Two leaders rode before the troop. They were two great owners of land, and each possessed4 of commissions from the Imperial authority. The one had come up hastily northwards from Poitiers, the other had marched westward5 to join him, coming from the Beauce, with his command. Each was a Comes, a Lord[Pg 144] Administrator6 of a countryside and its capital, and had power to levy7 free men. Their retainers also were many. About them there rode a little group of aides, and behind them, before the footmen, were four squadrons of mounted followers8.
The force had already marched far that morning. It was winding9 in line down a roughly beaten road between the growing crops of the hillside, and far off in the valley the leaders watched the distant villages, but they could see no sign of their quarry10. They were hunting the pirates. The scent11 had been good from the very early hours when they had broken camp till lately, till mid-morning; but in the last miles of their marching it had failed them, and the accounts they received from the rare peasantry were confused.
They found a cottage of wood standing12 thatched near the track at the place where it left the hills for the water meadows, and here they recovered the trace of their prey13. A wounded man, his right arm bound roughly[Pg 145] with sacking, leaned against the door of the place, and with his whole left arm pointed14 at a group of houses more than a mile away beyond the stream, and at a light smoke which rose into the still summer air just beyond a screen of wood in its neighbourhood. He had seen the straggling line of the Northern men an hour before, hurrying over the Down and coming towards that farm.
Of the two leaders the shorter and more powerful one, who sat his horse the less easily, and whose handling of the rein15 was brutally16 strong, rode up and questioned and requestioned the peasant. Could he guess the numbers? It might be two hundred; it was not three. How long had they been in the countryside? Four days, at least. It was four days ago that they had tried to get into the monastery17, near the new castle, and had been beaten off by the servants at the orchard18 wall. What damage had they done? He could not tell. The reports were few that he had heard. His cousin from up the valley complained that[Pg 146] three oxen had been driven from his fields by night. They had stolen a chain of silver from St. Giles without respect for the shrine19. They had done much more—how much he did not know. Had they left any dead? Yes, three, whom he had helped to bury. They had been killed outside the monastery wall. One of his fields was of the monastery benefice, and he had been summoned to dig the graves.
The lord who thus questioned him fixed20 him with straight soldierly eyes, and, learning no more, rode on by the side of his equal from Poitiers. That equal was armoured, but the lord who had spoken to the peasant, full of body and squat21, square of shoulder, thick of neck, tortured by the heat, had put off from his chest and back his leather coat, strung with rings of iron. His servant had unlaced it for him some miles before, and it hung loose upon the saddle hook. He had taken off, also, the steel helm, and it hung by its strap22 to the same point. He preferred to take the noon sun upon his thick hair and to risk its action than[Pg 147] to be weighed upon longer by that iron. And this though at any moment the turn of a spinney might bring them upon some group of the barbarians23.
Upon this short, resolute24 man, rather than upon his colleague, the expectation of the armed men was fixed. His repute had gone through all the North of Gaul with popular tales of his feats25 in lifting and in throwing. He was perhaps forty years of age. He boasted no lineage, but vague stories went about—that his father was from the Germanies; that his father was from the Paris land; that it was his mother who had brought him to court; that he was a noble with a mystery that forbade him to speak of his birth; that he was a slave whom the Emperor had enfranchised26 and to whom he had given favour; that he was a farmer's son; a yeoman.
On these things he had never spoken. No one had met men or women of his blood. But ever since his boyhood he had gone upwards27 in the rank of the empire, adding, also, one village to[Pg 148] another in his possession, from the first which he had obtained no man knew how; purchasing land with the profits of office after office. He had been Comes of Tours, Comes of Auxerre, Comes of Nevers. He had the commission for all the military work between Loire and Seine. There were songs about him, and myths and tales of his great strength, for it was at this that the populace most wondered.
So this man rode by his colleague's side at the head of the little force, seeking for the pirates, when, unexpectedly, upon emerging from a fringe of trees that lined the flat meadows, his seat in the saddle stiffened28 and changed, and his eyes fired at what he saw. Two hundred yards before him was the stream, and over it the narrow stone bridge unbroken. Immediately beyond a group of huts and houses, wood and stone, and a heavy, low, round-arched bulk of a church marked the goal of the pirates—and there they were! They had seen the imperial levy the moment that it left the trees, and they were running—tall,[Pg 149] lanky29 men, unkempt, some burdened with sacks, most of them armed with battle-axe30 or short spear. They were making for cover in the houses of the village.
