Alexis Willibald
Walladmor, Vol. I (of 2)
CHAPTER VII
Pand. Hark, they ate coming from the field: shall we stand
up here, and see them as they pass towards Ilium? Good niece
do, sweet niece Cressida.
Cress. At your pleasure.
Pand. Here, here, here's an excellent place: here we may see
most bravely. I'll tell you them all by their names as they pass
by: but mark Troilus above the rest.
Troilus and Cressida: Act. 1.
When Bertram awoke, the sun was already high and pouring a golden light through the frosted window of his bedroom. The church-bells of Machynleth were ringing gaily: from one or two neighbouring villages arose a fainter sound of bells; and the stir and motion within doors and without proclaimed that this was some festal day. On descending to breakfast, he found the house arranged in the neatest order and garnished with branches of fir. The door was crowded and the street was swarming with groups of country people-men, women, and children; the women adorned with gay ribbons, and the men with bouquets of leeks. The landlord and many of his inmates paid the same honor to the day: and every thing announced that it was the great national festival of Wales, sacred to good St. David; a day on which no man of Welch blood, though he should be at Seringapatam, would think it lawful to forget this ancient recognizance of Cambrian fraternity. – True it is however, that, like all other old usages, this also (except in the principality itself) is rapidly falling into disuse. Else surely it could never have happened that precisely on this day a certain noble lord of Welch descent should have thought fit to rise in his place in the House, and make an eloquent exposition and apology for the jacobinical creed of his friends. We cannot doubt that, had a bunch of leeks been suddenly presented to his lordship at this moment, his face would have crimsoned with a blush as deep as that of the red night-cap which apparently is the object of his homage; for surely no hostility can be deeper than that between the badge of jacobinism and this antique symbol of honor, good faith, and loyal brotherhood, and reverence for the dust of our forefathers.
"How now, landlord" – said the reformer-"Is this absurd, superstitious, commemoration of St. David's day never to cease?"
"Have a care, Mr. Dulberry: don't talk too loud. There's some of our country friends outside, that, if they should overhear you, might take a fancy for trying the strength of your head with ice-clods-or put you under the pump."
"Or perhaps," said the manager, "give you a leek to eat; and not in so courtly a manner as I once saw Fluellen administer his leek to Pistol on the London boards; the part of Fluellen on that particular night by Garrick; to whom, by the way, in that part I was myself considered equal."
"All rank superstition, trash, and mummery from the days of darkness and barbarism," continued Dulberry. "And hence it comes that sound principles make so little progress in Wales. As if we hadn't red-letter days in the calendar more than enough already from national and general superstition, but these local superstitions must step in to add another. Gentlemen! it seems to me that Parliament should put a stop to all bell-ringing, wearing of leeks, flaunting about with ribbons, and flocking together in the street. Suppose, gentlemen, we should have an Address prepared against leeks."
"No addresses," Mr. Dulberry, said the landlord, "for this day at any rate! Sir Morgan Walladmor would send the beadle to you with a rod of nettles, if he was to hear of such a thing: for he doats upon the leek and St. David's day. This is one of his great jollification days: and he sends bread, meat, drink, coals, and money, to every poor cottage for a dozen miles round: nay, I may go farther and tell no lie: for though the baronet's an old man now, and has had some sorrow to bear of his own, by his good will there shouldn't be a sad heart in Machynleth on St. David's day; and that's five and twenty long miles from Castle Walladmor."
"Abominable despotism! and the poor oppressed creatures do actually swallow his drink?"
"Swallow it? Aye, Mr. Dulberry, it's no physic."
"And they dance too, I suppose?"
"Every mother's child of them, Mr. Dulberry: not a soul but'll dance to-day except babies and cripples. Lord! Mr. Dulberry, if you don't like to see poor labouring folks happy for one day in the year, I'll tell you this-you must keep out of Machynleth on St. David's day."
"Well! this tyranny goes beyond any thing I've seen: we all know that Lord Londonderry has compelled Manchester and all England to wear mourning: but this rustic tyrant is determined to make people merry when, as every body must know, they want to cry."
"Come, come, Sir, the Baronet's a good man and no tyrant; though he may have his fancies and his faults, like the rest of us: but we most of us like him pretty well, tenants and all: and, as to his niece-Miss Genevieve, I believe there's not many between this and the Castle but would go through fire and water for her."
"Sir Morgan Walladmor," said Alderman Gravesand, "is a wise man; and, in these times of change and light-mindedness, he sticks up for ancient customs. It's a pity but there were more such."
