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Title: The Serf
Author: Thorne, Guy, 1876-1923
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Serf" ***
THE SERF
THE SERF
By
GUY THORNE
_Author of "When It Was Dark"
"A Lost Cause," etc., etc._
Illustration
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
18 East 17th Street----New York
GREENING & CO., LTD., London
TO THE
MEMBERS OF THE
NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE.
I. 1
II. 25
III. 52
IV. 79
V. 103
VI. 128
VII. 150
VIII. 168
IX. 189
X. 205
XI. 217
XII. 230
XIII. 242
XIV. 250
XV. 270
XVI. 286
XVII. 297
THE SERF
CHAPTER I
"When Christ slept"
_This is the history of a man who lived in misery and torture, and was
held as the very dirt of the world. In great travail of body and mind,
in a state of bitter and sore distress, he lived his life. His death was
stern and pitiless, for they would have slain a dog more gently than
he._
_And yet, while his lords and masters survive only in a few old
chronicles of evil Latin, or perhaps you may see poor broken effigies of
them in a very ancient church, the thoughts that Hyla thought still run
down time, and have their way with us now. They seared him with heat and
scourged him with whips, and hung him high against the sunset from the
battlements of Outfangthef Tower, until his body fell in pieces to the
fen dogs in the stable yards below. Yet the little misshapen man is
worthy of a place in your hearts._
_Geoffroi de la Bourne is unthought-of dust; Fulke, his son, claims fame
by three lines in an old compte-book as a baron who enjoyed the right
of making silver coin. In the anarchy of King Stephen's reign he coined
money, using black metal--"moneta nigra"--with no small profit to
himself. So he has three lines in a chronicle._
_Hyla, serf and thrall to him, has had never a word of record until
now._
_And yet Hyla, who inspired the village community--the first Radical one
might fancy him to be--was greater than Fulke or Geoffroi; and this is
the Story of his life. The human heart that beat in him is even as the
heart of a good man now. It will be difficult to see any lovable things
in this slave, who was a murderer, and whose life was so remote from
ours. But, indeed, in regarding such a man, one must remember always his
environment. With a little exercise of thought you will see that he was
a lovable man, a small hero and untrumpeted, but worthy of a place in a
very noble hierarchy._
* * * * *
A man sat in a roughly-constructed punt or raft, low down among the
rushes, one hot evening in June. The sun was setting in banks of
blood-red light, which turned all the innumerable water-ways and pools
of the fen from black to crimson. In the fierce light the tall reeds
and grasses rose high into the air, like spears stained with blood.
Although there was no wind to play among the rushes and give the reeds a
voice, the air was full of sound, and an enormous life palpitated and
moved all round.
The marsh frogs were barking to each other with small elfin voices, and
diving into the pools in play. There was a continual sucking sound, as
thousands of great eels drew in the air with their heads just rising
from the water. Now and again some heavy fish would leap out of the
pools with a great noise, and the bitterns called to each other like
copper gongs.
Very high in the air a few birds of the plover species wailed sadly to
their mates, grieving that day was over.
These sounds of busy life were occasionally mingled with noises which
came from the castle and village on the high grounds which bordered the
fen on the south. Now and again the sound of hammers beating upon metal
floated over the water, showing that they were working in the armourer's
shop. A bell rang frequently, and some one was learning to blow calls
upon a horn, for occasionally the clear, sweet notes abruptly changed
into a windy lowing, like a bull in pain.
The man in the punt was busy catching eels with a pronged pole, tipped
with iron. He drove the pole through the water again and again till a
fish was transfixed, and added to the heap in the bottom of the boat. He
was a short, thick-set fellow, with arms which were too long for his
body, and huge hands and feet. No hair grew upon his face, which was
heavy and without expression, though there was evidence of intelligence
in the light green-grey eyes.
Round his neck a thin ring of iron was soldered, and where the two ends
had been joined together another and smaller ring had been fixed. He was
dressed in a coat of leather, black with age and dirt, but strong and
supple. This descended almost to his knees, and was caught in round the
middle by a leather strap, which was fastened with an iron pin.
His arms were bare, and on one of them, just below the fore-arm, was a
red circle the size of a penny, burnt into the flesh, and bearing some
marks arranged in a regular pattern.
This was Hyla, one of the serfs belonging to Geoffroi de la Bourne,
Baron of Hilgay, and the holder of lands near Mortain, in France.
The absolute anarchy of the country in 1136,--the dark age in which this
story of Hyla begins--secured to each petty baron an overwhelming power,
and Geoffroi de la Bourne was king, in all but name, of the fens, hills,
and corn-lands, from Thorney to Thetford, and the undoubted lord of the
Southfolk.
For many miles the fens spread under the sky from Ely to King's Lynn,
then but a few fisher huts. Hilgay itself rose up on an eminence towards
the south of the Great Fen. At the bottom of the hill ran the wide river
Ouse, and beyond it stretched the treacherous wastes.
The Castle of Hilgay stood on the hill itself, and was surrounded by a
small village, built in the latter years of Henry's reign. It was one of
the most modern buildings in East Anglia. Here, surrounded by his
men-at-arms, villeins, and serfs, Geoffroi de la Bourne lived secure,
and kept the country-side in stern obedience. The Saxon Chronicle, which
at the time was being written in the Monastery of Peterborough, says of
him: "He took all those he thought had any goods, both by night and day,
men and women alike, and put them in prison to get their gold and
silver, and tortured them with tortures unspeakable."
Of he and his kind it says: "Never yet was there such misery in the
land; never did heathen men worse than they. Christ slept, and all His
saints."
Hyla had been spearing his eels in various backwaters and fen-pools
which wound in and out from the great river. When his catch was
sufficient, he laid down the trident, and, taking up the punt pole, set
seriously about the business of return. The red lights of the sky turned
opal and grew dim as he sent his punt gliding swiftly in and out among
the rushes.
After several minutes of twisting and turning, the ditch widened into a
large, still pool, over which the flies were dancing, and beyond it was
the black expanse of the river itself. As the boat swung out into the
main stream, the castle came plain to the view. A well-beaten road
fringed with grass, among which bright golden kingcups were shining, led
up to the walls. Clustered round the walls was a little village of
sheds, huts, and houses, where the labourers and serfs who were
employed on the farm-lands lived.
The castle itself was a massive and imposing place, of great strength
and large area. At one corner of the keep stood a great tower, the
highest for many miles round, which was covered with a pointed roof of
tiles, like that of a French chateau. This was known as the Outfangthef
Tower, and Geoffroi and his daughter, Lady Alice, had their private
chambers in it.
There was something very stately in the view from the river, all
irradiated as it was by the ruddy evening light.
Hyla's punt glided over the still waters till it reached a well-built
landing-stage of stone steps descending into the river. Several punts
and boats were tied up to mooring stakes. Hard by, the sewage from the
castle was carried down by a little brook, and the air all about the
landing-place was stagnant and foul.
He moored the punt, and, stringing his eels upon an iron hook, carried
them up the hill in the waning light. The very last lights of the day
were now expiring, and the scene was full of peace and rest, as night
threw her cloak over the world. A rabbit ran across Hyla's path from
side to side of the road, a dusky flash; and, high up in the air, a bird
suddenly began to trill the night a welcome.
The man walked slowly, lurching along with his head bent down, and
seeing nothing of the evening time. About half-way up the hill he heard
someone whistling a comic song, with which a wandering minstrel had
convulsed the inmates of the castle a night or two before.
Sitting by the roadside in the dusk, he could distinguish the figure of
Pierce, one of the men-at-arms. He was oiling the trigger and barrel of
a crossbow, and polishing the steel parts with a soft skin. The
man-at-arms lived in the village with his wife, and was practically in
the position of a villein, holding some fields from Lord Geoffroi in
return for military service. He was from Boulogne, and had been in the
garrison of one of Robert de Bellême's castles in Normandy.
The lessons learnt at Tenchebrai had sunk deep into the mind of this
fellow; and when any dirty work was afoot or any foul deed to be done,
to Pierce was given the doing of it. As Hyla approached, he stopped his
whistling, and broke out into the words of the song, which, filthy and
obscene as it was, had enormous popularity all over the countryside.
Then he noticed the serf's approach. "Who are you?" he called out in a
_patois_ of Norman-French and English, with the curious see-saw of
French accentuation in his voice.
"Hyla!" came the answer, and there was strength and music in it.
Something seemed to tickle the soldier to immediate merriment when he
heard the identity of the man with the eels.
Hyla knew him well. When he was free from his duties in the castle, Hyla
and his wife worked in this man's fields for a loaf of wastel bread or a
chance rabbit, and he was in a sense their immediate employer and
patron.
It was at the order of Pierce that Hyla had been fishing that evening.
The soldier chuckled on, regarding the serf with obvious amusement,
though for what reason _he_ could not imagine.
"Show your catch," he said at last.
He was shown the hook of great eels, some of which still writhed slowly
in torture.
"Take them to my wife," said the soldier, "and take what you want of
them for yourself and your people."
"Very gladly," said Hyla, "for there are many mouths to fill."
"Oh! that can be altered," said the soldier, with a grin; "your family
can be used in other ways, and live in other housen than under your
roof-tree."
"Duke Christ forbid!" said Hyla, giving the Saviour the highest name he
knew; "had I not my children and my wife, I should be poor indeed."
"God's teeth!" cried the soldier, with a nasty snarl and complete change
of tone, "_your_ wife, _your_ girls! Man, man! we have been too good to
the serfs of late. See to this now, when I was in the train of my Lord
de Bellême, both in France and here, we killed serfs like rabbits.
"Well I remember, in the Welsh March, how we hanged men like you up by
the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke. Some were hanged up by their
thumbs, others by the head, and burning things were hung on to their
feet. We put knotted strings about their heads, and writhed them till
they went into the brain. We put men into prisons where adders, snakes,
and toads were crawling, and so we tormented them. And the whiles we
took their wives and daughters for our own pleasure. Hear you that,
Hyla, my friend? Get you off to my wife with the eels, you old dog."
He blazed his bold eyes at the serf, and his swarthy face and coal-black
hair seemed bristling with anger and disdain. His face was deeply pitted
with marks which one of the numerous varieties of the plague had left
upon it, and as his white, strong teeth flashed in anger through the
gloom, he looked, so Hyla thought, like the grinning devil-face of stone
carved over the servants' wicket at Icombe Abbey.