Immediately the two leaders called the marshallers of their levies31, gave orders that the foot-men should follow, trotted32 in line over the bridge at the head of the squadron, and, once the water was passed, formed into two bodies of horse and galloped33 across the few fields into the streets of the place.
Just as they reached the market square and the front of the old church there, the last of the marauders (retarded under the weight of some burden he would save) was caught and pinned by a short spear thrown. He fell, crying and howling in a foreign tongue to gods of his own in the northland. But all his comrades were fast in the building, and there was a loud thrusting of stone statues and heavy furniture against the doors. Then, within a moment, an arrow flashed from a window slit34, just missing one of the marshals. The Comes of Poitiers[Pg 150] shouted for wood to burn the defence of the door, and villagers, misliking the task, were pressed. Faggots were dragged from sheds and piled against it. Even as this work was doing, man after man fell, as the defenders35 shot them at short range from within the church-tower.
The first of the foot-men had come up, and some half-dozen picked for marksmanship were attempting to thread with their whistling arrows the slits36 in the thick walls whence the bolts of the Vikings came. One such opening was caught by a lucky aim. For some moments its fire ceased, then came another arrow from it. It struck the Comes of Poitiers and he went down, and as he fell from his horse two servants caught him. Next, with a second shaft37, the horse was struck, and it plunged38 and began a panic. No servant dared stab it, but a marshal did.
Robert, that second count, the leader, had dismounted. He was in a fury, mixed with the common men, and striking at the great church door blow upon blow, having in his hand a stone[Pg 151] so huge that even at such a moment they marvelled39 at him.
Unarmoured, pouring with sweat, though at that western door a great buttress40 still shaded him from the noonday sun, Robert the Strong thundered enormously at the oak. A hinge broke, and he heard a salute41 of laughter from his men. He dropped his instrument, lifted, straining, a great beam which lay there, and trundled it like a battering-ram against the second hinge. But, just as the shock came, an arrow from the tower caught him also. It struck where the neck joins the shoulder, and he went down. Even as he fell, the great door gave, and the men of the imperial levy, fighting their way in, broke upon the massed pirates that still defended the entry with a whirl of axe and sword.
Four men tended the leader, one man holding his head upon his knee, the three others making shift to lift him, to take him where he might be tended. But his body was no longer convulsed; the motions of the arms had ceased;[Pg 152] and when the arrow was plucked at last from the wound, the thick blood hardly followed it. He was dead.
The name of this village and this church was Brissarthe; and the man who so fell, and from whose falling soldier songs and legends arose, was the first father of all the Capetians, the French kings.
From this man sprang Eudes, who defended Paris from the Sea-Rovers: Hugh Capet and Philip Augustus and Louis the Saint and Philip the Fair; and so through century after century to the kings that rode through Italy, to Henri IV, to Louis XIV in the splendour of his wars, and to that last unfortunate who lost the Tuileries on August 10th, 1793. His line survives to-day, for its eldest42 heir is the man whom the Basques would follow. His expectants call him Don Carlos, and he claims the crown of Spain.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
knolls
|
|
| n.小圆丘，小土墩( knoll的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
interspersed
|
|
| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
retinue
|
|
| n.侍从；随员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
westward
|
|
| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
administrator
|
|
| n.经营管理者，行政官员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
levy
|
|
| n.征收税或其他款项，征收额 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
followers
|
|
| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
winding
|
|
| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
quarry
|
|
| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
scent
|
|
| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
rein
|
|
| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
brutally
|
|
| adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
monastery
|
|
| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
orchard
|
|
| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
shrine
|
|
| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
squat
|
|
| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
strap
|
|
| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
barbarians
|
|
| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
resolute
|
|
| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
feats
|
|
| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
enfranchised
|
|
| v.给予选举权( enfranchise的过去式和过去分词 )；（从奴隶制中）解放 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
upwards
|
|
| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
stiffened
|
|
| 加强的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
lanky
|
|
| adj.瘦长的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
axe
|
|
| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
levies
|
|
| （部队）征兵( levy的名词复数 )； 募捐； 被征募的军队 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
trotted
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
galloped
|
|
| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
slit
|
|
| n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
defenders
|
|
| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
slits
|
|
| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
shaft
|
|
| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
plunged
|
|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
marvelled
|
|
| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
buttress
|
|
| n.支撑物；v.支持 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
salute
|
|
| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
eldest
|
|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |