Of how I, Nigel de Bessin, was brought up by the monks of the Vale in Guernsey Island, and how on a certain day the abbot gave me choice of two lives, and which I chose.
This is the chronicle of me, Nigel de Bessin, of good Norman stock, being a cadet of the great house, whose elder branch is even to-day settled at St. Sauveur, in the Cotentin. And I write it for two reasons. First, for the sake of these grandchildren, Geoffrey, Guy, and William, who gather round me in the hall here at Newton, asking for the story of great deeds of old days, such as were the deeds of Tancred and Duke Rollo, and him I loved and fought for--loved, though stern he was and rude--William, who by his mighty conquest gave us our place in this fair realm. And second, since the winter days are long, and I go no more out to hunt or to fight as of old, to recall all this and more will have much sweetness, and delight my old heart with gentle memories, like the smell of lavender laid between robes or napery in the oak press yonder, as one takes this or that from the store.
And first, how came I to write it in such clerkly wise? Ay, that was through the foresight of my uncle, the Vicomte de Bessin, since I knew not then my father, and the good care of the monks of the Vale, and chiefly of Brother Bernard, a ripe scholar and a good, with whom I progressed so well in learning, that at fifteen I was more like to have put this grissled head under a cowl than under a soldier's helm. A fair place was L'Ancresse in the days of Abbot Michael, false Maugher, and the Grand Sarrasin. And a good school of manners and of learning of books and piety, that may aid men in their earthly life, was the Vale Cloister. I see it now--the quiet, sober place, with its great round arches, and its seats of stone, pleasant and cool in summer, bitter cold in winter, when the wind came in sharp from the Eastern sea, so that we wrapt our Norway furs about us, and shivered as we sat, till Brother Bernard said, "Up, lads; catch who catch can up to the Viking's tomb!" or "Haste ye now, and run to meet the pirates in Bordeaux Bay, and bring them to me to shrive, ere ye do them to death, as Normans should!" The blood ran free and warm then, and the limbs grew straight and strong, and the muscles of arms and legs like whipcord, and brown we were as the brown rocks of L'Ancresse Bay, as we played at war on those salt-breathed plains--Guy, Rainauld, Gwalkelyn. Alas! they are all passed to their account! There were no aches or pains of back or shoulder; there were no mean jealousies, no bitter hatreds, no discourtesies, no words that suit not the sons of good knights or lords, but wrestle or tussle and mock battle, and tourney, and race by land or water in summer, when our bodies gleamed white beneath the calm waves as we played like young dolphins in the bay. And ever and anon would Brother Hugo be amongst us, his cowl thrown back, and his keen eagle face furrowed into merriment as he sped on some knightly play--for he himself was a nobleman, and had been a good knight, and a famous name lay hid under that long Benedictine robe. Thus, wondrous peacefully and happily had I been reared with other right princely youths and some of humble lineage in that fair place. And but one unhappiness ever disturbed my joyous spirit. It was that while all had fathers and mothers that loved them, and took pride in their increase in learning year by year, or else had dear memories of those that were their parents, I had been told naught of my parents save their name, and asking of them was bidden not to ask further. This at times was a grief to my spirit, but amid so many joys it weighed not on me heavily.
Now it was before the coming of the Grand Sarrasin and his troop of the wild off-scouring of every sea, that settled in the midst of the isle and defied lord and squire, abbot and prior--it was before those days with which my chronicle has most to do--that to me, Nigel, sitting conning an old book of knightly exploits, which for a reward Brother Hugo let us read on summer days, came a summons to go and see no less a one than the abbot himself. Now, the abbot was a great man of holy and blameless life, that sat in his own chamber towards the west, and had much traffic in matters of State and Church with the duke, and messengers went often to and fro from him to Caen, Rouen, and Paris, and in that year, the year one thousand and fifty-seventh since the birth of the Saviour of men, ever adorable and blessed, there was much afoot, for William, with the young blood still in him, gaining to himself by force of will chief power upon the mainland, was already spreading his wings like a young falcon for another more terrible flight. And lately Maugher, his uncle, and his bitterest foe though out of his own household, he had banished, archbishop though he was, from Rouen, to our small Isle of Guernsey, where there was scarce footing for the tread of so great and dark a schemer in high matters. And already the Conqueror had himself appeared at Edward's Court in England, and prepared his way thither.
I was near sixteen years old, and I stood tall for my years, some five foot and a half, and for a lad I was well made, if yet lacking my full strength and girth round the chest, such a lad as in two years more Geoffrey my grandson will grow to, if God will. Fair I should have been if I were not burnt black with the hot sun pouring through the salt air, and my fair hair clustered crisp and neat round my temples and neck. So stood I, no doubt a fair and honourable youth, at the entering in of the abbot's inner chamber.