"Aye and he's a clever man," added the landlord, "and knows how to tack with the wind: for, let who would be in or out of the ministry, he has still been the king's lieutenant for these two counties of Carnarvon and Merioneth ever since I can think on."
"There you're wrong, landlord," – replied the Alderman: "Sir Morgan never shifts or tacks for any body: he's a staunch Whig like all his ancestors from 1688; and, though he doesn't go up to Parliament now so often as he did in his younger days, yet there has never been a Tory administration but Sir Morgan Walladmor has opposed it so far as he thought honorable; that is to say, he has opposed it on the fine old Whig principles of the Russels-the Cavendishes-and the Spencers."
"And why doesn't he go up to Parliament, I'd be glad to know?" said Dulberry: "What the d-l does he stay here for, like a ruminating beast chewing the cud of his youthful patriotism? Because he has got some pleasant sinecure for himself, I suppose-and some comfortable places for his sons, his grandsons, his nephews, and his cousins."
"I'll tell you, Mr. Dulberry, why he doesn't go up to Parliament," said Alderman Gravesand; "not, as you say, out of consideration for his sons, grandsons, nephews, and cousins; for he happens to have neither son, grandson, nephew, nor cousin: – not, as you say, to preserve his own sinecures; for he has never had a shilling for his services; nor any reward at all from the state, except indeed what a man like Sir Morgan thinks the greatest of all rewards-the thanks of Parliament, and the approbation of his Sovereign: not, as you say, to take his ease and pleasure, for he has troubles enough of his own to keep him waking at Walladmor House as much as if he were in St. James's-square: – these are not his reasons, Mr. Dulberry. But now I'll tell you what is: – There are just now in London and elsewhere a set of presumptuous-illiterate-mechanical rogues who take upon themselves to be the defenders of Old England and her liberties; and they have made the very name of liberty ridiculous: and all the old authentic champions of constitutional rights in Parliament or elsewhere shrink back in shame from the opprobrium of seeming to make common cause with a crew so base and mechanical. And, if there were any person of that stamp here, and he were to take liberties with better men than himself, – I would take him by the shoulder just as I do you, Mr. Dulberry; and I would pin him down into his chair; and I would say to him-'Thou ridiculous reformer, if I hear a word of insolence from thy lips against our worthy lord lieutenant, I will most unceremoniously toss thee neck and heels out of the window.' For a day of peace and festivity that would be an unsuitable spectacle: and therefore glad I am that I see no such ridiculous person before me, but on the contrary my worthy old friend and acquaintance Samuel Dulberry."
The reformer made no manual reply to this significant threat; but contented himself with turning his back contemptuously on the Alderman-at the same time uttering these words:
"Well, Mr. Gravesand, serve your master after your own fashion: what is it to me? Carry his lap-dogs; fondle his cats; fawn upon his spaniels: what care I? But-" What dreadful form of commination hung pendant upon this 'But,' was never known: for precisely at this moment, and most auspiciously for the general harmony of the company, the reformer's eloquence was cut short by a joyous uproar of voices "They're coming! they're coming!" And immediately a sea-like sound of glad tumultuous crowds, in advance of the procession, swelled upon the ear from the open door: every window was flung up in a moment: mothers were hurrying with their infants; fathers were raising their lads and lasses on their shoulders: the thunders of the lord lieutenant's band began to peal from a distance: in half a minute the head of the procession appeared in view wheeling round the corner: heads after heads, horses after horses, in never-ending succession, kept pouring round into the street: the whole market-place filled as with the influx of a spring tide: and all eyes were turned upon the ceremonial part of the procession, which now began to unfold its pomp.
First came the Snowdon archers, two and two, in their ancient uniform7 of green and white, in number one hundred and twenty. Immediately behind them rode a young man in black and crimson, usually called Golden-Spear from the circumstance of his carrying the gilt spear of Harlech Castle, with which, by the custom, he is to ride into Machynleth church at a certain part of the service on St. David's day, and into Dolgelly church on the day of Pentecost, and there to strike three times against 'Traitors' grave'8 with a certain form of adjuration in three languages. After him came the rangers of Penmorfa, all mounted, and riding four abreast. They were in number about eighty-four; and wore, as usual, a uniform of watchet (i. e. azure) and white-with horse-cloths and housings of the same colors: – and the ancient custom had been that all the horses should be white: this rule had been relaxed in later times from the poverty of the Penmorfa people in consequence of repeated irruptions of the sea, but was now restored, with brilliant effect on the coloring of the procession, by the liberality of Sir Morgan Walladmor. Next after these rode the sheriff of Merionethshire and his billmen, all in ancient costume: and then came the most interesting part of the cavalcade. On St. David's day it had always been the custom that the Bishop of Bangor should send some representative to do suit and service for a manor which he held of the house of Walladmor: and the usage was-that, if there were an heir male to that ancient house, the Bishop sent four young men who carried falcons perched on their wrists; but, if the presumptive claimant of the Walladmor honors and estates were a female, in that case he sent four young girls who carried doves. Both the doves and the falcons had an allusion to the arms of the Walladmors: and for some reason, in the present year, Sir Morgan had chosen himself to add the four falcons and their bearers to the Bishop's doves. These were arranged in the following manner. Four beautiful girls drest altogether in white, without bonnets, and having no head-dress but white caps, were ranged in line with the four falcon-bearers, who were young boys dressed in complete suits of bishop's purple and purple mantles: all the eight rode on white horses: and immediately behind them came a kind of triumphal car, low but very spacious, and carrying Sir Morgan's five domestic harpers and the silver harps which they had won in the contests first introduced under Queen Elizabeth's reform in 1567: behind the car again rode five horsemen on gigantic horses carrying the five banners of the five several castles belonging to Sir Morgan in Wales. The banners were so managed as to droop over the heads of the young women and boys: and thus the doves, the falcons, their beautiful bearers, the white horses, the venerable harpers and their silver harps, were all gathered as it were into one central group by means of the banners of purple and gold which spread their fine floating draperies above them all.
This was the centre of the procession: but immediately in advance of this part (i. e. between it and the sheriff's party) rode the two presiding persons of the ceremony; and who in that character, as well as for the interest connected with their own appearance, commanded universal attention. – Immediately before the falcon-bearers, and mounted upon a grey charger, rode a tall meagre man in a dress well fitted to raise laughter in the spectator and with a countenance well fitted to repress it. This was Sir Morgan Walladmor. His dress was an embroidered suit something in the fashion of the French court during the regency of the Duke of Orleans in the minority of Louis the Fifteenth; and having been worn by the baronet in his youth upon some memorable occasion, where it had either aided his then handsome person in making a conquest or in some other way had connected itself with remembrances that were affecting to him, he never would wear this dress on any day but St. David's-nor on that day would ever wear any other. The dress was sacred to the festival; which, like all joyous ceremonials and commemorations, to those who are advanced in years bring with them some sorrow blended with their joy. In such sorrow however, where it is a simple tribute of natural regrets to the images of vanished things, and the fleeting records of poor transitory man, there is often an overbalance of pleasure. But the merest stranger, who read the features of Sir Morgan Walladmor with a discerning eye, might see a history written there of a sorrow that went deeper than that-a sorrow not tempered by any pleasure. On ordinary occasions this was the predominant expression of his countenance-mixed however at all times with something of a humorous aspect, a half fantastic sense of the ludicrous, and perhaps a few reliques of that sternness which at one time was said to have had some place in the composition of his character. But this had long given way to the influences of time and the softening hand of affliction: all harshness, that might once have thrown a shade over the milder graces of his character, was now removed: and on this day, above all days in the year, his heart had no leisure for any feelings but those of kindness-dilated as it was by the old ancestral glories that were revived and shadowed forth in the pomps before him. Every part of the ceremonial to his eye was rich with meaning and symbolic language: and in the eye of the rudest of his countrymen he saw this language repeated and reflected-the language of exulting national pride, with a personal application to himself as its chief local representative. Apart from these patriotic feelings, Sir Morgan was capable of enjoying that purest of all happiness which is reflected from the spectacle of happiness in others: he was besides now riding for the sixtieth time in this annual procession, having begun to ride when he was no more than five years old: and finally Sir Morgan was a gentleman in the most emphatic sense of that emphatic word. Hence it arose that his manners on this occasion were more than merely courteous or condescending; all thought of condescension was lost and forgotten in the expression of paternal benignity with which he looked on those around him: the meanest and the highest, the youngest and oldest, came in alike for the salutation of his eye: to the poorest cottagers, as he past, he bowed and smiled with an air of cordial sincerity that allowed no thought of artifice: and young and old, man and woman, all smiled with delighted faces and happy confidence as they bowed and curtsied in return.