He slunk away from the man-at-arms without a word, and toiled on up the
hill. He fancied he could hear Pierce laughing down below him, and he
spat upon the ground in impotent rage.
He soon came to a few pasture fields on the outskirts of the village,
some parts of them all silver-white with "lady-smocks." Hardy little
cows, goats, and sheep roamed in the meadows, which were enclosed with
rough stone walls. A herd of pigs were wallowing in the mud which lined
the banks of the sewage stream, for, with their usual ignorance, the
castle architects allowed this to run right through the pastures on the
hill slope.
The cows were lowing uneasily to each other, for they were tormented by
hosts of knats and marsh-begotten flies which rose up from the fen
below.
Past the fields the road widened out into a square of yellow,
dust-powdered grass--the village green--and round this were set some of
the principal houses.
There was no room for comfortable dwelling-places inside the castle
itself for the crowd of inferior officers and men-at-arms. Accordingly
they made their home in the village at its walls, and could retreat into
safety in times of war.
Eustace, the head armourer, had a house here, the best in the village,
roofed with shingle and built of solid timber. The men-at-arms, Pierce
among them, who were married, or lived with women taken in battle, had
their dwellings there; and one thatched Saxon house belonged to Lewin,
the worker in metal, and chief of Baron Geoffroi's mint.
Hyla was a labourer in the mint, and under the orders of Lewin the Jew.
In 1133 it was established as a general truth and legal adage, by the
Justiciar of England himself, that no subject might coin silver money.
The adulteration practised in the baronial mints had reduced coins,
which pretended to be of silver, into an alloy which was principally
composed of a bastard copper. A few exceptions were made to the law, but
all private mints were supposed to be under the direct superintendence
of crown officials. In the anarchy of Stephen's reign this rule became
inoperative, and many barons and bishops coined money for themselves.
Few did this so completely and well as Geoffroi de la Bourne.
When Bishop Roger of Salisbury made his son Chancellor of the Exchequer,
in King Henry's reign, the chancellor had in his train a clever Jew boy,
baptised by force, very skilful in the manual arts.
It was the youth Lewin who invented the cloth, chequered like a
chess-board, which covered the table of the "Exchequer," and on which
money was counted out; and he also claimed that the "tallies" which were
given in receipt for taxes to the county sheriffs were a product of his
fertile brain.
This man, was always looked upon with suspicion by the many churchmen
with whom he came in contact. Finance was almost entirely in the hands
of the great clergymen, and the servant Lewin was distrusted for his
cleverness and anti-Christian blood. At dinner many a worthy bishop
would urge the chancellor to dismiss him.
The Jew was too shrewd not to feel their hostility and know their
dislike; and when he came across Geoffroi de la Bourne in the Tower
Royal, where Cheapside now stands, he was easily persuaded to enter his
service.
At Hilgay Castle he was at the head of a fine organisation of
metal-workers, and under the direct protection of a powerful chief. So
lawless was the time that he could gratify the coarse passions of his
Eastern blood to the full, and he counted few men, and certainly no
other Jew in East England, more fortunately circumstanced than he was.
A few villeins of the farmer class, who were also skilled men at arms,
had rough houses in the village, and tilled the corn-fields and looked
after the cattle. Beyond their dwellings, on the verge of the woods of
oak and beech which purpled the southern distance, were the huts of the
serfs.
Hyla passed slowly through the village. On the green, by a well which
stood in the centre, a group of light-haired Saxon women were chattering
over their household affairs. At the doors of some of the houses of the
Norman men-at-arms sat French women on stools, rinsing pot herbs and
scouring iron cooking bowls. Their black hair, prominent noses, and
alert eyes contrasted favourably with the somewhat stupid faces of the
Saxons, and there could be seen in them more than one sign of a
conquering race.
They were also more neatly dressed, and a coarse flax linen bound their
temples in its whiteness, or lay about their throats.
Stepping over a gutter full of evil-smelling refuse, Hyla came to the
house of Pierce, and beat upon the wooden door, which hung upon hinges
of leather made from bullock's hide.
It swung open, and Adelais, the soldier's wife, named after the Duke of
Brabant's daughter, stood upon the threshold obedient to the summons.
She took the eels from him without a word, and began to unhook them.
"Pierce said that I might have some fish to take home," Hyla told her
humbly.
"You may take your belly full," she answered; "it's little enough I like
the river worms, for that is all they are. My man likes them as little
as I."
"It was he that sent me a-fishing," said Hyla in surprise.
"Then he had a due reason," said the woman; "but get you home, the
evening is spent, and the night comes."
Just then, from the castle above their heads, which towered up into the
still warm air, came the mellow sound of a horn, and following upon it
the deep tolling of a bell ringing the curfew.
Although the evening bell did not ring at that time with any legal
significance as it did in towns, its sound was generally a signal for
sleep; and as the brazen notes floated above them, the groups at the
doors and on the green broke up and dispersed.
"Sleep well, Hyla!" Adelais said kindly, and, retiring into the house,
she shut her door.
Hyla went on till he came opposite the great gate of the castle, and
could hear the guards being changed on the other side of the drawbridge.
He was now on the very brow of the hill, and, stopping for a moment,
looked right down over the road he had traversed. The moon was just
rising, and the road was all white in its light. Far beyond, the vast
fens were a sea of white mist, and the blue will-o'-the-wisp was
beginning to bob and pirouette among it. The air of the village was
full of the sweet pungent smell of the blue wood smoke.
The night was full of peace and sweetness, and, as the last throbbing
note of the curfew bell died away, it would have been difficult to find
a gentler, mellower place.
Thin lines of lights, like jewels in velvet, began to twinkle out in the
black walls of the castle as he turned towards the place of the serfs.
He went down a lane fringed with beeches, and emerged upon the open
glade. A fire was burning in the centre, and dark forms were flitting
round it cooking the evening meals. Dogs were barking, and there was a
continual hum and clatter of life.
Picture for yourself an oblong space surrounded by heavy trees, the
outer boles being striped clear of bark, and many of them remaining but
dead stumps.
Round the arena stood forty or fifty huts of wood, wattled with oziers
and thatched with fern and dried rushes.
Many of the huts were built round a tree trunk, and the pole in the
middle served to hang skins and implements upon by means of wooden pegs
driven into it.
A hole in the roof let out smoke, and in the walls let in the light.
The floors of these huts were of hard-beaten earth, as durable as stone;
but they were littered with old bones, dust, and dried rushes for
several inches deep, and swarming with animal life.
They were the merest shelters, and served only for sleep. Most of the
household business was conducted in the open before the huts, and in
fine weather the fires were nearly all outside. In winter time the serf
women and girls generally suffered from an irritating soreness of the
eyes, which was produced by living in the acrid smoke which filled the
shelters and escaped but slowly through the roofs.
The household utensils were few and simple. A large wooden bucket, which
was carried on a pole between two women, served to fetch water from the
well upon the village green, for the serfs had no watering-place in
their own enclosure. An earthenware pot or so--very liable to break and
crack, as it was baked from the black and porous fen clay--and an iron
cooking pot, often the common property of two or more families,
comprised the household goods.
They slept in the back part of the huts, men, women, and children
together, on dried fern, or with, perhaps, an old and filthy sheep's
skin for cover. The sleeping-room was called the "bower."
This enclosure where the theows lived was known as the "fold," as it was
fenced in from the forest, on which it abutted, by felled trees. This
was done for protection against wild beasts. Herds of wild and savage
white cattle, such as may now only be seen at Chillingham, roamed
through the wood. Savage boars lived on the forest acorns, and would
attack an unarmed man at sight. Wolves abounded in the depths of the
forest. It often happened that some little serf child wandered away, and
was never seen again, and it was useless for a thrall to attempt escape
into its mysterious depths.
For the most part only married serfs lived in the fold or "stoke," as it
was sometimes called. Many of the younger men were employed as grooms
and water-carriers in the castle, or slept and lived in sheds and cattle
houses belonging to the men-at-arms and farmers in the village.
It was thus that the serfs lived, and Hyla skirted the fold till he came
to his own house. He was very tired and hungry, and eager for a meal
before sleeping.
All the morning he had laboured, sweating by the glowing fires of the
mint, pouring molten metal into the moulds. At mid-day the steward had
given him a vessel of spoilt black barley for his wife to bake bread,
and he had taken it home to her and his two daughters against his
return.
In the afternoon Hyla and his two daughters, Frija and Elgifu, girls of
twenty and nineteen, had been at work dunging the fields of Pierce the
man-at-arms, and the evening had been spent, as we have seen, in
spearing eels.
Hyla was very weary and hungry. When he came up to his hut he saw
angrily that the fire in front of it was nothing but dead embers, and,
indeed, was long since cold. His two little sons, who were generally
tumbling about naked by the hut, were not there, nor could he see Gruach
his wife.
He flung down the eels in a temper, and called aloud, in his strong
voice, "Frija! Elgifu! Gruach!"
His cries brought no response, and he turned towards the fire in the
centre of the stoke which was now but a red glow, and round which
various people were sitting eating their evening meal.
He burst into the circle. "Where is Gruach?" he said to a young man who
was dipping his hand into an earthen pot held between his knees.
This was Harl, an armourer's rivetter, who generally lived within the
castle walls.
"Gruach is at the hut of Cerdic," he said, with some embarrassment, and,
so it seemed to Hyla, with pity in his voice.
The men and women sitting by the fire turned their faces towards him
without exception, and their faces bore the same expression as Harl's.
Hyla stared stupidly from one to the other. His eyes fell upon Cerdic
himself, a kennel serf, and something of a veterinary surgeon. It was he
who cut off two toes from each dog used for droving, so that they should
not hunt the deer.
Fastened to his girdle was the ring through which the feet of the
"lawed" dogs were passed, and he carried his operating knife in a sheath
at his side.
"My woman is in your hut, Cerdic," said Hyla, "and why is she with?"
"She is with," said Cerdic, "because she is in sore trouble, and walks
in fear of worse. Go you to her, Hyla, and hear her words, and then
come you here again to me."
A deep sigh burst from all of them as Cerdic spoke, and one woman fell
crying.
Hyla turned, and strode hastily to Cerdic's hut. He heard a low moaning
coming from it, which rose and fell unceasingly, and was broken in upon
by a woman's voice cooing kind words of comfort.
He pushed into the hut. It was quite dark and full of foetid smoke and
a most evil odour.
"Gruach," he said, "Gruach! why are you not home? What hurts you?"
The moaning stopped, and there was a sound of some one rising.
