A Book of Golden Deeds

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> A Book of Golden Deeds

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This was beyond the Bishop's means, and while he was considering how to
raise the sum, the slaves were all lamenting for their young lord, to
whom they were much attached, till one of them, named Leo, the cook to
the household, came to the Bishop, saying to him, 'If thou wilt give me
leave to go, I will deliver him from captivity.' The Bishop replied that
he gave free permission, and the slave set off for Treves, and there
watched anxiously for an opportunity of gaining access to Attalus; but
though the poor young man--no longer daintily dressed, bathed, and
perfumed, but ragged and squalid--might be seen following his herds of
horses, he was too well watched for any communication to be held with
him. Then Leo went to a person, probably of Gallic birth, and said,
'Come with me to this barbarian's house, and there sell me for a slave.
Thou shalt have the money, I only ask thee to help me thus far.'

Both repaired to the Frank's abode, the chief among a confused
collection of clay and timber huts intended for shelter during eating
and sleeping. The Frank looked at the slave, and asked him what he could
do.

'I can dress whatever is eaten at lordly tables,' replied Leo. 'I am
afraid of no rival; I only tell thee the truth when I say that if thou
wouldst give a feast to the king, I would send it up in the neatest
manner.'

'Ha!' said the barbarian, 'the Sun's day is coming--I shall invite my
kinsmen and friends. Cook me such a dinner as may amaze them, and make
then say, 'We saw nothing better in the king's house.'
'Let me have plenty of poultry, and I will do according to my master's
bidding,' returned Leo.

Accordingly, he was purchased for twelve gold pieces, and on the Sunday
(as Bishop Gregory of Tours, who tells the story, explains that the
barbarians called the Lord's day) he produced a banquet after the most
approved Roman fashion, much to the surprise and delight of the Franks,
who had never tasted such delicacies before, and complimented their host
upon them all the evening. Leo gradually became a great favorite, and
was placed in authority over the other slaves, to whom he gave out their
daily portions of broth and meat; but from the first he had not shown
any recognition of Attalus, and had signed to him that they must be
strangers to one another. A whole year had passed away in this manner,
when one day Leo wandered, as if for pastime, into the plain where
Attalus was watching the horses, and sitting down on the ground at some
paces off, and with his back towards his young master, so that they
might not be seen together, he said, 'This is the time for thoughts of
home! When thou hast led the horses to the stable to-night, sleep not.
Be ready at the first call!'

That day the Frank lord was entertaining a large number of guests, among
them his daughter's husband, a jovial young man, given to jesting. On
going to rest he fancied he should be thirsty at night and called Leo to
set a pitcher of hydromel by his bedside. As the slave was setting it
down, the Frank looked slyly from under his eyelids, and said in joke,
'Tell me, my father-in-law's trusty man, wilt not thou some night take
one of those horses, and run away to thine own home?'

'Please God, it is what I mean to do this very night,' answered the
Gaul, so undauntedly that the Frank took it as a jest, and answered, 'I
shall look out that thou dost not carry off anything of mine,' and then
Leo left him, both laughing.

All were soon asleep, and the cook crept out to the stable, where
Attalus usually slept among the horses. He was broad awake now, and
ready to saddle the two swiftest; but he had no weapon except a small
lance, so Leo boldly went back to his master's sleeping hut, and took
down his sword and shield, but not without awaking him enough to ask who
was moving. 'It is I--Leo,' was the answer, 'I have been to call Attalus
to take out the horses early. He sleeps as hard as a drunkard.' The
Frank went to sleep again, quite satisfied, and Leo, carrying out the
weapons, soon made Attalus feel like a free man and a noble once more.
They passed unseen out of the enclosure, mounted their horses, and rode
along the great Roman road from Treves as far as the Meuse, but they
found the bridge guarded, and were obliged to wait till night, when they
cast their horses loose and swam the river, supporting themselves on
boards that they found on the bank. They had as yet had no food since
the supper at their master's, and were thankful to find a plum tree in
the wood, with fruit, to refresh them in some degree, before they lay
down for the night. The next morning they went on in the direction of
Rheims, carefully listening whether there were any sounds behind, until,
on the broad hard-paved causeway, they actually heard the trampling of
horses. Happily a bush was near, behind which they crept, with their
naked swords before them, and here the riders actually halted for a few
moments to arrange their harness. Men and horses were both those they
feared, and they trembled at hearing one say, 'Woe is me that those
rogues have made off, and have not been caught! On my salvation, if I
catch them, I will have one hung and the other chopped into bits!' It
was no small comfort to hear the trot of the horses resumed, and soon
dying away in the distance. That same night the two faint, hungry, weary
travelers, footsore and exhausted, came stumbling into Rheims, looking
about for some person still awake to tell them the way to the house of
the Priest Paul, a friend of Attalus' uncle. They found it just as the
church bell was ringing for matins, a sound that must have seemed very
like home to these members of an episcopal household. They knocked, and
in the morning twilight met the Priest going to his earliest Sunday
morning service.