As he passed under the inn, Sir Morgan threw up his eyes to the upper windows; and, observing them thickly crowded with strangers, he moved with a courtly politeness-at the same time smiling archly but goodnaturedly as his eye caught that of Mr. Dulberry, whose character as a reformer had reached him; and who at this moment was the only one amongst the gentlemen present that stood bolt upright, and proclaimed his radical patriotism by refusing to acknowledge the lord lieutenant's salutation. Impressive as Sir Morgan's aspect and costume were, the attention of every body however was at this moment drawn off to his youthful companion, who just now turned her eyes with a hurried glance on the inn-but immediately withdrew them, as she observed the crowd of gentlemen at the windows. All the strangers were aware that this was the baronet's niece; who was now an object of sufficient interest from the disclosures of the preceding night, even though she had been less attractive in her person.
Sorrow in Miss Walladmor wore its most touching shape: as yet it had made no ravages in her beauty; and, if it had laid a hand of gentle violence upon her health, it had as yet cropped only the luxuriance of her youthful charms. It was clear to every eye that Miss Walladmor was not one of those persons who surrender themselves unresisting victims to dejection, and sink without a struggle into premature valetudinarians. Somewhat indeed her early acquaintance with grief had dimmed the lustre of her fine blue eyes; and had given a pensive timidity to her manner. But, if her eye were less bright, it was still full of spirit and intelligence: and, if the roses were stolen from her cheek, her paleness was rather the paleness of thought than of constitutional languor; or to express it in the exquisite lines of a modern poet, if she wore 'a pale face' it was however a pale face
'-that seem'd undoubtedly
As if a blooming face it ought to be:'
and her whole person and deportment expressed that naturally she was of redundant health and gaiety, but suffering under the shocks of a trial to which she had been summoned too early for her youthful fortitude.
Having mounted on horseback only at the entrance of Machynleth, Miss Walladmor did not wear a riding-habit; but had gratified her uncle by assuming the plain white morning dress, white ribbons, and cap, which ancient custom had consecrated to the occasion; adding only, in consideration of the frosty day, an ermine tippet. The horse she rode was a white palfrey of the beautiful breed so much valued by Charles I.; and in fact traced its pedigre from the famous White Rose which had been presented by the sister of that prince [the Electress Palatine] to an ancestor of Sir Morgan's, who had attended her to Heidelberg. At the moment of passing the inn, – one of the doves, which Miss Walladmor had been in the habit of feeding, quitted the hand of the young bearer behind, and perched upon the shoulder of her mistress; making up a picture of innocent beauty somewhat fanciful and allegoric, but not on that account the less fitted to harmonize with the antique pageantries of this heraldic solemnity.
Such were the two central and presiding figures: every eye strained after them, and all that followed was unnoticed: the bailiff of Talyllyn with the surcoat, and the silver spurs of Llewellyn; the high constable of Aber-glas-llyn, with his gorgeous display of antique liveries; the tawny coats of the Bishop of St. Asaph, who came to ride the boundaries of the old episcopal demesne of Aberkilvie, in company with the retainers of Sir Morgan; the Mayor and Corporation of Machynleth, in their crimson robes; – all alike passed unheeded: and the spectators were first roused from the fascination of the departing spectacle by the clangor of the band, which with the Barmouth sea-fencibles-two troops of dragoons and the cortége of the Sheriff of Carnarvonshire brought up the rear of the cavalcade.
As fast as the procession cleared the ground, with the fluent motion of water, the crowd closed up in its wake-all eager to press after it into the church. Bertram, who had shared deeply in the general admiration and pity expressed for Miss Walladmor, sympathized no less with the national feeling belonging to the day. Who can blame him? The spectacle of a whole multitude swayed by one feeling, however little the object of that feeling may be approved by the judgment of the spectator, appeals irresistibly to his sympathies, if he be not more than usually cold-hearted: and I remember well that, though myself a faithful son of the Scotish church, I was once seduced by such an occasion into an involuntary act of idolatrous compliance with popery. It was at Orleans: the day was splendid: the bells proclaimed a festival: a vast procession of a mixed composition, religious and military, was streaming towards the cathedral; and by a moral compulsion, rather than by any physical pressure of the crowd, I was swept along into the general vortex. Suddenly an angle of the road brought me into such a position with respect to all who were in advance of my station, that I could see the whole vast line bent into the form of a crescent, and with its head entering at the great-doors of the cathedral: I gazed on the tossing of the plumes and the never ending dance of heads succeeding to heads as they plunged into what seemed the dark abysses of the church: one after one I beheld the legions and their eagles, the banners and the lilies of France swallowed up by the cathedral: then, as I came nearer and nearer, I could hear the great blair of the organ-throwing off its clouds of ascending music, like incense fuming from an altar: nearer still I could look through the high portals into the nave of the church, and could distinguish the opposite windows storied with gorgeous emblazonries of saints and martyrs, angels and archangels, whilst above them were seen the Madonna, and "the Lamb of God" with the cross; and through the upper panes streamed in the golden rays of the sun, and the blue light of the unfathomable heavens: then, as I myself was entering, suddenly the shattering trumpet-stop was opened: and I heard the full choir singing the great anthem of Pergolesi-"And the Dead shall arise: " at which instant I also wept with the multitude, and acknowledged a common faith and a common hope: and for a moment I will confess that I apostatized to the church of Rome for the sake of her pomps and vanities: a sin which I trust is forgiven me, as I can assure the church of Scotland that it is the single occasion throughout my life on which I have had any wanderings of thought from her pure and orthodox creed.