Then a voice, which Hyla recognised as belonging to Cerdic's wife, said,
"Here is your man, Gruach! Rise and tell him what bitter things have
been afoot."
Gruach rose, a tall woman of middle age, and came out of the hut into
the twilight.
"Hyla!" she said, "Saints help you and me, for they have taken Elgifu
and Frija to the castle."
The man quivered all over as if he would have fallen on the ground. Then
he gripped his wife's arm. "Tell me," he said hoarsely, "To the castle?
to the castle? Frija and Elgifu?"
"Aye, your maids and mine, and maids no longer. I had gone to Adelais to
seek food for this night, and found you sent a-fishing. Frija and Elgifu
were carrying the dung to the fields. Pierce was in the field speaking
to our girls. Then came Huber and John from the castle with their pikes,
and they took away our daughters, saying Lord Geoffroi and Lord Fulke
had sent for them. Huber struck me in the face at my crying. 'Take
care!' cwaeth he, 'old women are easily flogged; there is little value
in you.' And I saw them holding my girls, and they took them in the
great gate of the castle laughing, and I did not see them again."
Hyla said nothing for a minute, but remained still and motionless. The
blow struck him too hard for speech.
"Get you home," he said at length, "if perchance you may fall asleep. I
am going to talk with Cerdic. Take her home, wife, and God rest you for
your comfort!"
He walked quickly across the open space back to the fire. The circle was
broken up, and only Cerdic and Harl sat there waiting Hyla's return.
Stuck into the ground was a cow's horn full of ale, and as Hyla came
into the circle of dim red light, Harl handed it to him.
He drank deep, and drank again till the comfort of the liquor filled his
craving stomach, and his brain grew clearer.
"Sit here, friend," said Cerdic. "This is a foul thing that has been
done."
CHAPTER II
"Coelum coeli Domino terram autem dedit filiis hominum."
In the fifth volume of an instructive work by Le Grand d'Aussy, who was,
in his way, a kind of inferior Dean Swift, there is an interesting
story, one of a collection of "Fabliaux."
There was once a genial ruffian who lived by highway robbery, but who,
on setting about his occupation, was careful to address a prayer to the
Virgin. He was taken at the end, and sentenced with doom of hanging.
While the executioner was fitting him with the cord, he made his usual
little prayer. It proved effectual. The Virgin supported his feet "with
her white hands," and thus kept him alive two days to the no small
surprise of the executioner, who attempted to complete his work with a
hatchet. But this was turned aside by the same invisible hand, and the
executioner bowed to the miracle, and unstrung the robber. With
that--very naturally--the rogue entered a monastery.
In another tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from
the convent where she was professed, and performs her duties for ten
years. At last, tired of a libertine life, the nun returned unsuspected.
This signal service was performed in consideration of the nun's having
never omitted to say an _Ave_ as she passed the Virgin's image.[1]
[1] _These stories are perfectly fair examples of monastic
teachings in the Twelfth Century. Roughly speaking, any one
might do anything if he or she said an occasional_ Ave. _Indeed,
Dom Mathew Paris, the most pious and trustworthy monkish
historian, and in his way a scourge to the laxity of his own
order, has more than one story of this kind in which he
evidently believes._
It may be therefore said, without exciting any undue surprise, that
Geoffroi de la Bourne had a resident chaplain in the castle, one Dom
Anselm, and that religious ceremonies were more or less regularly
observed.
In the outer courtyard of the castle a doorway led into the chapel. This
was a long room, with a roof of vaulted stone lit by windows on the
courtyard side, full of some very presentable stained glass. The glass,
which had far more lead in it than ours, was in fact a kind of mosaic,
and the continual lattice work of metal much obscured the pattern.
What could be seen of it, however, represented Saint Peter armed, and
riding out to go hawking, with a falcon on his wrist.
Strips of cloth bandaged cross-wise from the ankle to the knee, and
fastened over red stockings, were part of the saint's costume, and he
wore black-pointed shoes split along the instep almost to the toes,
fastened with two thongs.
In fact, the artists of that day were under the influence of a realistic
movement, in much the same way as the exhibitors in the modern French
salon, and what superficial students of Twelfth-Century manners put down
as unimaginative ignorance was really the outcome of a widely understood
artistic pose.
On a shrine by the chapel door stood an image of the Blessed Virgin, a
trifle gaudy. The head was bound round with a linen veil, and a loose
gown of the same material was laced over a tight-fitting bodice. Round
the arms were wound gold snake bracelets, imitations, made by Lewin in
the forge, of some old Danish ornaments in the possession of the Lady
Alice de la Bourne. The foldings of the robe were looped up here and
there with jewelled butterflies, differing not at all from a Palais
Royal toy of to-day.
In front of the shrine hung two lamps, or "light vats" as they were
called, of distinctly Roman type--luxuries which were rare then, and of
which Dom Anselm was exceedingly proud. They dated from the time of King
Alfred, that inventive monarch, who had adapted the idea of lamps from
old Roman relics found in excavations.
Except that the altar furniture was in exceedingly good taste, it
differed hardly at all from anything that may be seen in twenty London
churches to-day.
There were no pews or seats in the chapel, save some heavy oak chairs by
the altar side, where a wooden perch, clamped to the table itself and
white with guano, indicated that Geoffroi de la Bourne would sit with
his hawks.
The sun rose in full June majesty the next morning, and soon shone upon
the picturesque activity of a mediæval fortress in prosperous being.
The serfs and workmen, who slept in lightly constructed huts of thin elm
planks under a raised wooden gallery which went round the courtyard,
rose from the straw in which they lay with the dogs, and, shaking
themselves, set about work.
The windlass of the well creaked and groaned as the water for the horses
was drawn. The carpenters began their labour of cutting boards for some
new mead-benches which were wanted in the hall, and men began to stoke
afresh the furnaces of the armoury and mint.
Paved ways ran from door to door of the various buildings, but all the
rest of the bailey was carpeted with grass, which had been sown there to
feed the cattle who would be herded within the walls in dangerous times.
About half-past eight Dom Anselm let himself out of a little gate in the
corner of Outfangthef Tower, and came grumbling down the steps. He
crossed the courtyard, taking no notice of the salutations of the
labourers, but looking as if he were half asleep, as indeed he was. His
long beard was matted and thick with wine-stains from the night before,
and his thin face was an unhealthy yellow colour.
He unlocked the chapel door, and mechanically pushed a dirty thumb into
a holy water stoup. Then he bowed low to the monstrance on the altar,
and lower still to the figure of the Virgin. After the hot sunshine of
the outside world, the chapel was chill and damp, and the air struck
unpleasantly upon him.
He went up to the altar to find his missal. Sleeping always in a filthy
little cell with no ventilation, and generally seeking his bed in a
state of intoxication, had afflicted the priest with a chronic catarrh
of the nose and throat--as common a complaint among the priesthood then
as it is now in the country districts of Italy and southern France.
Quite regardless of his environment, he expectorated horribly even as he
bowed to the presence of Christ upon the altar.
It is necessary for an understanding of those times to make a point of
things, which, in a tale of contemporary events, would be unseemly and
inartistic. Dom Anselm saw nothing amiss with his manners, and the fact
helps to explain Dom Anselm and his brethren to the reader.
With a small key the priest opened a strong box banded with bronze, and
drew from it the vessels.
Among the contents of the box were some delicate napkins which Lady
Alice had worked--some of those beautiful pieces of embroidery which
were known all over Europe as "English work."
When the silver vessels were placed upon the altar, and everything was
ready for the service, the thirst of the morning got firm hold upon Dom
Anselm's throat.
He left the chapel, and summoned a theow who was passing the door with a
great bundle of cabbages in his arm.
"Set those down," he said, "and ring the bell for Mass;" and while the
man obeyed, and the bell beat out its summons to prayer--very musical in
the morning air--he strode across the courtyard to the mint.
By this time, in the long, low buildings, the fires were banked up, the
tools lay ready upon the benches, and the men were greasing the moulds
with bacon fat.
The priest went through the room with two raised fingers, turning
quickly and mechanically towards the toil-worn figures who knelt or
bowed low for his blessing. He walked towards an inner room, the door of
which was hung with a curtain of moth-eaten cat-skin--the cheapest
drapery of the time. Pushing this curtain aside, he entered with a
cheery "Good-day!" to find, as he expected, Lewin, the mint-master.
The Jew was a slim man of middle size, clean-shaven, and with dark-red
hair. His face was handsome and commanding, and yet animal. The wolf and
pig struggled for mastery in it. He was engaged in opening the
brass-bound door of a recess or cupboard in the wall, where the dies for
stamping coin were kept in strict ward.
The mint-master straightway called to one of the men in the outer room,
who thereon brought in a great horn of ale in the manner of use. Every
morning the priest would call upon the Jew, so that they might take
their drink together. Each day the two friends conveniently forgot--or
at any rate disregarded--the rule which bids men fast before the Mass.
Lewin attended Church with great devotion, and, like many modern
Israelites, was most anxious that the fact of his ancient and honourable
descent should be forgotten.
Though he himself was a professing Christian, and secure in his
position, yet his brethren, who nearly always remained staunch to their
ancient faith, were in very sad case in the Twelfth Century. Vaissette,
in his history of Languedoc, dwells upon a pleasing custom which
obtained at Toulouse, to give a blow on the face to a Jew every Easter.
In some districts of England, from Palm Sunday to Easter was regarded as
a licensed time for the baiting of Jews, and the populace was regularly
instigated by the priests to attack Jewish houses with stones. Yet, at
the same time, it was possible for a Jew to obtain a respectable
position if he avoided the practice of usury, and Lewin the minter was
an example of the fact.
"This is the best beer of the day," said the priest, "eke the beer at
noon meat. My belly is so hot in the morning, and all the pipes of my
body burn."
Lewin poured out some ale from the horn into a Saxon drinking-glass with
a rounded bottom like a modern soda-water bottle--the invariable
pattern--and handed the horn back to Dom Anselm. They drank
simultaneously with certain words of pledge, and clinked the vessels
together.
"It's time for service," said the clergyman, when the horn was empty.
"Lady Alice will be upon arriving and in a devilish temper, keep I her
waiting."
"Lord Geoffroi," said Lewin, "will he be at Mass?"
The priest grinned with an evil smile. "What do you think, minter?" he
chuckled. "Geoffroi never comes to Mass when he sins a mortal sin o'er
night; no, nor young Fulke either."
