The Talisman

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> The Talisman

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

"Put off thy shoes," he said to his attendant; "the ground on
which thou standest is holy. Banish from thy innermost heart
each profane and carnal thought, for to harbour such while in
this place were a deadly impiety."

The knight laid aside his shoes as he was commanded, and the
hermit stood in the meanwhile as if communing with his soul in
secret prayer, and when he again moved, commanded the knight to
knock at the wicket three times. He did so. The door opened
spontaneously--at least Sir Kenneth beheld no one--and his senses
were at once assailed by a stream of the purest light, and by a
strong and almost oppressive sense of the richest perfumes. He
stepped two or three paces back, and it was the space of a minute
ere he recovered the dazzling and overpowering effects of the
sudden change from darkness to light.

When he entered the apartment in which this brilliant lustre was
displayed, he perceived that the light proceeded from a
combination of silver lamps, fed with purest oil, and sending
forth the richest odours, hanging by silver chains from the roof
of a small Gothic chapel, hewn, like most part of the hermit's
singular mansion, out of the sound and solid rock. But whereas,
in every other place which Sir Kenneth had seen, the labour
employed upon the rock had been of the simplest and coarsest
description, it had in this chapel employed the invention and the
chisels of the most able architects. The groined roofs rose from
six columns on each side, carved with the rarest skill; and the
manner in which the crossings of the concave arches were bound
together, as it were, with appropriate ornaments, were all in the
finest tone of the architecture of the age. Corresponding to the
line of pillars, there were on each side six richly-wrought
niches, each of which contained the image of one of the twelve
apostles.

At the upper and eastern end of the chapel stood the altar,
behind which a very rich curtain of Persian silk, embroidered
deeply with gold, covered a recess, containing, unquestionably,
some image or relic of no ordinary sanctity, in honour of which
this singular place of worship had been erected, Under the
persuasion that this must be the case, the knight advanced to the
shrine, and kneeling down before it, repeated his devotions with
fervency, during which his attention was disturbed by the curtain
being suddenly raised, or rather pulled aside, how or by whom he
saw not; but in the niche which was thus disclosed he beheld a
cabinet of silver and ebony, with a double folding-door, the
whole formed into the miniature resemblance of a Gothic church.

As he gazed with anxious curiosity on the shrine, the two
folding-doors also flew open, discovering a large piece of wood,
on which were blazoned the words, VERA CRUX; at the same time a
choir of female voices sung GLORIA PATRI. The instant the strain
had ceased, the shrine was closed, and the curtain again drawn,
and the knight who knelt at the altar might now continue his
devotions undisturbed, in honour of the holy relic which had been
just disclosed to his view. He did this under the profound
impression of one who had witnessed, with his own eyes, an awful
evidence of the truth of his religion; and it was some time ere,
concluding his orisons, he arose, and ventured to look around him
for the hermit, who had guided him to this sacred and mysterious
spot. He beheld him, his head still muffled in the veil which he
had himself wrapped around it, crouching, like a rated hound,
upon the threshold of the chapel; but, apparently, without
venturing to cross it--the holiest reverence, the most
penitential remorse, was expressed by his posture, which seemed
that of a man borne down and crushed to the earth by the burden
of his inward feelings. It seemed to the Scot that only the
sense of the deepest penitence, remorse, and humiliation could
have thus prostrated a frame so strong and a spirit so fiery.

He approached him as if to speak; but the recluse anticipated his
purpose, murmuring in stifled tones, from beneath the fold in
which his head was muffled, and which sounded like a voice
proceeding from the cerements of a corpse,--"Abide, abide--happy
thou that mayest--the vision is not yet ended." So saying, he
reared himself from the ground, drew back from the threshold on
which he had hitherto lain prostrate, and closed the door of the
chapel, which, secured by a spring bolt within, the snap of which
resounded through the place, appeared so much like a part of the
living rock from which the cavern was hewn, that Kenneth could
hardly discern where the aperture had been. He was now alone in
the lighted chapel which contained the relic to which he had
lately rendered his homage, without other arms than his dagger,
or other companion than his pious thoughts and dauntless courage.

