and full consent, but he would fain know from your own lips that you will come to him willingly."

"I have loved you, Agnes, since while still but a boy I first saw you, and my love has grown ever since. The happiness of my life depends upon your answer, but unless your heart goes with your hand I would rather remain unmarried to my dying day."

The girl had stood with downcast eyes and with flushed face until now. When Wulf ceased speaking she looked up into his face:

"I love you, Wulf; I have always loved you. It is for your sake that I have said no to the suitors of my own race who have sought my hand. I will be a true wife and loving to you."

"Then take her, Wulf," the baron said, placing her hand in his. "You are now her betrothed husband and our adopted son."

Wulf stooped and kissed the girl's lips, and the betrothal was completed. After some talk it was arranged that Wulf should at once journey down to Steyning, assume possession of his new estates, set the house in order, and prepare for their coming. Guy was to accompany him, and as soon as all was in readiness Wulf would come up to London and return with Lord and Lady de Burg and Agnes, who would pay a short visit and all would then cross to Normandy, for the marriage was to take place at their chateau there.

"I was sure how it would be," Osgod said when Wulf told him the news that night. "I should have been blind indeed if I had not seen it long ago. I love not the Normans, but I make exception in the case of Lord de Burg and his family. And truly it will in all respects be a good thing for your tenants. Although the duke, or I suppose I ought to say the king, promises greatly at present, there is no saying what he may do later on; and he has all these locusts to provide for. 'Tis well indeed, then, that there should be a Norman lady as well as an English thane at Steyning."

Wulf's return home gave rise to demonstrations of the greatest joy among his tenants. They had heard nothing of him since the battle, and had deemed him to have fallen with the rest of the defenders of the standard, and had been living in fear of the arrival of some Norman baron to be their lord. Wulf was greatly pleased to find that, although not one of his housecarls had returned from Hastings, the greater portion of his irregular levies had escaped at nightfall with the party who had inflicted so heavy a blow upon their pursuers. For the next few days Wulf was thoroughly occupied. The tenants of his new estates received him almost as joyfully as his own had done, for, like them, they had expected the advent of a Norman master. In one of the two estates that had fallen to him the thane he had succeeded had left no heirs; while the other thane had left a widow and a young family. Wulf arranged that these should remain in their home, receiving for their maintenance half the rents of the estate.

Guy was greatly pleased with the fair country in which his sister's lot was to be cast, but he owned frankly that the house seemed unworthy now of the large estate, and was indeed but a poor place in comparison with the noble chateau in which she had been brought up.

"That shall be remedied, Guy, as soon as matters settle down. I have laid by none of my revenues, for the keeping up of a hundred housecarls has taxed them to the utmost, but now that my income is more than doubled, and this expense has altogether ceased, I shall have funds with which I can soon begin to build. When I was young, Steyning seemed to me a fine house, but after your Norman castles it is indeed but a poor place."

When, a fortnight later, the De Burgs arrived with Wulf, while Agnes expressed herself delighted with the quaintness of the old Saxon home, her father and mother were decidedly of Guy's opinion.

"The house is a good house in its way," the Baron said, "but there will be great changes in the land. Much of it will be transferred to Norman hands, and ere long castles and chateaux like ours at home will rise everywhere, and as an English noble with broad lands it is but fit that your residence should vie with others. But this shall be my care, and shall be my daughter's special dowry. I foresee that it will be long ere matters wholly settle down. Moreover, though William's hand is strong that of his successor may be weak, and in time there will be the same troubles here among the barons that there were in Normandy before William put them down with a strong hand. Therefore, I should say we will build a castle rather than a chateau, for such I am sure will be the style of all the Norman buildings here, until England settles down to peace and quiet. I would not disturb this house, Wulf; it is doubtless dear to you, and will, moreover, serve as a dowager-house or as an abode for a younger son. We will fix on a new site altogether, and there we will rear a castle worthy of the estate. By the way, I have spoken to the king of your betrothal to my daughter, and he is highly pleased. He says that it is his earnest wish that his Norman nobles shall marry English heiresses, both because they will thus come into possession of lands without disturbing the owners, and because such mixture of blood will the more speedily weld the two peoples into one; and that, similarly, he is glad to see a Norman maiden united to an English noble of whom he has so high an opinion."

Fond as Wulf was of his old home he saw that it would be best to abandon it for a new residence more suited to the times and more in accordance with his own increased possessions and the home from which he was taking his wife. After riding round the estates Lord de Burg and he fixed upon a knoll of rising ground near the village of Bramber, and not far from the religious house where Wulf had spent so many evenings, and whose prior had been one of the first to welcome his return.

"I will charter a ship at Rouen," Lord de Burg said, "and send over a master craftsman, skilful in designing and building castles, and a large number of quarrymen, masons, and carpenters. Labour here is scarce, and the men are unskilled at this kind of work. Rough labour can doubtless be obtained, and your tenants can transport the stones from the quarry and dig the fosse. I will send over a goodly number of men. It will cost no more to employ three hundred for six months than fifty for three years."

A week later Wulf sailed for Rouen with the De Burgs. Beorn accompanied him, as well as Osgod, to be present at the wedding, which took place at Rouen Cathedral. A month later Wulf returned with his wife to Steyning. Already an army of men were at work at Bramber. The tenants all gave their assistance readily, and far beyond the amount their feudal tenure required, for they saw the advantage it would be to them to have a strong castle in their midst to which they could retire in case of danger. Labourers