Lewin looked enquiringly at him.
"Two of the men-at-arms brought the daughters of one Hyla into the
castle last night before curfew."
"He works for me here," said the minter.
"I am sorry for him," said the priest, "and I do not like this force,
for the girls were screaming as they took them to Outfangthef. Lord
Christ forbid that I should ever take from a maiden what she would not
give. It will mean candles of real wax for me from Geoffroi, this will."
"The master is a stern man," said Lewin as they entered the chapel door.
Lady Alice was already in the chapel, kneeling on the altar steps, and
behind her were two or three maids also kneeling.
On the eyelids of one of these girls the tears still stood glistening,
and a red mark upon her cheek showed that Lady Alice had not risen in
the best of tempers. The chatelaine frowned at Anselm when she heard his
foot-steps, and, turning, saw him robing by the door.
Many of the workmen and men-at-arms crowded into the chapel, all
degrees mingling together. Some of the villein farmers had come in from
the village, sturdy, open-featured men, prosperously dressed in woollen
tunics reaching to the knees, fastened with a brooch of bone. The serfs
knelt at the back, and as the deep pattering Latin rolled down the
church every head was bent low in reverence.
Although among nearly all of them there was such a contrast between
conduct and belief, yet, at the daily mystery and miracle of the Mass,
every evil brain was filled with reverence and awe. When the Host was
raised--the very body of Christ--to them all, you may judge how it moved
every human heart.
The system which held them all was a very easy and pleasant system.
Unconditional submission to the Church, and belief in her mysteries,
ensured the redemption of sins and the joys of heaven hereafter. To the
popular mind, my Lords the Saints and the Blessed Virgin were great,
good-humoured people, always approachable by an _Ave_ and a little
private understanding with the priest. It was, indeed, the pleasantest
and easiest of all religious systems.
This, then, was the ordinary attitude of men and women towards the
unseen, and it helps to explain the wickedness of the time. Yet it must
not be thought that in this dark tapestry there were no lighter threads.
The saints of God were still to be found on earth. Bright lines of gold
and white and silver ran through the warp and woof, and we shall meet
with more than one fine and Christian character in this story of Hyla.
The stately monotone went on. Huber and John, the two men-at-arms who
had hurried the poor serf girls into the castle the night before, knelt
in reverence, and beat their breasts.
"The Lord is debonair," Huber muttered to himself. Alice de la Bourne
forgot her ill temper and petty dislike of pretty Gundruda, her maid,
and fervently made the sign of the cross. Lewin alone, of all that
kneeling throng, was uninfluenced by the ceremony and full of earthly
thoughts.
After Mass was over, Anselm remained kneeling, repeating prayers, while
the congregation filed out into the sunlight. A little significant
incident happened on the very threshold. A poor serf had become
possessed of a rosary made from the shells of a pretty little pink and
green snail which was found--not too frequently--in the marshes below.
This possession of his he valued, and, as he said his prayers day by
day, it became invested with a mystical importance. He looked on it as a
very holy thing.
Coming out of church, among the last of the crowd, he let it fall upon
the step of the door. He was stooping to pick it up, when he came in the
way of Huber, the soldier, who sent him flying into the courtyard with a
hearty kick.
The soldier stepped upon the rosary, breaking most of the shells, and
then picked it up in some curiosity. He had it in his hand, and was
showing it to his companions, when the serf, who had risen from the
ground, leapt upon him in anger.
There was an instant scuffle, and a loud explosion of oaths. In a second
or two three or four men held the unhappy serf by the arms, and had
fastened him up to the post of the well in the centre of the yard. They
tied him up with two or three turns of the well rope, which they
unhooked from the bucket.
Huber took his leather belt and flogged him lustily, after his tunic of
cat-skin had been pulled down to the waist. The wretch screamed for
mercy, and attracted all the workmen round, who stood watching--the
serfs in timid silence, and the men-at-arms with mirth and laughter. It
may sound incredible, but Lady Alice herself, standing on the top step
of the stairway leading to the tower door, watched with every sign of
amusement. It was, in fact, no uncommon thing in those cruel times for
great Norman and Saxon ladies to order their slaves to be horribly
tortured on the slightest provocation. Cruelty seemed an integral part
of their characters. There is, for example, a well-attested story of
Ethelred's mother, who struck him so heavily with a bunch of candles
which lay to her hand, that he fell senseless for near an hour.
Dom Anselm came out of chapel after a while, and sought the cause of the
uproar.
"There, my men," he said, "let the theow go. Whatever he has done, he
has paid toll now. And look to it, Henry, that you say an _Ave_ to our
Blessed Lady that you harbour no wrath towards your just lords."
With that they let him go, and, bleeding and sobbing, the poor fellow
slunk away into the stables. Sitting in the straw, he cried as if his
heart would break, until he felt hot breath on his cheek, and looking
up saw large mild eyes, like still woodland pools, regarding him with
love. Above him towered the vast form of "Duke Robert," Geoffroi's great
war charger, as large and ponderous as a small elephant, his one dear
friend. So he forgot his troubles a little while.
It was now about nine o'clock, and breakfast was served. The Baron and
his son, and also the Lady Alice, never appeared in the great hall until
the "noon meat" at three. They ate the first meal of the day in the
"bowers" or sleeping chambers.
While the Lady Alice and her women superintended the more important
household business, or sat in the orchard outside the south wall of the
castle with their needlework, the Baron was throned in the gateway of
the castle conducting the business of his estate, and presiding over a
kind of local court.
The Justices in Eyre were hardly yet sufficiently established on
circuit, and, moreover, the country was in so disturbed a state that the
administration of law was merely in most cases, certainly at Hilgay, a
question of local tyranny.
The whole business of the day was well afoot with all its multifarious
activity when Hyla rested from his work, and sitting under the shadow
of a stone wall, ate a hunk of bread which he had brought with him. He
had sat late with Cerdic the night before, and, as he had half expected,
had been bidden in the morning to work in Pierce's fields, and not to go
to the castle. All the morning, since early dawn, he had been manuring
fields with marl, in the old British fashion. The work was very hard, as
the fields were only in the first stage of being reclaimed from wild
common land, and required infinite preparation.
The supply of dung had given out, and the marl was hard to carry and bad
to breathe.
The awful blow dealt to his whole life had dazed his brain for hours,
but the long talk with Cerdic and Harl had condensed his pain within
him, and turned it to strong purpose.
He thought over his life as he remembered it, his dull life of slavery,
and saw with bitter clearness how the clouds were gathering round him
and his kind. The present and the future alike were black as night, and
the years pressed more and more heavily as they dragged onwards.
During the last years the serfs at Hilgay had been more ill-used and
down-trodden than ever before. The Saxon gentlemen, who had held the
forefathers of Hyla in thrall, were stern and hard, but life had been
possible with them. Life was more light-hearted. Githa would sometimes
dance upon the green when the day's work was done, and spend a few
long-hoarded triens in an ivory comb or a string of coloured beads.
The Gesith or Thanes, the lesser nobility, had not been unkind to their
slaves, and there was sometimes a draught of "pigment" for them--a sweet
liquor, made of honey, wine, and spice--at times of festival.
Now everything was changed, and among the serfs a passionate spirit of
hatred and revolt was springing up. The less intelligent of them sank
into the condition of mere beasts of burden, without soul or brain. On
the other hand, adversity had sharpened the powers of others, and in
many of them was being born the first glimmerings of a consciousness
that even they had rights.
Hyla himself was one of the most advanced among his brethren. He felt
his manhood and "individuality" more than most of them. "I am I" his
brain sometimes whispered to him. The cruel oppressions to which he was
subject roused him more poignantly day by day.
Some nine months before a peculiarly atrocious deed had consolidated the
nebulous and unexpressed sense of revolt among the serfs of Hilgay into
a regular and definite subject of conversation.
The Forest Laws, which Knut had fenced round with a number of ferocious
edicts, placing the deer and swine far above the serfs themselves, were
made even more vigorous and harsh by the Normans. A theow named Gurth,
who had been seen by a forester picking wood for fires, was suspected of
killing a young boar, which had been found not long after with its belly
ripped open by a sharp stake. Parts of the animal had been cut away,
obviously by a knife, and were missing. Although the serf was absolutely
innocent of the beast's slaughter, which was purely accidental--he had
come upon it dead in the forest, and taken a forequarter to his
home--Geoffroi de la Bourne burnt him in the centre of the village, and
flogged mercilessly all the serfs, women included, who were thought to
have partaken of the dish.
Since that time the men-at-arms and inferior followers of the castle had
taken license to ill-use the serfs in every possible way. The virtue of
no comely girl or married woman was safe, floggings were of daily
occurrence, and, as there were plenty of theows to work, nothing was
said if one or two were occasionally killed or maimed for life in a
drunken brawl.
The serfs in the castle itself had no thoughts but of submission; but
those who lived in the stoke, mingling freely with each other, and with
the poor freedom of their own huts and wives, began to meet night by
night round the central fire to discuss their wrongs.
The Normans never went into the stoke, or at least very rarely. The
theows could not escape, and so that they did the tasks set them, their
proceedings at night mattered not at all.
Hyla sat munching his manchet, and drinking from a horn of sour Welsh
ale, a thin brew staple to the common people. The thought of Frija and
Elgifu was almost more than he could bear.
It is interesting to note that Hyla's passionate anger was directed
entirely against his masters. He had never known a spiritual revolt. It
never entered his head to imagine that the God to whom he prayed had
much to do with the state of the world. He never supplicated for bodily
relief in his prayers, but only for pardon for his sins and for hope of
heaven. The principalities and powers of the other world were too awful
and mysterious, he thought, to have any actual bearing upon life.
The dominant idea of his brain was a lust for revenge, and yet it was by
no means a _personal_ revenge. He was full of pity for his friends, for
all the serfs, and his own miseries were only as a drop in the cup of
his wrath.
Night by night the serfs had begun to sit in the stoke holding conclave.
It was an ominous gathering for those in high places! Hyla was generally
the speaker of these poor parliaments. "HE went after the herons this
noon, with Lady Alice and the squires," one man would say, provoking
discussion.
"Yes," Hyla might answer, "and his falcon had t' head in a broidered
hood eke a peal of silver bells. Never a bonnet of fine cloth for you,
Harl; you are no bird."
"HE rode over Oswald's field of ripening corn, and had noon meat with
all his train at the farm."