Under a similar impulse, caught from the contagion of public enthusiasm, Bertram pressed after the procession into the church. He was carried by the crowd into a situation from which he could overlook the entire nave which was in the simplest style of Gothic architecture and naked of all the ornaments which belong to the florid Gothic of a later age. The massy pillars were left unviolated by the petty hand of household neatness: they stood severe in monumental granite, unwhitewashed, unstuccoed, without tricks or frippery. All the gingerbread work of plinths to the base, or fretted cornices to the capitals, had been banished by the austerity of the presiding taste. And it struck Bertram also, as a picturesque circumstance in the whole effect and at the same time a circumstance of rude grandeur which well accorded with the spirit of the architecture, that there was no ceiling: the whole was open to the slates; and the vast beams and joists of oak, which had been laid for upwards of four hundred years, were clearly distinguishable. Below these were suspended antique banners which floated at times in the currents of air: and all the pillars were hung with shields, helmets, shirts of mail, and other ancient records of warlike achievements-arranged in the manner of trophies. All these were covered with venerable dust, the deposition of centuries, which no loyal-hearted Welchman would on any account have disturbed.
The service, as is usual at Machynleth-at Bangor Cathedral and other great churches in North Wales, was partly performed in Welch and partly in English. The singing, which was fine and supported by an organ of prodigious power, was chiefly of a triumphant and (as it appeared to Bertram) almost martial character. Just before the sermon however an ancient ceremony showed that, if the religion of the day clothed itself in the attire of earthly pride and exultation, the martial patriotism of Wales could sometimes soar into a religious expression. The people divided to the right and the left, leaving a lane from the great door: a trumpet sounded; and in rode Golden-spear, lance in rest, the whole length of the nave-passed into the choir-and halted before a monument of black marble. He paused for a few moments: then cried with a loud voice in Welch, English, and Latin, "Bastard of Walladmor!" to which summons the choir sang a penitential antiphony. Then he raised his spear and struck the outside of the tomb: to which again the organ muttered and the choir sang a response. Then a second time he raised the golden spear, and plunged it through an iron grating which occupied the place of heart in the stony figure of a knight recumbent on the tomb: the spear sank within a foot of the head: and again the organ muttered some sad tones; after which he pronounced these words:
"God, who in six days and seven nights created heaven-and earth-the sea and all that in them is, send up thy guilty soul into this grave, so long as the sea and the earth endure, on St. David's day; – annually to hear the message which I bring from Walladmor and Harlech: – The death, which thou gavest to the Pagan dogs, was given in vain: the treason, which should have trampled on the cross, was confounded by God's weak instruments a falcon and a dove: the crescent was dimmed at Walladmor, and the golden spear prevailed at Harlech: and the banner of Walladmor is flying to this day: So let it fly until Arthur shall come again in power and great beauty: on which day thy treason be forgiven thee!"
Thus having delivered his message to the grave, – the herald drew forth his spear, ported it, bowed to the altar, and turning his horse rode back: and, as Golden-spear issued from the choir, the organ and the choristers commenced one of the chorusses in Judas Maccabaeus.
Then followed the sermon which was in Welch-but, as Bertram could distinguish, full of allusions to the great names of Wales; and in fact as martial as any part of the service, and to all appearance as gratifying to the patriotic fervour of the audience. That finished, the rival thunders of the organ within and the martial band without gave notice that the procession was on its return.