Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

								

had taken a larger grant of land, although he was of newer race, and
had killed fewer men than Sir Roland), led this enterprising founder
to set up his tower so high. At any rate, he settled his Penates so
commandingly, that if Bramber Castle had been in sight, he might have
looked down its chimneys as freely as into his villeins’ sheepcotes.
Bramber Castle, however, happened to be round the corner.
This good knight’s end, according to the tradition of the family, was
not so thoroughly peaceful as a life of war should earn. One gentle
autumnal evening, Sir Roland and his friend and neighbour, William de
Braose, were riding home to a quiet supper, both in excellent temper
and spirits, and pleasant contempt of the country. The harvest-moon was
rising over breadths of corn in grant to them, and sheep and cattle
tended by their villeins, once the owners. Each congratulated the other
upon tranquil seizin, and the goodwill of the neighbourhood; when
suddenly their way was stopped by a score of heavy Englishmen.
These, in their clumsy manner, sued no favour, nor even justice; only
to be trodden down with fairness and show of reason.
“Ye shall be trodden all alike,” De Braose shouted fiercely, having
learned a good deal of English from the place he lived in; “clods are
made to be trodden down. Out of my road, or I draw my sword!”
The men turned from him to Sir Roland, who was known to be kind of
heart.
“Ye do the wrong thing to meet me thus,” he answered in his utmost
English; “the thing, that is to say I hearken; but not with this
violence.”
Speaking thus he spurred his horse, and the best of the men made way
for him. But one of them had an arrow straining on the cord, with
intent to shoot--as he said to the priest at the gallows--De Braose,
and him only. As the two knights galloped off, he let his arrow, in
the waning of the light, fly after them; and it was so strongly sped
that it pierced back-harness, and passed through the reins of Roland de
Lorraine. Thus he died; and his descendants like to tell the story.
It is not true, although maintained by descendants of De Braose, that
he was the man that was shot, and the knight who ran away Sir Roland.
The pious duties rendered by the five brave monks from Fécamp were for
the soul of Sir Roland, as surely as the arrow was for the body of
De Braose. But after eight hundred years almost, let the benefit go
between them.
Whichever way this may have chanced, in an age of unsettled principles,
sure it is that the good knight died, either then or afterwards. Also,
that a man was hanged at a spot still shown in his behalf, and that
he felt it such an outrage on his sense of justice, after missing his
proper shot, that even now he is often seen, when the harvest-moon is
lonely, straining a long bow at something, but most careful not to
shoot.
These, however, are mere legends, wherewith we have nought to do. And