"That is the law for a lord. Or--"
"I was at the hall door, supper time, among the lecheurs. Lord Fulke he
did call me, and bade me fetch the board for chess and the images,
having in his mind to game with Brian de Burgh. He broke the board on my
head when I knelt with it, for he said I had the ugliest face he ever
saw."
"Lord Christ made your face," would come from Cerdic or Hyla, and the
ill-favoured one would finger his scars with more resentment than ever.
This man Cerdic was a born agitator. Without the dogged sincerity of
Hyla, he had a readier tongue and a more commanding presence. His own
injuries were the mainspring of his actions, for he had once been a full
ceorl, with boc-land of his own. From yeoman to serf was a terrible drop
in the social scale. As a ceorl, Cerdic had a freeman's right of bearing
arms, and could have reasonably hoped to climb up, by years of industry
and fortunate speculation, into the ranks of the Gesith or Thanes.
Speculation, indeed, proved his ruin, and debt was the last occasion of
his downfall. He was nearly sixty now, and a slave who could own no
property, take no oath, complete no document.
As Hyla sat in the sun he saw Cerdic coming towards him, followed by a
little frisking crowd of puppies. The lawer of dogs sat him down beside
his friend, and, taking out his knife, began to whet it upon a hone.
"It's a sure thing, then?" he said to Hyla. "You are certain in purpose,
Hyla? You will do it indeed? Remember, eftsoons you said that it was in
you to strike a blow for us all; but it's a fool's part to fumble with
Satan his tail. Are you firm?"
He took one of the little dogs between his knees, a pretty, frisking
little creature, thinking nothing of its imminent pain, and, holding one
of its fore-paws in his hand, picked up the knife. The puppy whined
piteously as the swift scalpel divided the living gristle of its foot,
but its brethren frisked about all unheeding.
Hyla saw nothing for a time. He seemed thinking. His intelligent eyes
were glazed and far away, only the impassive, hairless face remained,
with little or no soul to brighten it. And yet a great struggle was
surging over this poor man's heart, and such as he had never known
before. To his rough and animal life an emotional crisis was new and
startling. Something seemed to have suddenly given way in his
brain--some membrane which hitherto had separated him from real things.
While the little dog struggled and yelped as its bleeding paw was thrust
in measurement through the metal ring, a new man was being born. Hyla's
sub-conscious brain told him that nothing that had happened before
mattered a shred of straw. He had never understood what life might mean
for a man till now.
An IDEAL was suddenly revealed to him. But to accept that ideal? that
was hard indeed. It meant almost certain death and torture for himself.
The promptings of self-interest, which spring from our lower nature, and
which are pictorially personified into a grim personality, began to
flutter and whisper.
"Supposing," they said, "that you did this, that you killed Geoffroi for
his sins, and to show that the down-trodden and the poor are yet men,
and can exact a penalty. How much better would your companions be? Fulke
would be lord then, and he is even as his father. Let it go, hold Gruach
in your arms--you have that joy, you know. And work is not so bad. They
have not beaten you yet; there are sometimes good things to eat and
drink, are there not? Mind when you took home a whole mess of goose and
garlic from the hall door? Often you snare a rabbit, and the minter is
not ill-disposed to you. You are the best of his men; to you it is given
to drive the die and hammer the coin, to beat the die into the silver
and to burnish it. It is possible--stranger things have happened--that
you might even gain freedom, and become a villein. Lewin might speak for
you--who knows? These things have happened before. Is it indeed worth
while to do this thing?"
While these thoughts were racing through Hyla's brain, and he was
considering them, a strange thing happened. To the struggling brain of
the serf, all unused to any subtle emotion, Nature made a direct
æsthetic appeal.
In the middle sky a lark began to trill a song so loud and tuneful, so
instinct with Freedom, that it seemed a direct message to him. He stared
up at the tiny speck from which these heavenly notes were falling down
to earth, and his doubts rolled up like a curtain.
He saw that it was his duty to kill Geoffroi for the sake of the others,
and, come what might, he said to himself that he would do this thing.
The clumsy medium of the printed page has allowed us to follow Hyla's
thoughts very slowly. Even as his resolve was taken, he heard Cerdic
muttering that it was "ill to fumble with Satan's tail."
"I'll do it," he said, "and it's not the Divell that will be glad,
Cerdic. No, it's not the Divell," he repeated, a little at a loss what
further to say.
Cerdic pulled from his tunic a little cross of wood, and held it out to
him. The passer-by would have seen two serfs, ill-clothed, unwashed,
uncouth, eating bread and cheese under a wall. He would never have put a
thought to them. Yet the conference of the two was fraught with
tremendous meaning to those times. For a hundred years Hyla was
remembered, and a star in the darkness to the weary; and after his name
was forgotten, the influence of his deeds made life sweeter for many
generations of the poor.
Hyla took the little cross, so that he might swear faith. With a
lingering memory of the form in which men swore oath of fealty to their
lords, he said, "I become true man to this deed from this day forward,
of life and limb and earthly service, and unto it shall be true and
faithful, and bear to you faith, Cerdic, for the aid I claim to hold of
you."
He did this in seriousness, beyond all opinion; but the importance of
the occasion, and the drama of it, pleased him not a little. The new toy
of words was pleasant.
Cerdic kissed him, entering into the spirit of the oath, for it was the
custom to kiss a man sworn to service.
"And I also am with you to the end," said Cerdic, "and may all false
ribalds die who use poor men so."
In a high voice which shook with hate he quavered out a verse of the
"Song of the Husbandman," a popular political song of those days; a
ballad which the common people sang under their breath:
"Ne mai us nyse no rest rycheis ne ro.
Thus me pileth the pore that is of lute pris:
Nede in swot and in swynk swynde mot swo."
It was the poor fellow's Marseillaise!
"_There may not arise to us, or remain with us, riches or rest. Thus
they rob the poor man, who is of little value: he must waste away in
sweat and labour._"
Doggerel, but how bitter! A sign of the times which Geoffroi could not
hear--ominous, threatening.
"A right good song, Cerdic," said Hyla. "But it will not be ever so. I
know not if we shall see it, but all things change and change shall
come from us. A tree stands not for ever."
The two men gazed steadfastly into each other's eyes, and then went
about their work in silence.
* * * * *
The drama of this history may now be said to have begun. The lamps are
trimmed, the scene set, and you shall hear the stirring story of Hyla
the Serf.
CHAPTER III
The last night of Geoffroi de la Bourne
While Cerdic and Hyla sat in the field weaving their design to
completion, Lord Geoffroi, Lord Fulke, Lady Alice, and Brian de Burgh,
the squire, set out after forest game. They were attended by a great
hunting train. Very few people of any importance were left in the
castle, save Lewin and Dom Anselm.
The sun, though still very hot, had begun to decline towards his western
bower, and the quiet of the afternoon already seemed to foreshadow the
ultimate peace of evening.
Very little was doing in the castle. Some of the grooms lay about
sleeping in the sun, waiting the long return of the hunters in idleness.
From the armoury now and again the musical tinkering of a chisel upon
steel sounded intermittent. Soon this also stopped, and a weapon-smith,
who had been engraving foliates upon a blade, came out of his forge
yawning. The Pantler, a little stomachy man, descended from the great
hall, and, passing through the court, went out of the great gate into
the village. Time seemed all standing still, in the silence and the
heat.
Dom Anselm came into the court-yard, and sat him down upon a bench by
the draw-well, just in the fringe of the long violet shadow thrown over
the yard by Outfangthef. There was a bucket of water, full of cool green
lights, standing by the well. After a little consideration, the priest
kicked off his sandals and thrust his feet into its translucence. Then,
comfortably propped up against the post, he fell to reading his
Latin-book. In half-an-hour the book had slipped from his hand, and he
was fast asleep.
While he slept, a door opened in the tower. From it came Pierce, and
after him two girls, tall, comely Saxon lasses, bronzed by sun and wind.
One of them, the eldest of the two, held her hands clenched, and her
face was set in sullen silence. Her eyes alone blazed, and were dilated
with anger. The younger girl seemed more at ease. Her eyes were timid,
but a half smile lingered on her pretty, rather foolish lips. She
fingered a massive bracelet of silver which encircled her arm. Pierce
was giving Frija and Elgifu their freedom.
They came down the steps, and he pointed across the court-yard towards
the gateway passage. "There! girls," said he, "there lies your way, to
take or leave, just as suits your mind. For me, were I you, I'd never go
back to the stoke. Hard fare, and dogs lying beyond all opinion! My
Lords bid me say that you can take your choice."
Frija swung round at him, shaking with passion.
"Vitaille and bower," she shrilled at him, "and the prys shame! A lord
for a leofman, indeed! Before I would fill my belly with lemman's food
to your lord's pleasure, I would throw myself from Outfangthef."
Pierce smiled calmly at her.
"You talk of shame!--it is my lord's, if shame there is! Off with you to
the fold, little serf lamb!"
She flushed a deep crimson, and seemed to cower at his words. "Come,
Elgifu," she said, "mother will be glad to see us come, even coming as
we do."
"Pretty Elgifu!" said the man. "No, you are not going! My Lord Fulke's a
fine young man. Did he not give you that bracelet? Stay here with us
all, good comrades, and you shall be our little friend. We will treat
you well. Is it not so?"
The girl hesitated. She was a pretty, brainless little thing, and had
not protested. They had been kind enough to her. The stoke seemed very
horrible and noisome after the glories of the castle. Her sister's
burning flow of Saxon seemed unnecessary. Frija looked at her in
surprise at her hesitation.
"Say nothing to the divell," she cried impatiently; "come you home to
mother."
Her imperious elder sister's tone irritated the little fool. "No, then,"
she said. "I will stay here. I will not go with you. You may talk of
'shame,' but if shame it is to live in this tower, then I have shame for
my choys. Life is short; it is better here."
With that frank confession, she turned to the man-at-arms for approval.
He stepped in front of her, and, scowling at Frija, bid her be off. With
a great cry of sorrow, the elder girl bowed her head and swiftly walked
away. They saw her disappear through the gateway, and heard the
challenge and laughter of the guards, pursuing her with jests as she
went by.
"Oh, you are wise, pretty one!" said Pierce, putting his arm round her
waist. "See, now, I will take you to the topmost part of the tower, to
that balcony. We shall see all the country-side from there!"
They turned and entered Outfangthef, and the clanging of the door as it
closed behind them roused Anselm from his slumber.