Uncertain what was next to happen, but resolved to abide the
course of events, Sir Kenneth paced the solitary chapel till
about the time of the earliest cock-crowing. At this dead
season, when night and morning met together, he heard, but from
what quarter he could not discover, the sound of such a small
silver bell as is rung at the elevation of the host in the
ceremony, or sacrifice, as it has been called, of the mass. The
hour and the place rendered the sound fearfully solemn, and, bold
as he was, the knight withdrew himself into the farther nook of
the chapel, at the end opposite to the altar, in order to
observe, without interruption, the consequences of this
unexpected signal.

He did not wait long ere the silken curtain was again withdrawn,
and the relic again presented to his view. As he sunk
reverentially on his knee, he heard the sound of the lauds, or
earliest office of the Catholic Church, sung by female voices,
which united together in the performance as they had done in the
former service. The knight was soon aware that the voices were
no longer stationary in the distance, but approached the chapel
and became louder, when a door, imperceptible when closed, like
that by which he had himself entered, opened on the other side of
the vault, and gave the tones of the choir more room to swell
along the ribbed arches of the roof.

The knight fixed his eyes on the opening with breathless anxiety,
and, continuing to kneel in the attitude of devotion which the
place and scene required, expected the consequence of these
preparations. A procession appeared about to issue from the
door. First, four beautiful boys, whose arms, necks, and legs
were bare, showing the bronze complexion of the East, and
contrasting with the snow-white tunics which they wore, entered
the chapel by two and two. The first pair bore censers, which
they swung from side to side, adding double fragrance to the
odours with which the chapel already was impregnated. The second
pair scattered flowers.

After these followed, in due and majestic order, the females who
composed the choir--six, who from their black scapularies, and
black veils over their white garments, appeared to be professed
nuns of the order of Mount Carmel; and as many whose veils, being
white, argued them to be novices, or occasional inhabitants in
the cloister, who were not as yet bound to it by vows. The
former held in their hands large rosaries, while the younger and
lighter figures who followed carried each a chaplet of red and
white roses. They moved in procession around the chapel, without
appearing to take the slightest notice of Kenneth, although
passing so near him that their robes almost touched him, while
they continued to sing. The knight doubted not that he was in
one of those cloisters where the noble Christian maidens had
formerly openly devoted themselves to the services of the church.
Most of them had been suppressed since the Mohammedans had
reconquered Palestine, but many, purchasing connivance by
presents, or receiving it from the clemency or contempt of the
victors, still continued to observe in private the ritual to
which their vows had consecrated them. Yet, though Kenneth knew
this to be the case, the solemnity of the place and hour, the
surprise at the sudden appearance of these votaresses, and the
visionary manner in which they moved past him, had such influence
on his imagination that he could scarce conceive that the fair
procession which he beheld was formed of creatures of this world,
so much did they resemble a choir of supernatural beings,
rendering homage to the universal object of adoration.

Such was the knight's first idea, as the procession passed him,
scarce moving, save just sufficiently to continue their progress;
so that, seen by the shadowy and religious light which the lamps
shed through the clouds of incense which darkened the apartment,
they appeared rather to glide than to walk.

But as a second time, in surrounding the chapel, they passed the
spot on which he kneeled, one of the white-stoled maidens, as she
glided by him, detached from the chaplet which she carried a
rosebud, which dropped from her fingers, perhaps unconsciously,
on the foot of Sir Kenneth. The knight started as if a dart had
suddenly struck his person; for, when the mind is wound up to a
high pitch of feeling and expectation, the slightest incident, if
unexpected, gives fire to the train which imagination has already
laid. But he suppressed his emotion, recollecting how easily an
incident so indifferent might have happened, and that it was only
the uniform monotony of the movement of the choristers which made
the incident in the slightest degree remarkable.