Leo told his young master's name, and how they had escaped, and the
Priest's first exclamation was a strange one: 'My dream is true. This
very night I saw two doves, one white and one black, who came and
perched on my hand.'

The good man was overjoyed, but he scrupled to give them any food, as it
was contrary to the Church's rules for the fast to be broken before
mass; but the travelers were half dead with hunger, and could only say,
'The good Lord pardon us, for, saving the respect due to His day, we
must eat something, since this is the forth day since we have touched
bread or meat.' The Priest upon this gave them some bread and wine, and
after hiding them carefully, went to church, hoping to avert suspicion;
but their master was already at Rheims, making strict search for them,
and learning that Paul the Priest was a friend of the Bishop of Langres,
he went to church, and there questioned him closely. But the Priest
succeeded in guarding his secret, and though he incurred much danger, as
the Salic law was very severe against concealers of runaway slaves, he
kept Attalus and Leo for two days till the search was blown over, and
their strength was restored, so that they could proceed to Langres.
There they were welcomed like men risen from the dead; the Bishop wept
on the neck of Attalus, and was ready to receive Leo as a slave no more,
but a friend and deliverer.

A few days after Leo was solemnly led to the church. Every door was set
open as a sign that he might henceforth go whithersoever he would.
Bishop Gregorus took him by the hand, and, standing before the
Archdeacon, declared that for the sake of the good services rendered by
his slave, Leo, he set him free, and created him a Roman citizen.

Then the Archdeacon read a writing of manumission. 'Whatever is done
according to the Roman law is irrevocable. According to the constitution
of the Emperor Constantine, of happy memory, and the edict that declares
that whosoever is manumitted in church, in the presence of the bishops,
priests, and deacons, shall become a Roman citizen under the protection
of the Church: from this day Leo becomes a member of the city, free to
go and come where he will as if he had been born of free parents. From
this day forward, he is exempt from all subjection of servitude, of all
duty of a freed-man, all bond of client-ship. He is and shall be free,
with full and entire freedom, and shall never cease to belong to the
body of Roman citizens.'

At the same time Leo was endowed with lands, which raised him to the
rank of what the Franks called a Roman proprietor--the highest reward in
the Bishop's power for the faithful devotion that had incurred such
dangers in order to rescue the young Attalus from his miserable bondage.

Somewhat of the same kind of faithfulness was shown early in the
nineteenth century by Ivan Simonoff, a soldier servant belonging to
Major Kascambo, an officer in the Russian army, who was made prisoner by
one of the wild tribes of the Caucasus. But though the soldier's
attachment to his master was quite as brave and disinterested as that of
the Gallic slave, yet he was far from being equally blameless in the
means he employed, and if his were a golden deed at all, it was mixed
with much of iron.

Major Kascambo, with a guard of fifty Cossacks, was going to take the
command of the Russian outpost of Lars, one of the forts by which the
Russian Czars have slowly been carrying on the aggressive warfare that
has nearly absorbed into their vast dominions all the mountains between
the Caspian and Black seas. On his way he was set upon by seven hundred
horsemen of the savage and independent tribe of Tchetchenges. There was
a sharp fight, more than half his men were killed, and he with the rest
made a rampart of the carcasses of their horses, over which they were
about to fire their last shots, when the Tchetchenges made a Russian
deserter call out to the Cossacks that they would let them all escape
provided they would give up their officer. Kascambo on this came forward
and delivered himself into their hands; while the remainder of the
troops galloped off. His servant, Ivan, with a mule carrying his
baggage, had been hidden in a ravine, and now, instead of retreating
with the Cossacks, came to join his master. All the baggage was,
however, instantly seized and divided among the Tchetchenges; nothing
was left but a guitar, which they threw scornfully to the Major. He
would have let it lie, but Ivan picked it up, and insisted on keeping
it. 'Why be dispirited?' he said; 'the God of the Russians is great, it
is the interest of the robbers to save you, they will do you no harm.'