He sat up, stupidly gazing round him. His book was fallen, and a dog was
nosing in its pages. He kicked the cur away, and picked up the breviary.
By the shadow of the tower, which stood at the corner of the keep, he
saw the afternoon was getting on. He looked round him impatiently, and,
even as he did so, saw the man he was expectant of approaching.
"I am late," said Lewin, as he came up; "but I have been hearing news,
and have much to tell you. We had better go at once."
"Whiles I fetch my staff," said the other, and soon they were walking
through the village, down the road which led to the fen. They came to
the fields, where a herd of swine was feeding among the sewage.
"They are unclean things," said Lewin, regarding them with dislike.
"Though I am no Jew in practice, yet I confess that I do not like them.
Pig! the very name is an outrage to one's ear."
"So not I," said Dom Anselm. "When the brute lives in the charge of a
Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but she becomes a Norman, and
is called 'pork,' when she is carried to castle-hall to feast among us.
I want no better dish."
"Each to his taste. But here we are. By the Mass, but the place stinks!"
They had come to the landing-stage in the river, and, indeed, the odour
was almost unbearable. For twenty yards round, the water was thick with
foulness. They got into a flat-bottomed boat and pushed off across the
stream. The water was too deep to pole in the centre, but one or two
vigorous strokes sent them gliding towards the further rushes. Lewin
punted skilfully, skirting the reeds, which rose far above his head,
until he came to a narrow opening.
"This will do as well as another," he said, and turned the boat down it.
The water-way was little more than two yards wide, and the reeds grew
thick and high, so that they could only see a little way in front. At
last, after many turns and twists, they came to a still, green pool, a
hundred yards across. In this stagnant evil-looking place they rested,
floating motionless in the centre.
"Geoffroi himself, were he in the reeds, could not hear us now," said
the priest.
"True, but drop a line to give a reason for being here."
The priest took from his girdle a line, wound upon a wooden spool.
Baiting the hook with a piece of meat, he dropped it overboard, and
settled himself comfortably in the bottom of the boat.
"Now, Lewin," said he, "you may go into the matter."
"I will tell you all I have heard," said the minter, "and we will settle
all we purpose to do. You have heard that Roger Bigot has taken Norwich,
and assumed the earldom of the county in rebellion to the king. Hamo de
Copton, the moneyer, is a correspondent of mine, from London, and we
have been interested together in more than one mercantile venture. From
him letters are to hand upon the disposal of four chests of silver
triens in London. You know our money is but token money, and not worth
the face value of the stamp. We are making trial to circulate our money
through Hamo, and in return he sends Lord Geoffroi bars of silver
uncoined. Now, the letter bears a post scriptum to this end. 'The king
is sick, and indeed was taken so before Whitsuntide.' The talk is all
that his cause is losing, and that wise men will be nimble to seize
opportunity. Hamo urges me to consider well if I should seek some other
master than Geoffroi, who is the king's friend."
He stopped suddenly, alarmed by a great disturbance in the water. A pike
had swallowed Anselm's bait and was beating about the pool five or six
yards away, leaping out of the water in its agony. They hauled the line
in slowly, until the great, evil-looking creature was snapping and
writhing at the boat-side. Then, with a joint heave, it lay at the
bottom of the boat, and was soon despatched by the minter's dagger.
"Go on," said Dom Anselm.
"Yestreen," resumed Lewin, "John Heyrown was privy with me for near two
hours. He comes peddling spice from Dentown, hard by Norwich town. I
have known him privily these six months. From him I hear that Roger
Bigot is in the article of setting forth to come upon us here to take
the castle. Geoffroi has great store of fine armour of war, eke fine
metals and jewels of silver and gold. Hilgay would extend Roger's arm
far south, and make a fort for him on the eastern road to London. He is
pressing to London with a great force and inventions of war. Now,
listen, John Heyrown is neither more nor less than in his pay, and he
comes here to see if he can find friends within our walls. Roger knows
of me and my value, and offereth me a high place, and also for my
friends, do I but help him. What do you say?"
Dom Anselm's thin face wrinkled up in thought, weighing the chances.
"I think," he said at last, very slowly, "I think, that we must throw
our lot in with Roger Bigot, and be his men."
"I also," said Lewin. "And I have already been preparing a token of our
choice."
He pulled a piece of vellum from his tunic.
"Here is a map of the castle, clear drawn. There you see marked the weak
spot by the orchard wall; Geoffroi has been long a-mending of it since
we noticed the sinking, but nothing has been done. To enter the castle
need not be difficult. The donjon will be harder; but I have marked a
plan for that also. At the foot of Outfangthef lie _les oubliettes_, and
many deep cellars, raised on arches. It is there keep we our coined
silver and the silver in bars. With his engines, knowing the spot, Roger
could mine deep, and Outfangthef would fall, leaving a great breach."
Anselm took the plan with admiration.
"It's finely writ," he said; "should'st have been in a scriptorium."
"My two hands are good thralls to me," said Lewin, pleased at the
compliment to his work. "Then you and I stand committed to this thing?"
"Since it seems the wisest course, for Lord Roger is a great lord and
strong, I give you my hand."
"Let it be so, friend Anselm. I will give John the plan this night."
"Then it is a thing done. But what is your immediate end?--for I
conceive you have some near purpose in view."
"Some time I will tell you, but not yet."
"It's a woman, you dog!" said the priest with a grin.
"We must homewards," answered the other. "Hark! I hear the horns, they
have returned from the chase."
As he spoke, clear and sweet the tantivy came floating down the hill and
over the water.
"We shall be late for supper," said Lewin, "make haste; take the other
pole."
"God forbid we should be late for supper," said Anselm, and they began
to push back.
"Will Geoffroi know that Roger is about to attack Hilgay?" Anselm asked
Lewin.
"Certainly he will, in a day or two. You may be sure that he has friends
in Norwich, and an expedition does not start without a clatter and talk
all along the country-side. I would wager you a wager, Sir Anselm, that
Geoffroi will hear of it by to-morrow morn."
"And then?"
"Why then to making ready, to get provision and vitaille for the siege."
"Well, I wait it in patience: I never moil and fret. He who waiteth, all
things reach at the last."
"Beware of too much patience, Sir Anselm. Mind you the fable of Chiche
Vache, the monstrous cow, who fed entirely on patient men and women,
and, the tale went, was sorely lean on that fare?
"'Gardez vous de la shicheface,
El vous mordra s'el vous encontre.'"
The Jew gave out the song with a fine trill in his voice, which was as
tuneful as a bell.
The priest, as he watched him and marked his handsome, intelligent face,
was filled with wonder of him. There was nothing he could not do well,
so ran his thoughts, and an air of accomplishment and ease was attendant
upon all his movements. As he threw back his head, drinking in the
evening air, and humming his catch--"el vous mordra s'el vous
encontre"--Anselm was suddenly filled with fear of him. He seemed not
quite to fit into life. He was a Jew, too, and his forefathers had
scourged God Incarnate. Strange things were said about the Jews--art
magic helped them in their work. The priest clutched the cross by his
side, and there was a wonderful comfort in the mere physical contact
with it.
"No," said he, "I have never heard of Chiche Vache that I can call to
mind. I do not care much for fables and fairy tales. There is merry
reading in the lives of Saints, and good for the soul withal."
"The loss is yours, priest. I love the stories and tales of the common
folk, eke the songs they sing to the children. I can learn much from
them. Chiche Vache is as common to the English as to French folk. 'Lest
Chichewache yow swelwe in hir entraille,'" he drawled in a capital
imitation of the uncouth Saxon speech.
By that time they had got to the castle and turned in at its gates.
The courtyard was full with a press of people, and busy as a hive.
Outside the stable doors the horses were being rubbed down by the serfs.
As they splashed the cool water over the quivering fetlocks and hot
legs, all scratched by thorns and forest growth, they crooned a little
song in unison. The "ballad of my lord going hawking" was a melancholy
cadence, which seemed, in its slow minors, instinct with the sadness of
a conquered race. The first verse ran--
"Lord his wyfe upstood and kyssed,
Faucon peregryn on wryst;
Faucon she of fremde londe,
With hir beek Sir Heyrown fonde."
Lewin and Anselm passed by them and stood watching a moment.
"Hear you that song of the grooms?" Lewin said.
"I have heard it a hundred times, but never listened till now," said
Anselm. "But what say they of Faucon peregryn? what means fremde londe?"
"It stands for foreign land in their speech," said the Jew. "Hast much
to learn of thy flock, Anselm?"
"Not I. My belly moves at the crooning. It is like the wind in the
forest of a winter's night. Come you to supper."
"That I will, when I have washed my hands; they are all foul with pike's
blood."
Dom Anselm gave a superior smile, and turned towards the hall.
The great keep lifted its huge angular block of masonry high into the
ruddy evening air, Outfangthef frowned over the bailey below. The door
which opened on the hall steps stood wide, and the servants were
hurrying in and out with dishes of food, while the men-at-arms stood
lingering round it till supper should be ready.
Cookery was an art upon the upward path, and Geoffroi's _chef_ was no
mean professor of it. The hungry crowd saw bowls of stew made from goose
and garlic borne up the stairs. Pork and venison in great quarters
followed, and after them came two kitchen serfs carrying wooden trays of
pastry, and round cakes piously marked with a cross.
Soon came the summons to supper. A page boy came down the steps and
cried that my lord was seated, and every one pressed up the stairs with
much jangling of metal and grinding of feet upon the stones. To our
modern ideas the great hall would present an extraordinary sight. This
rich nobleman fed with less outward-seeming comfort than a pauper in a
clean-scrubbed, whitewashed workhouse of to-day. And yet, though many a
lazy casual would grumble at a dinner served as was Geoffroi de la
Bourne's, there was something enormously impressive in the scene. We are
fortunate in many old chronicles and tales which enable us to
reconstruct it in all its picturesqueness.
Imagine, then, that you are standing on the threshold of the hall just
as supper has been begun.
The hall was a great room of bare stone, with a roof of oaken beams, in
which more than one bird had its nest. There was an enormous stone
chimney, now all empty of fire, and the place was lit with narrow
chinks, unglazed, pierced in the ten-foot wall. The day of splendid
oriels was yet to come in fortress architecture, which was, like the
time, grim and stern. It was dusk now in the outside world, and the hall
was lit with horn lanterns, and also with tall spiked sticks, into which
were fixed rough candles of tallow. The table went right up the hall,
and was a heavy board supported on trestles. Benches were the only
seats.