Still, while the procession, for the third time, surrounded the
chapel, the thoughts and the eyes of Kenneth followed exclusively
the one among the novices who had dropped the rosebud. Her step,
her face, her form were so completely assimilated to the rest of
the choristers that it was impossible to perceive the least marks
of individuality; and yet Kenneth's heart throbbed like a bird
that would burst from its cage, as if to assure him, by its
sympathetic suggestions, that the female who held the right file
on the second rank of the novices was dearer to him, not only
than all the rest that were present, but than the whole sex
besides. The romantic passion of love, as it was cherished, and
indeed enjoined, by the rules of chivalry, associated well with
the no less romantic feelings of devotion; and they might be said
much more to enhance than to counteract each other. It was,
therefore, with a glow of expectation that had something even of
a religious character that Sir Kenneth, his sensations thrilling
from his heart to the ends of his fingers, expected some second
sign of the presence of one who, he strongly fancied, had already
bestowed on him the first. Short as the space was during which
the procession again completed a third perambulation of the
chapel, it seemed an eternity to Kenneth. At length the form
which he had watched with such devoted attention drew nigh.
There was no difference betwixt that shrouded figure and the
others, with whom it moved in concert and in unison, until, just
as she passed for the third time the kneeling Crusader, a part of
a little and well-proportioned hand, so beautifully formed as to
give the highest idea of the perfect proportions of the form to
which it belonged, stole through the folds of the gauze, like a
moonbeam through the fleecy cloud of a summer night, and again a
rosebud lay at the feet of the Knight of the Leopard.

This second intimation could not be accidental---it could not be
fortuitous, the resemblance of that half-seen but beautiful
female hand with one which his lips had once touched, and, while
they touched it, had internally sworn allegiance to the lovely
owner. Had further proof been wanting, there was the glimmer of
that matchless ruby ring on that snow-white finger, whose
invaluable worth Kenneth would yet have prized less than the
slightest sign which that finger could have made; and, veiled
too, as she was, he might see, by chance or by favour, a stray
curl of the dark tresses, each hair of which was dearer to him a
hundred times than a chain of massive gold. It was the lady of
his love! But that she should he here--in the savage and
sequestered desert--among vestals, who rendered themselves
habitants of wilds and of caverns, that they might perform in
secret those Christian rites which they dared not assist in
openly; that this should be so, in truth and in reality, seemed
too incredible--it must be a dream--a delusive trance of the
imagination. While these thoughts passed through the mind of
Kenneth, the same passage, by which the procession had entered
the chapel, received them on their return. The young sacristans,
the sable nuns, vanished successively through the open door. At
length she from whom he had received this double intimation
passed also; yet, in passing, turned her head, slightly indeed,
but perceptibly, towards the place where he remained fixed as an
image. He marked the last wave of her veil--it was gone--and a
darkness sunk upon his soul, scarce less palpable than that which
almost immediately enveloped his external sense; for the last
chorister had no sooner crossed the threshold of the door than it
shut with a loud sound, and at the same instant the voices of the
choir were silent, the lights of the chapel were at once
extinguished, and Sir Kenneth remained solitary and in total
darkness. But to Kenneth, solitude, and darkness, and the
uncertainty of his mysterious situation were as nothing--he
thought not of them--cared not for them--cared for nought in the
world save the flitting vision which had just glided past him,
and the tokens of her favour which she had bestowed. To grope on
the floor for the buds which she had dropped--to press them to
his lips, to his bosom, now alternately, now together--to rivet
his lips to the cold stones on which, as near as he could judge,
she had so lately stepped--to play all the extravagances which
strong affection suggests and vindicates to those who yield
themselves up to it, were but the tokens of passionate love
common to all ages. But it was peculiar to the times of chivalry
that, in his wildest rapture, the knight imagined of no attempt
to follow or to trace the object of such romantic attachment;
that he thought of her as of a deity, who, having deigned to show
herself for an instant to her devoted worshipper, had again
returned to the darkness of her sanctuary--or as an influential
planet, which, having darted in some auspicious minute one
favourable ray, wrapped itself again in its veil of mist. The
motions of the lady of his love were to him those of a superior
being, who was to move without watch or control, rejoice him by
her appearance, or depress him by her absence, animate him by her
kindness, or drive him to despair by her cruelty--all at her own
free will, and without other importunity or remonstrance than
that expressed by the most devoted services of the heart and
sword of the champion, whose sole object in life was to fulfil
her commands, and, by the splendour of his own achievements, to
exalt her fame.