And the abbot, sitting in his carven chair amid his rolls of parchment and instruments of writing, raised me swiftly as I stooped to kiss his hand. Dark-eyed, hawk-nosed, with black hair not yet flecked with snow, there was an awe and stateliness in him whether he spoke to gentle or to simple. He was a Norman, and being such feared none, and had his will, and when it was possible mixed a rare gentleness with his acts and words.
"Son," said he, "thou hast been happy here?"
The keen eyes were fixed upon me, and I could not but answer the truth, even had I wished to lie.
"Yes, holy father," I answered.
"And thou wouldst stay here ever?" The eyes were still upon me, and they searched my soul as a bright flush, I knew, rose to my cheek, and I hesitated how to answer. Then suddenly, as I stood in doubt, they seemed to change, and it was as if sunlight gleamed over a landscape that before lay dark and grim, for the abbot smiled upon me with the kindest of all smiles. "Thou feelest no calling to the cloister and the cowl, the book and the pen, the priesthood, and the life of prayer?"
"Ah, no, holy Father." I had gained my tongue, and spoke boldly, if reverently. "Books and prayer are good; but I am young, and there is a world beyond these grey walls, and my kinsmen fight and do rather than pray or read."
"The eaglet beats his wings against his cage already," said the abbot, kindly; "it is indeed a shapely bird. Thou art right, lad. There is a world outside, where men strive and fight and do--how blindly and how wildly thou knowest not. But the battle is not to the strong or the race to the swift, though so it seem. Go, then, out into the world boldly but warily, and be thou a good soldier, as thou art a good scholar. Thine uncle shall know of these words between us."
I knelt again and kissed his hand, and left his broad and pleasant chamber.
And outside I strolled upon the green, dim vague thoughts surging up swift into my mind, as I went striding on swifter than I knew. Ere long I reached the extreme limit of the land, the high-piled rocks of L'Ancresse. I looked out upon the sea to where Auremen lay flat and wide against the sky, and I thought I could descry the Norman shores and La Hague Cape stretching towards me; and, though I knew no home but the Vale Cloister, another voice of home seemed calling me over thither. A voice in which battlecries and trumpet-blasts were strangely mingled; and I seemed to see men fighting and striving, and banners and pennons flying; and a voice seemed to spring up from my soul, bidding me go forth, and fight and strive with them, and gain something--I knew not what.
I knew not then; but I know now, what that voice was, that yearning, that discontent with the past. It was the Norman blood rising within me, the blood of force, and battle, and achievement. Surely there is something in us Normans--a hidden fire, which sends us forth and onwards, and makes us claim what we will for our own! And having claimed it, we fight for it, and fighting we win it. So with Tancred of Hauteville, so with Rou, so with William. Will of iron, heart of fire! A grand thing it is to be born a Norman.
Of Vale Castle, hard by the Abbey, and how I was sent with a letter to Archbishop Maugher, and by the way first saw the Sarrasin pirates at work.
Now, men were busy in the Vale. I have yet said no word of Vale Castle, built a mile away from the cloister, of hewn stone, goodly and strong. It lay upon the left horn of St. Sampson's Harbour, near where that holy man landed with the good news of God in days of old, and its stout bastions rested on the bare rock, and its walls seemed one with the rock below, so thick and stout they were, built as Normans alone can build, to last as long as the rocks, as long as the earth. And in Vale Castle no lord or baron ruled. It was the Castle and outward defence of the Vale Cloister, and its lord was the Abbot of the Vale. And within its ramparts there was room (as we found ere long), in times of danger from pirate or strange foes, for all the brethren and children of the Cloister, and for many more besides, so that when the watch-tower fire sprang into life upon the beacon, and the alarm-bell rang out by night or day, the folk of the dale came flocking in with their babes and their most prized goods for shelter beneath the abbot's wing. Vale Castle feared no pirate-band, and in a short space all our most precious things could be secured behind those walls snug and safe enough, until the evil men who had come to alarm our peace steered their long ships away again, sore dissatisfied with the plunder of our isle. So well guarded we were, and so strong were our three castles, within whose walls all who listed could find safety. As, indeed, it proved in the attack of the great Moor, of which this chronicle will chiefly tell.
Now, the Castle had been built some forty years before, by none other than the great Cherbourg himself, Duke Robert's engineer. For it chanced that Duke Robert was royally entertained years ago by Abbot Magloirios, when he was forced by foul weather to put into L'Ancresse Bay, who, on his departure, left Cherbourg and other skilled men to build three castles for their safety against pirates. So it was through Duke Robert's stay at the Vale that our Castle was made so strong. Thus God brought here, as ever, good out of evil.
And among the lay brothers were good soldiers, who could man the Castle. And once, in bygone days, they say a whole company of knights (all resting now in Abraham's bosom, and their bodies in the Vale churchyard) came together, and sought to be made quit of the world and its strife in our peaceful cloister. These, though they left the world behind, were able to teach for safety's sake something of warlike matters to the brethren; and thus it chanced that our brothers were ready to be men of war when peace was impossible, and men said of them, in rhyming fashion--