Scouts brought word that the Russian outposts were alarmed, and that
troops were assembling to rescue the officer. Upon this the seven
hundred broke up into small parties, leaving only ten men on foot to
conduct the prisoners, whom they forced to take off their iron-shod
boots and walk barefoot over stones and thorns, till the Major was so
exhausted that they were obliged to drag him by cords fastened to his
belt.

After a terrible journey, the prisoners were placed in a remote village,
where the Major had heavy chains fastened to his hands and feet, and
another to his neck, with a huge block of oak as a clog at the other
end; they half-starved him, and made him sleep on the bare ground of the
hut in which he lodged. The hut belonged to a huge, fierce old man of
sixty named Ibrahim, whose son had been killed in a skirmish with the
Russians. This man, together with his son's widow, were continually
trying to revenge themselves on their captive. The only person who
showed him any kindness was his little grandson, a child of seven years
old, called Mamet, who often caressed him, and brought him food by
stealth. Ivan was also in the same hut, but less heavily ironed than his
master, and able to attempt a few alleviations for his wretched
condition. An interpreter brought the Major a sheet of paper and a reed
pen, and commanded him to write to his friends that he might be ransomed
for 10,000 roubles, but that, if the whole sum were not paid, he would
be put to death. He obeyed, but he knew that his friends could not
possibly raise such a sum, and his only hope was in the government,
which had once ransomed a colonel who had fallen into the hands of the
same tribe.

These Tchetchenges professed to be Mahometans, but their religion sat
very loose upon them, and they were utter barbarians. One piece of
respect they paid the Major's superior education was curious--they made
him judge in all the disputes that arose. The houses in the village were
hollowed out underground, and the walls only raised three or four feet,
and then covered by a flat roof, formed of beaten clay, where the
inhabitants spent much of their time. Kascambo was every now and then
brought, in all his chains, to the roof of the hut, which served as a
tribunal whence he was expected to dispense justice. For instance, a man
had commissioned his neighbour to pay five roubles to a person in
another valley, but the messenger's horse having died by the way, a
claim was set up to the roubles to make up for it. Both parties
collected all their friends, and a bloody quarrel was about to take
place, when they agreed to refer the question to the prisoner, who was
accordingly set upon his judgment seat.

'Pray,' said he, 'if, instead of giving you five roubles, your comrade
had desired you to carry his greetings to his creditor, would not your
horse have died all the same?'

'Most likely.'

'Then what should you have done with the greetings? Should you have kept
them in compensation? My sentence is that you should give back the
roubles, and that your comrade gives you a greeting.'

The whole assembly approved the decision, and the man only grumbled out,
as he gave back the money, 'I knew I should lose it, if that dog of a
Christian meddled with it.'

All this respect, however, did not avail to procure any better usage for
the unfortunate judge, whose health was suffering severely under his
privations. Ivan, however, had recommended himself in the same way as
Leo, by his perfections as a cook, and moreover he was a capital
buffoon. His fetters were sometimes taken off that he might divert the
villagers by his dances and strange antics while his master played the
guitar. Sometimes they sang Russian songs together to the instrument,
and on these occasions the Major's hands were released that he might
play on it; but one day he was unfortunately heard playing in his chains
for his own amusement, and from that time he was never released from his
fetters.

In the course of a year, three urgent letters had been sent; but no
notice was taken of them, and Ivan began to despair of aid from home,
and set himself to work. His first step was to profess himself a
Mahometan. He durst not tell his master till the deed was done, and then
Kascambo was infinitely shocked; but the act did not procure Ivan so
much freedom as he had hoped. He was, indeed, no longer in chains, but
he was evidently distrusted, and was so closely watched, that the only
way in which he could communicate with his master was when they were set
to sing together, when they chanted out question and answer in Russ,
unsuspected, to the tune of their national airs. He was taken on an
expedition against the Russians, and very nearly killed by the
suspicious Tchetchenges on one side, and by the Cossacks on the other,
as a deserter. He saved a young man of the tribe from drowning; but
though he thus earned the friendship of the family, the rest of the
villagers hated and dreaded him all the more, since he had not been able
to help proving himself a man of courage, instead of the feeble buffoon
he had tried to appear.