Such were the rules of chivalry, and of the love which was its
ruling principle. But Sir Kenneth's attachment was rendered
romantic by other and still more peculiar circumstances. He had
never even heard the sound of his lady's voice, though he had
often beheld her beauty with rapture. She moved in a circle
which his rank of knighthood permitted him indeed to approach,
but not to mingle with; and highly as he stood distinguished for
warlike skill and enterprise, still the poor Scottish soldier was
compelled to worship his divinity at a distance almost as great
as divides the Persian from the sun which he adores. But when
was the pride of woman too lofty to overlook the passionate
devotion of a lover, however inferior in degree? Her eye had
been on him in the tournament, her ear had heard his praises in
the report of the battles which were daily fought; and while
count, duke, and lord contended for her grace, it flowed,
unwillingly perhaps at first, or even unconsciously, towards the
poor Knight of the Leopard, who, to support his rank, had little
besides his sword. When she looked, and when she listened, the
lady saw and heard enough to encourage her in a partiality which
had at first crept on her unawares. If a knight's personal
beauty was praised, even the most prudish dames of the military
court of England would make an exception in favour of the
Scottish Kenneth; and it oftentimes happened that,
notwithstanding the very considerable largesses which princes and
peers bestowed on the minstrels, an impartial spirit of
independence would seize the poet, and the harp was swept to the
heroism of one who had neither palfreys nor garments to bestow in
guerdon of his applause.

The moments when she listened to the praises of her lover became
gradually more and more dear to the high-born Edith, relieving
the flattery with which her ear was weary, and presenting to her
a subject of secret contemplation, more worthy, as he seemed by
general report, than those who surpassed him in rank and in the
gifts of fortune. As her attention became constantly, though
cautiously, fixed on Sir Kenneth, she grew more and more
convinced of his personal devotion to herself and more and more
certain in her mind that in Kenneth of Scotland she beheld the
fated knight doomed to share with her through weal and woe--and
the prospect looked gloomy and dangerous--the passionate
attachment to which the poets of the age ascribed such universal
dominion, and which its manners and morals placed nearly on the
same rank with devotion itself.

Let us not disguise the truth from our readers. When Edith
became aware of the state of her own sentiments, chivalrous as
were her sentiments, becoming a maiden not distant from the
throne of England--gratified as her pride must have been with the
mute though unceasing homage rendered to her by the knight whom
she had distinguished, there were moments when the feelings of
the woman, loving and beloved, murmured against the restraints of
state and form by which she was surrounded, and when she almost
blamed the timidity of her lover, who seemed resolved not to
infringe them. The etiquette, to use a modern phrase, of birth
and rank, had drawn around her a magical circle, beyond which Sir
Kenneth might indeed bow and gaze, but within which he could no
more pass than an evoked spirit can transgress the boundaries
prescribed by the rod of a powerful enchanter. The thought
involuntarily pressed on her that she herself must venture, were
it but the point of her fairy foot, beyond the prescribed
boundary, if she ever hoped to give a lover so reserved and
bashful an opportunity of so slight a favour as but to salute her
shoe-tie. There was an example--the noted precedent of the
"King's daughter of Hungary," who thus generously encouraged the
"squire of low degree;" and Edith, though of kingly blood, was no
king's daughter, any more than her lover was of low degree
--fortune had put no such extreme barrier in obstacle to their
affections. Something, however, within the maiden's bosom--that
modest pride which throws fetters even on love itself forbade
her, notwithstanding the superiority of her condition, to make
those advances, which, in every case, delicacy assigns to the
other sex; above all, Sir Kenneth was a knight so gentle and
honourable, so highly accomplished, as her imagination at least
suggested, together with the strictest feelings of what was due
to himself and to her, that however constrained her attitude
might be while receiving his adorations, like the image of some
deity, who is neither supposed to feel nor to reply to the homage
of its votaries, still the idol feared that to step prematurely
from her pedestal would be to degrade herself in the eyes of her
devoted worshipper.

Yet the devout adorer of an actual idol can even discover signs
of approbation in the rigid and immovable features of a marble
image; and it is no wonder that something, which could be as
favourably interpreted, glanced from the bright eye of the lovely
Edith, whose beauty, indeed, consisted rather more in that very
power of expression, than an absolute regularity of contour or
brilliancy of complexion. Some slight marks of distinction had
escaped from her, notwithstanding her own jealous vigilance,
else how could Sir Kenneth have so readily and so undoubtingly
recognized the lovely hand, of which scarce two fingers were
visible from under the veil, or how could he have rested so
thoroughly assured that two flowers, successively dropped on the
spot, were intended as a recognition on the part of his lady-love? By what train of observation--by what
secret signs, looks,
or gestures--by what instinctive freemasonry of love, this degree
of intelligence came to subsist between Edith and her lover, we
cannot attempt to trace; for we are old, and such slight vestiges
of affection, quickly discovered by younger eyes, defy the power
of ours. Enough that such affection did subsist between parties
who had never even spoken to one another--though, on the side of
Edith, it was checked by a deep sense of the difficulties and
dangers which must necessarily attend the further progress of
their attachment; and upon that of the knight by a thousand
doubts and fears lest he had overestimated the slight tokens of
the lady's notice, varied, as they necessarily were, by long
intervals of apparent coldness, during which either the fear of
exciting the observation of others, and thus drawing danger upon
her lover, or that of sinking in his esteem by seeming too
willing to be won, made her behave with indifference, and as if
unobservant of his presence.