On a daïs at the far end of the building was the high table, where
Geoffroi and his son and daughter sat. The two squires, Brian de Burgh
and Richard Ferville, also sat at the high table, and Dom Anselm had a
place on the baron's right hand.
Lewin was seated at the head of the lower table, and the baron could
lean over and speak to him if he had a mind to do so.
Geoffroi and his son sat in chairs which were covered with rugs, and at
their side stood great goblets of silver. The dim light threw fantastic
shadows upon the colours of the dresses and the weapons hung on pegs
driven into the wall, blending them into a harmonious whole.
It was a picture of warm reds and browns, of mellow, comfortable
colours, with here and there a sudden twinkle of rich, vivid madder or
old gold.
When every one was seated, Geoffroi nodded to Dom Anselm, who thereupon
pattered out a grace, an act of devotion which was rather marred by the
behaviour of Lord Fulke, who was audibly relating some merry tale to his
friend, Brian de Burgh.
Then every one fell to with a great appetite. The serfs, kneeling,
brought barons of beef and quarters of hot pork on iron dishes. Each man
cut what he fancied with his dagger or hunting-knife, and laid it on his
trencher. Such as chose stew or ragout, ate it from a wooden bowl,
scooping up the mess in their bare hands. Lady Alice held a bone in her
white fingers, and gnawed it like any kitchen wench; and so did they
all, and were, indeed, none the worse for that.
Geoffroi de la Bourne, the central figure of that company, was a tall,
thin man of some five-and-fifty years. His face was lined and seamed
with deep furrows. Heavy brows hung over cold green eyes, and a beaked
eagle nose dominated a small grey moustache, which did not hide a pair
of firm, thin lips. His grey hair fell almost to his shoulders.
Geoffroi, like his son and the squires, was dressed in a tunic, long,
tight hose, a short cloak trimmed with expensive fur, and shoes with
peaked corkscrew toes.
The Baron sat eating quickly, and joining little in the talk around him.
He seemed very conscious of his position as lord of vast lands, and had
the exaggerated manner of the overworked business man.
He had many things to trouble him. The mint was not going well. His
unblushing adulteration of coined monies was severely commented on, and
his silver pennies were looked upon with suspicion in more than one
mercantile centre. The king was ill, and the license made possible by
the disordered state of the country was exciting the great churchmen to
every intrigue against the barons. Moreover, plunder was become
increasingly difficult. Merchants no longer passed with their trains
anywhere near the notorious castle of Hilgay, and, except for his
immediate retainers, all the country round was up in arms against
Geoffroi.
He had imagined that stern, repressive measures would terrify his less
powerful neighbours into silence. Two flaming churches in the fens and
the summary hanging of the priests had, however, only incensed East
Anglia to a passion of hatred.
Even as he sat at supper a certain popular Saxon gentleman, Byrlitelm by
name, lay at the bottom of an unmentionable hole beneath Outfangthef,
groaning his life away in darkness and silence, while his daughter was
the sport and plaything of the two young squires. Disquieting rumours
were abroad about the intentions of the powerful Roger Bigot of Norwich,
who was known to be hand-in-glove with the Earl of Gloucester, the
half-brother of Matilda.
Added to these weighty troubles, Geoffroi, who like all nobles of that
day was an expert carver in wood and metal, had cut his thumb almost to
the bone by the slip of a graving tool, and it throbbed unbearably. A
still further annoyance threatened him. Gertrude of Albermarl, a little
girl of fifteen, now acting as an attendant to Lady Alice, was a ward of
his whom he had taken quietly, usurping one of the especial privileges
of his friend the king.
The Crown managed the estates of minors, and held the right of giving in
marriage the heirs and heiresses of its tenants. "The poor child may be
tossed and tumbled chopped and changed, bought and sold, like a jade in
Smithfield, and, what is more, married to whom it pleaseth his
guardian--whereof many evils ensue," says Jocelyn de Brakelond, and the
wardship of little Gertrude was a very comfortable thing. Stephen had
heard of this act of Geoffroi's, and had sent him a peremptory summons
to send the child immediately to town. Geoffroi had that day determined
that little Gertrude should be married incontinently, to the young
ruffian his son, but the step was a grave one to take, and would
probably alienate the king irrevocably.
So he ate his supper gloomily. Every one in the place knew immediately
that he was displeased, and it cast a gloom over them also.
As the meal went on, conversation became fitful and constrained, and the
crowd of lecheurs, or beggars, who waited round the door, disputing
scraps of food with the lean fen dogs, could be distinctly heard
growling and gobbling among themselves in obscene chatter.
When at last Lady Alice withdrew and the cups were filled afresh with
cool wine from the cellar, Geoffroi signed to Fulke to come up to him.
The young man was a debauched creature of twenty-six, clean-shaven. His
hair was not long like his father's, but clipped close. The back of his
head was also shaven, and gave him a fantastic, elfin appearance. It was
a custom to shave the back of the head, which was very generally
adopted, especially in hot weather, among the young dandies of the
time.[2]
"Letters from the king," said Geoffroi shortly, in a deep, hoarse voice.
"About Gertrude?"
"Yes, that is it. Now there is but one answer to make to that. You must
marry her in a day or so, and then nothing more can be said."
"That is the only thing," said Fulke, grinning and wrinkling up his
forehead till his stubble of hair seemed squirting out of it. "But I
will not give up my pleasures for that."
"Who asked you?" said the father. "She is but a child and a-knoweth
nothing--you can make them her maids-in-waiting, that will please her."
He laughed a short, snarling laugh. "Sir Anselm shall tie the knot with
Holy Church her benediction."
[2] _It is quite possible that this fashion of the shavelings
accounted for the mistake of Harold's spies at the Conquest, who
said that there were more priests in the Norman camp than
fighting men in the English army!_
He summoned that scandalous old person from his wine.
"Priest," said he, "my Lord Fulke is about to wed little Lady Gertrude;
so make you ready in a day or two. I will give you the gold cross I took
from Medhampstede, for a memorial, and we will eke have a feast for
every one of my people."
"It is the wisest possible thing, Lord Geoffroi," said Anselm. "I will
say a Mass or two and get to praying for the young folk, and Heaven will
be kind to them."
"That do," said Fulke and Geoffroi, making the sign of the cross, for,
strange as it may seem, both the scoundrels were real believers in the
mysterious powers of the chaplain. Though they saw him drunken,
lecherous, and foul of tongue, yet they believed entirely in his power
to arrange things for them with God. Indeed, paradoxical as it may
sound, if Anselm had not been at Hilgay, both of them would have been
better men. They would not have dared some of their excesses, had it not
been possible to obtain immediate absolution. A rape and a murder were
cheap at a pound of wax altar lights and a special Mass.
"Here's good fortune," said Anselm, lifting the cup and bowing to Fulke.
"Thank you for't," said the young man. "Father, the minter shall make us
a ring, and his mouth shall give the tidings to the other officers.
Lewin, come you here, you have a health to drink." Lewin was summoned to
the upper table, and sat drinking with them, pledging many toasts. Once
he cast a curious glance at Anselm, and that worthy smiled back at him.
The evening was growing very hot and oppressive as it wore on. It was
quite dark outside and there was thunder in the air. Every now and again
the sky muttered in wrath, and at such sounds a sudden stillness fell
upon the four knaves at the high table, and, putting down their wine
vessels, they crossed themselves. Lewin made the "great cross" each
time, "from brow to navel, and from arm to arm."
Little Gertrude was long since a-bed, her prayers said, and her little
dark head tucked under the coverlet. She felt quite safe from the
thunder, for she had invoked Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Luke and
Saint Matthew, to stand round her bed all night, and she knew that they
would be there while she slept. Who, indeed, shall say that my Lords the
Saints were not guarding the sleeping child on that eventful night?
Geoffroi began to be less taciturn as the wine warmed him. Some bone
dice were produced, and they fell to playing for silver pennies. One of
the squires joined them, but the other left the hall early, as he had
some tender business afoot with Gundruda, the pretty serving-maid.
In the middle of the game, a stir came about at the hall door. One or
two of the soldiers went to see what was toward. A traveller, wet with
rain, was asking speech with Geoffroi, and he was brought up to the high
table by Huber and John.
"My lord," said he, "you will remember me. I am Oswald, your liege man.
I come from Norwich bearing news of war. I have been there a-buying
rams, and I bring you grave news. Roger Bigot is arming all his men in
hot speed, and comes to Hilgay to overthrow us. In a week or two he will
be here. He is very strong in arms."
These tidings affected the five men very differently.
Lewin glanced quickly at Anselm, and then turned to Oswald, waiting
more. The young squire tossed his head, and rang his hand upon the table
joyously. Fulke's lips tightened, and an ugly light came into his eyes.
The Baron alone showed no outward sign of agitation. He drummed his
fingers on the side of the wine-goblet for a minute, in silence.
Then he suddenly looked up, "Well," he said, "that is news, Oswald, but
I had thought to hear it a month since! Let the man come up against me
if he will, he shall rot for't, damn his soul! I am lord of this
country-side, with a rare lot of devils, lusty for blood, to guard this
keep. A week, you say? Very well, in a week he shall find us ready. But
get you to the table, Oswald, along of my merry men, and see that you
drink in God's name. Get you drunken, Oswald, my man; I thank you for
this. Get you drunk. Really, you should, in God's name. Huber! John!
Tell Master Pantler from me to put rope to windlass and draw up a cask
of wine for the men-at-arms. HEI! HEI!! HEI!!!" he shouted in a vast and
wonderful voice, rising in his seat and holding his beaker above his
head, "Men of mine! men of mine! my Lord Roger Bigot, the bastard from
Norwich town, lusteth for our blood and castle. The foining scamp
a-comes riding with a great force to take us. Drink ye all to me, men of
mine, and we will go against this traitor to the king--HEI! HEI! HEI!"
There was a fierce roar of exultation which pierced the very roof. The
war spirit ran like fire round the great hall, and as Geoffroi's tall
figure stood high above them, his voice rolled louder than the mightest
shouter there.
They broached the cask of wine, and brought torches into the hall until
the whole place flamed with light. The enthusiasm was indescribable.
They had all been long spoiling for a fight, and here was news indeed!
Oswald was plied with drink and pestered with questions.
When, in some half-hour's time, the excitement had in some degree
subsided, it began to be told among the men that a jongleur was in the
castle, and had been there since the afternoon. Lewin told Geoffroi of
this, and the man was sent for, so that he might amuse them with songs
of battle.