Three months after this expedition, another took place; but Ivan was not
allowed even to know of it. He saw preparations making, but nothing was
said to him; only one morning he found the village entirely deserted by
all the young men, and as he wandered round it, the aged ones would not
speak to him. A child told him that his father had meant to kill him,
and on the roof of her house stood the sister of the man he had saved,
making signals of great terror, and pointing towards Russia. Home he
went and found that, besides old Ibrahim, his master was watched by a
warrior, who had been prevented by an intermitting fever from joining
the expedition. He was convinced that if the tribe returned
unsuccessful, the murder of both himself and his master was certain; but
he resolved not to fly alone, and as he busied himself in preparing the
meal, he sung the burden of a Russian ballad, intermingled with words of
encouragement for his master:

The time is come;
Hai Luli!
The time is come,
Hai Luli!
Our woe is at an end,
Hai Luli!
Or we die at once!
Hai Luli!
To-morrow, to-morrow,
Hai Luli!
We are off for a town,
Hai Luli!
For a fine, fine town,
Hai Luli!
But I name no names,
Hai Luli!
Courage, courage, master dear,
Hai Luli!
Never, never, despair,
Hai Luli!
For the God of the Russians is great,
Hai Luli!

Poor Kascambo, broken down, sick, and despairing, only muttered, 'Do as
you please, only hold your peace!'

Ivan's cookery incited the additional guard to eat so much supper, that
he brought on a severe attack of his fever, and was obliged to go home;
but old Ibrahim, instead of going to bed, sat down on a log of wood
opposite the prisoner, and seemed resolved to watch him all night. The
woman and child went to bed in the inner room, and Ivan signed to his
master to take the guitar, and began to dance. The old man's axe was in
an open cupboard at the other end of the room, and after many gambols
and contortions, during which the Major could hardly control his fingers
to touch the strings, Ivan succeeded in laying his hands upon it, just
when the old man was bending over the fire to mend it. Then, as Ibrahim
desired that the music should cease, he cut him down with a single blow,
on his own hearth. And the daughter-in-law coming out to see what had
happened, he slew her with the same weapon. And then, alas! in spite of
the commands, entreaties, and cries of his master, he dashed into the
inner room, and killed the sleeping child, lest it should give the
alarm. Kascambo, utterly helpless to save, fell almost fainting upon the
bloody floor, and did not cease to reproach Ivan, who was searching the
old man's pockets for the key of the fetters, but it was not there, nor
anywhere else in the hut, and the irons were so heavy that escape was
impossible in them. Ivan at last knocked off the clog and the chains on
the wrist with the axe, but he could not break the chains round the
legs, and could only fasten them as close as he could to hinder them
clanking. Then securing all the provisions he could carry, and putting
his master into his military cloak, obtaining also a pistol and dagger,
they crept out, but not on the direct road. It was February, and the
ground was covered with snow. All night they walked easily, but at noon
the sun so softened it that they sank in at every step, and the Major's
chains rendered each motion terrible labour. It was only on the second
night that Ivan, with his axe, succeeded in breaking through the
fastenings, and by that time the Major's legs were so swollen and
stiffened that he could not move without extreme pain. However, he was
dragged on through the wild mountain paths, and then over the plains for
several days more, till they were on the confines of another tribe of
Tchetchenges, who were overawed by Russia, and in a sort of unwilling
alliance. Here, however, a sharp storm, and a fall into the water,
completely finished Kascambo's strength, and he sank down on the snow,
telling Ivan to go home and explain his fate, and give his last message
to his mother.

'If you perish here,' said Ivan, 'trust me, neither your mother nor mine
will ever see me again.'