This narrative, tedious perhaps, but which the story renders
necessary, may serve to explain the state of intelligence, if it
deserves so strong a name, betwixt the lovers, when Edith's
unexpected appearance in the chapel produced so powerful an
effect on the feelings of her knight.

CHAPTER V.

Their necromantic forms in vain
Haunt us on the tented plain;
We bid these spectre shapes avaunt,
Ashtaroth and Termagaunt. WARTON.

The most profound silence, the deepest darkness, continued to
brood for more than an hour over the chapel in which we left the
Knight of the Leopard still kneeling, alternately expressing
thanks to Heaven and gratitude to his lady for the boon which had
been vouchsafed to him. His own safety, his own destiny, for
which he was at all times little anxious, had not now the weight
of a grain of dust in his reflections. He was in the
neighbourhood of Lady Edith; he had received tokens of her grace;
he was in a place hallowed by relics of the most awful sanctity.
A Christian soldier, a devoted lover, could fear nothing, think
of nothing, but his duty to Heaven and his devoir to his lady.

At the lapse of the space of time which we have noticed, a shrill
whistle, like that with which a falconer calls his hawk, was
heard to ring sharply through the vaulted chapel. it was a sound
ill suited to the place, and reminded Sir Kenneth how necessary
it was he should be upon his guard. He started from his knee,
and laid his hand upon his poniard. A creaking sound, as of a
screw or pulleys, succeeded, and a light streaming upwards, as
from an opening in the floor, showed that a trap-door had been
raised or depressed. In less than a minute a long, skinny arm,
partly naked, partly clothed in a sleeve of red samite, arose out
of the aperture, holding a lamp as high as it could stretch
upwards, and the figure to which the arm belonged ascended step
by step to the level of the chapel floor. The form and face of
the being who thus presented himself were those of a frightful
dwarf, with a large head, a cap fantastically adorned with three
peacock feathers, a dress of red samite, the richness of which
rendered his ugliness more conspicuous, distinguished by gold
bracelets and armlets, and a white silk sash, in which he wore a
gold-hilted dagger. This singular figure had in his left hand a
kind of broom. So soon as he had stepped from the aperture
through which he arose, he stood still, and, as if to show
himself more distinctly, moved the lamp which he held slowly over
his face and person, successively illuminating his wild and
fantastic features, and his misshapen but nervous limbs. Though
disproportioned in person, the dwarf was not so distorted as to
argue any want of strength or activity. While Sir Kenneth gazed
on this disagreeable object, the popular creed occurred to his
remembrance concerning the gnomes or earthly spirits which make
their abode in the caverns of the earth; and so much did this
figure correspond with ideas he had formed of their appearance,
that he looked on it with disgust, mingled not indeed with fear,
but that sort of awe which the presence of a supernatural
creature may infuse into the most steady bosom.

The dwarf again whistled, and summoned from beneath a companion.
This second figure ascended in the same manner as the first; but
it was a female arm in this second instance which upheld the lamp
from the subterranean vault out of which these presentments
arose, and it was a female form, much resembling the first in
shape and proportions, which slowly emerged from the floor. Her
dress was also of red samite, fantastically cut and flounced, as
if she had been dressed for some exhibition of mimes or jugglers;
and with the same minuteness which her predecessor had exhibited,
she passed the lamp over her face and person, which seemed to
rival the male's in ugliness. But with all this most
unfavourable exterior, there was one trait in the features of
both which argued alertness and intelligence in the most uncommon
degree. This arose from the brilliancy of their eyes, which,
deep-set beneath black and shaggy brows, gleamed with a lustre
which, like that in the eye of the toad, seemed to make some
amends for the extreme ugliness of countenance and person.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30