Béarn and the Pyrenees | Page 5

is asserted, that here a child was born in secrecy and mystery, and that here, by this imperfect light, his beautiful mother gazed upon the features of the future hero of Normandy.
However unlike a bower fitted for beauty and love, it is said that here Arlette, the skinner's daughter, was confined of William the Conqueror. It is said, too, that from this height, the sharp-sighted Duke his father, gazing from his towers, first beheld the lovely peasant girl bathing in the fountain which still bears her name. In this retreat, concealed from prying eyes, and where inquisitive ears found it difficult to catch a sound, the shrill cry of the wondrous infant was first uttered,--a sound often to be repeated by every echo of the land, when changed to the war note which led to victory.
Little, perhaps, did his poor mother exult in his birth, for she was of lowly lineage, and had never raised her eyes to the castle but with awe, nor thought of its master but with fear; her pleasures were to dance, on holidays, under the shade of trees with the simple villagers, her companions; her duties, to wash her linen on the stones of the silver stream, as her townswomen do still at the present day--that silver stream which probably flowed past her father's cottage, as it still flows, bathing the base of cottages as humble and as rudely built as his could have been. There might, perchance, have been one, amongst the youths who admired her beauty, whom she preferred to the rest; her ambition might have been to become his bride, her dreams might have imaged his asking her of her father, whose gracious consent made them both happy: in her ears might have rung the pealing bells of St. Gervais--the vision of maidens, in bridal costumes, strewing flowers in her path, might have risen before her view--her lover with his soft words and smiles--his cottage amongst the heath-covered rocks of Noron--all this might have flitted across her mind, as she stood beside the fountain, beneath the castle walls, unconscious that eyes were gazing on her whose influence was to fix her destiny. A mail-clad warrior, terrible and powerful, whose will may not be resisted, whose gold glitters in her father's eyes, or whose chains clank in his ears, has seen and coveted her for his own, and her simple dream must be dispersed in air to make way for waking terrors. The unfortunate father trembles while he feebly resists, he listens to the duke's proposal, he has yet a few words of entreaty for his child: he dares not tell her what her fate must be, he hopes that time and new adventures will efface Arlette from the mind of her dangerous lover; but, again, he is urged, heaps of gold shine before him, how shall he turn from their tempting lustre? Is there not in yonder tower an oubliette that yawns for the disobedient vassal? He appeals to Arlette, she has no reply but tears; men at arms appear in the night, they knock at the skinner's door and demand his daughter, they promise fair in the name of their master; they mount her on a steed before the gentlest of their band, his horse's hoofs clatter along the rocky way--the father hears the sobs of his child for a little space, and his heart sinks,--he hides his eyes with his clenched hand, but suddenly he starts up--his floor is strewn with glittering pieces--he stoops down and counts them, and Arlette's sorrows are forgotten.
Arlette returns no more to her father's cottage. She remains in a turret of the castle, but not as a handmaiden of the duchess; her existence is not supposed to be known, though the childless wife of Duke Robert weeps in secret, over her wrongs.
All this is pure fancy, and may have no foundation in reality.
"Look here upon this picture and on that."
Perhaps Arlette did not repine at her fate; she might have been ambitious and worldly, vain and presuming, have possessed cunning and resolve, and have used every artifice to secure her triumph. Some of the stories extant of her would seem to prove this, and some to exculpate her from blame, inasmuch as she believed herself to have fulfilled a sacred duty in conforming to her master's will. When she told her lover that she had dreamt "a tree sprang from her bosom which overshadowed all Normandy," there was more evidence of policy than simplicity in the communication which was so well calculated to raise the hopes of a great man without an heir; and perhaps it was she herself who dictated the saying of the sage femme at her son's birth, who, having placed him on straw by her side, and observing that the robust