He covered his master with his cloak, gave him the pistol, and walked on
to a hut, where he found a Tchetchenge man, and told him that here was a
means of obtaining two hundred roubles. He had only to shelter the major
as a guest for three days, whilst Ivan himself went on to Mosdok, to
procure the money, and bring back help for his master. The man was full
of suspicion, but Ivan prevailed, and Kascambo was carried into the
village nearly dying, and was very ill all the time of his servant's
absence. Ivan set off for the nearest Russian station, where he found
some of the Cossacks who had been present when the major was taken. All
eagerly subscribed to raise the two hundred roubles, but the Colonel
would not let Ivan go back alone, as he had engaged to do, and sent a
guard of Cossacks. This had nearly been fatal to the Major, for as soon
as his host saw the lances, he suspected treachery, and dragging his
poor sick guest to the roof of the house, he tied him up to a stake, and
stood over him with a pistol, shouting to Ivan, 'If you come nearer, I
shall blow his brains out, and I have fifty cartridges more for my
enemies, and the traitor who leads them.'

'No traitor!' cried Ivan. 'Here are the roubles. I have kept my word!'

'Let the Cossacks go back, or I shall fire.'

Kascambo himself begged the officer to retire, and Ivan went back with
the detachment, and returned alone. Even then the suspicious host made
him count out the roubles at a hundred paces from the house, and at once
ordered him out of sight; but then went up to the roof, and asked the
Major's pardon for all this rough usage.

'I shall only recollect that you were my host, and kept your word,' said
Kascambo.

In a few hours more, Kascambo was in safety among his brother officers.
Ivan was made a non-commissioned officer, and some months after was seen
by the traveler who told the story, whistling the air of Hai Luli at his
former master's wedding feast. He was even then scarcely twenty years
old, and peculiarly quiet and soft in manners.

THE BATTLE OF THE BLACKWATER

991

In the evil days of King Ethelred the Unready, when the teaching of good
King Alfred was fast fading away from the minds of his descendants, and
self-indulgence was ruining the bold and hardy habits of the English,
the fleet was allowed to fall into decay, and Danish ships again
ventured to appear on the English coasts.

The first Northmen who had ravaged England came eager for blood and
plunder, and hating the sight of a Christian church as an insult to
their gods, Thor and Odin; but the lapse of a hundred years had in some
degree changed the temper of the North; and though almost every young
man thought it due to his fame to have sailed forth as a sea rover, yet
the attacks of these marauders might be bought off, and provided they
had treasure to show for their voyage, they were willing to spare the
lives and lands of the people of the coasts they visited.

King Ethelred and his cowardly, selfish Court were well satisfied with
this expedient, and the tax called Danegeld was laid upon the people, in
order to raise a fund for buying off the enemy. But there were still in
England men of bolder and truer hearts, who held that bribery was false
policy, merely inviting the enemy to come again and again, and that the
only wise course would be in driving them back by English valor, and
keeping the fleet in a condition to repel the 'Long Serpent' ships
before the foe could set foot upon the coast.

Among those who held this opinion was Brythnoth, Earl of Essex. He was
of partly Danish descent himself, but had become a thorough Englishman,
and had long and faithfully served the King and his father. He was a
friend to the clergy, a founder of churches and convents, and his manor
house of Hadleigh was a home of hospitality and charity. It would
probably be a sort of huge farmyard, full of great barn-like buildings
and sheds, all one story high; some of them serving for storehouses, and
others for living-rooms and places of entertainment for his numerous
servants and retainers, and for the guests of all degrees who gathered
round him as the chief dispenser of justice in his East-Saxon earldom.
When he heard the advice given and accepted that the Danes should be
bribed, instead of being fought with, he made up his mind that he, at
least, would try to raise up a nobler spirit, and, at the sacrifice of
his own life, would show the effect of making a manful stand against
them.

He made his will, and placed it in the hands of the Archbishop of
Canterbury; and then, retiring to Hadleigh, he provided horses and arms,
and caused all the young men in his earldom to be trained in warlike
exercises, according to the good old English law, that every man should
be provided with weapons and know the use of them.

The Danes sailed forth, in the year 991, with ninety-three vessels, the
terrible 'Long Serpents', carved with snakes' heads at the prow, and the
stern finished as the gilded tail of the reptile; and many a lesser
ship, meant for carrying plunder. The Sea King, Olaf (or Anlaff), was
the leader; and as tidings came that their sails had been seen upon the
North Sea, more earnest than ever rang out the petition in the Litany,
'From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us'.

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