CHAPTER IV
Other incidents which occurred on the last night of Geoffroi de la
Bourne
In the early Middle Ages, no less than now, men and women believed in
ominous happenings to those about to die. Strange things were known to
occur in monasteries when a priest was going, and it was said that the
night before a battle soldiers would sometimes feel an icy cold wind
upon their faces, which fell from Death himself, beating his great
wings.
There were no materialists in England in those times, and the unseen
world was very near and present to men's minds.
On this night of thunder and alarms, there was to happen another of
those supernatural occurrences which are so difficult to explain away.
About the time the jongleur was brought into the hall--a little elderly
man, very pleasant and merry, but yet with something greedy, brutal,
and dangerous in his face--the enclosure of the serfs began to be
agitated by new and terrible emotions. Tragedy, indeed, had often
entered there, but it was at the bidding of some one in the outside
world. To-night she was to be invoked by the downtrodden and oppressed
themselves.
When men are gathered together, set upon some fearful act of retribution
or revenge, the very air seems instinct with the thoughts that are in
their hearts, and fluid with the electricity of the great deed to be
done.
In the centre of the stoke the common fire burnt without flame, for the
rain had tamed it. Round the fire sat the conspirators, and in the
stillness, for the rain was over and there was no wind, the murmuring of
their voice seemed like the note of an organ hidden in the wood.
Round the stoke the giant trees made a tremendous sable wall, grim and
silent, and even the dark sky above was brighter and more hopeful than
the silent company of trees. The sky was full of flickering
lightnings--white, green, and amethyst--and ever and again the thunder
murmured from somewhere over against Ely. Sometimes a spear of
lightning came right into the stoke, cracking like a whip.
The little group of inky figures round the embers seemed in no way
disturbed by the elements, but only drew closer and fell into more
earnest talk.
Hyla, Cerdic, Harl, Gurth, and Richard, sat planning the murder of
Geoffroi. On the morrow the Baron was to ride after a great boar which
the foresters knew of in the wood. This was settled, and it was thought
there would be a great hunt, for the boar was cunning, fierce, and old.
Now Geoffroi was skilled in all the elaborate science of woodcraft. He
knew every word of the pedantic Norman jargon of the hunt in all its
extravagance. He could wind upon his horn every mot known to the chase,
and no man could use the dissecting dagger upon a dead stag more
scientifically than he. More than all this, he rode better and with more
ardour than either his son or squires. Often it would happen that he
would gallop far into the forest after game, outstripping all his train.
They were used to that, and would often start another quarry for
themselves. Geoffroi was a moody man, happy alone, privy to himself,
and it had become somewhat of a custom to let him ride alone.
Now the serfs plotted that they should lie hidden in the underwood and
turn the boar towards a distant glade called Monkshood. In that open
space--for the trees were sparse there and studded the turf at wide
intervals--it was probable that Geoffroi would wind the death mot of the
quarry. It was to be his last mellow call in this world, for Hyla
planned to take him as he stood over the dead boar and kill him in the
ride.
Then when he had done the work, he was to return through the brushwood
towards the village. Provided only that the other hunters were far away
while he was killing the Baron, his presence in the wood would excite
little comment, even if he was seen returning. Moreover, he purposed to
carry an armful of dry sticks, so that he might appear as if he were
gathering kindling wood.
He would reach the stoke, he thought, just about the time that the
huntsmen would discover the Baron lying stark. He was to go through the
village, down the hill to the river, and embark in a small punt. He
would fly for his life then, poling swiftly through all the waterways of
the fen till he reached Icombe in the heart of the waters, where he
should find sanctuary and lie hid till happier times.
Hyla sat among them curiously confident. He never for a moment doubted
the result of the enterprise. None of them did. The resolution which
they had taken was too overwhelming to allow a suspicion of failure.
There was something terrible in this grim certainty.
In an hour or two, Gruach and Frija, with the two little prattling boys,
were to be taken down to the river and to set out for the Priory
beforehand, so that Hyla should find them waiting him. Harl was to punt
throughout the night, hoping to reach safety by dawn. It was a hard
journey, for the Priory was fifteen miles away.
"It is near time to set out," said Harl. "My heart is gride at this
night's work."
"Sore things always happen in time of wracke," said Cerdic. "See that
you protect Gruach and Frija in their unlustiness."
"The boat shall speed as boat never did before, and they shall be safe
at dawning."
Hyla had been sitting in silence staring at the red heart of the fire as
if he saw pictures there. "I am nothing accoyed," he said at length, "I
fear nothing save for Elgifu."
Harl beat upon the ground with his fist. "An you kill Geoffroi, I have a
mind to deal with Fulke also in sic a way. Little Elgifu!"
"She was always a little fool," said Hyla roughly. "She has made choys
and lies in the arms of a lord. Think no more of her, Harl. I hope they
will not hurt her, that is all."
"They will not hurt her, I wote," Cerdic broke in cheerfully. "They will
gain nothing by that. She is a piece of goods of value. They will not
hurt her."
The arrangements were all made for the flight of Gruach and Frija; the
plot was planned in every detail, and a silence fell upon them. Few of
them had the art of conversation or knew how to talk. Hyla sat silent,
with nothing in his brain to say. Although he was in a state of fierce
excitement, of exultation at a revelation of self, which appeared
miraculous in its freshness--as if he had been suddenly given a new
personality--he had never a word to say. Cerdic was his firm and
faithful friend, but he could express none of the thoughts surging over
him even to Cerdic. The poor toiling, tired souls had never learnt the
gift of speech; they were cut off from each other, except in the rarest
instances.
For example, a combination, such as the one we are discussing, was
unheard of. Of course, only a few of the serfs had been told of the
plot, for it would not have been safe in the hands of many of them. Yet,
that eight or nine men, with all the stumbling blocks of inherited
slavery, a miserable life, and an incredible lack of opportunity, should
have learnt and put in practice the lesson of combination, is a most
startling fact.
"Combination," indeed, was born that night, and stood ready to be
clothed with a vigorous life, and to supply the means for a slow but
glorious revolution. The direct effects of the proceedings at Hilgay
have affected our whole history to this day.
After a half-hour of silence, broken only by an occasional
word-of-course, the women, who had been sleeping to gain strength, were
summoned for departure.
The great enterprise seemed to knit the men at the fire together in a
wonderful way. They felt they must keep with each other, and all rose to
accompany the fugitives to the river. The little boys, sleepily
protesting, were carried in the arms of two of the men, and the
melancholy procession stole out into the warm darkness. The other serfs
were all asleep, and deep breathings resounded as they passed the huts.
At the entrance to the stoke a mongrel dog barked at them, but a blow
with a stick sent him away whining.
In a few minutes, treading very quietly, they were passing along the
green by the castle. There were still points of light in the towering
black walls, and distant sounds of revelry coming to them sent them
along with faster steps.
Now that the enterprise was actually embarked upon, most of them felt
very uneasy. The mere sight of that enormous pile brought before their
minds the tremendous power they were going up against. It was so visible
and tangible a thing, such a symbol of their own poor estate.
But Frija, as she passed the castle, spat towards the palisades and
ground her teeth in fury. That heartened them up a little. They had
wives and daughters also. As Gruach passed, she wept bitterly for Elgifu
within. They went without mishap through the village. All the houses
were silent and showed no sign of life. The way was very dark, though
the white chalk of the road helped them a little to find it. Also, now
and then, the lightning lit up the scene strangely, showing the members
of the group to each other, hurrying, very furtive and white of face.
The fens opened before them as a wall of white vapour. No stranger would
have imagined the vast flat expanses beyond. The mist might have
concealed any other kind of scenery. Standing on the hill they could see
the mysterious blue lights dancing over the fen. They crossed themselves
at that. It was thought that restless souls danced over the waters at
night, and that many evil things were abroad after dark.
They were quite close to the landing-stage and, encircled by the mist,
walking very warily, when Harl, who was a pioneer, was heard to give a
quick shout of alarm.
Another voice was heard roughly challenging. They passed through the
vapour and came suddenly upon Pierce, the man-at-arms. At his feet lay a
heap of fish, phosphorescent in the dark. He looked at them with deep
amazement. "What are you?" he said.
As he spoke, and his voice gave clue to his identity, Hyla gathered
himself together and leapt upon him. The two men fell with a great
clatter on to the very edge of the landing-stage, slipping and
struggling among the great heap of wet fish. Had not the others come to
their assistance both would have been in the water.
Hyla rose bleeding from scratches on the face. Gurth had a great bony
hand over the soldier's mouth, and the others held him pinned to the
ground, so that he was quite powerless.
"Get the women away," said Cerdic, "get the women away."
Harl stepped from punt to punt until he came to a long light boat of
oak, low in the water, and built for speed. He cast off the rope which
tied it to one of the other punts, and brought it alongside the steps.
He put a bundle of clothing and food in the centre, and waited for
Gruach and her daughter.
Hyla lifted the little boys, wrapped in cat-skins, into the boat, and
turned to Gruach. She lay sobbing in his arms, pressing her wet face to
his.
"Pray Lord Christ that I am with you on the morrow, wife," he said, "and
fare you well!" He embraced Frija, and helped both women into the boat.
Harl took up the pole.
"Farewell!" came in a deep, low chorus from the group of serfs, and,
with no further words, the boat shot away into the dark. They could hear
the splash of the pole and the wailing of the women, and then the
darkness closed up and hid them utterly.
The men closed round Pierce. There seemed no hesitation in their
movements. It was felt by every one that he must die. Despite his
frantic struggles, they unbuckled his belt and dagger. Cerdic pulled
down the neck of his tunic and laid bare the flesh beneath. Hyla
unsheathed the dagger, trembling with joy as his enemy lay beneath
him----
It was as easy as killing a cat, and they took the body and sank it in
mid-stream. Then they stood upon the landing-stage speechless, huddled
close together--torn by exultation and fear.
Cerdic saw that they were terrified at what had been done. "Come,
friends," said he, "fall upon your knees with me, and pray the Blessed
Virgin to shed her favour upon Hyla and his work to-morrow. The fish are
at one black knave already, to-morrow a greater shall meet his man in
hell. Our Lady and my Lords the Saints are with us; get you to praying."
In a moment a sudden flash of lightning, which leapt across the great
arch of heaven, showed a group of kneeling forms, silent, with bended
heads.
Soon they went stealing up the hill again, but not before Gurth had
delivered himself of a grim, though practical pleasantry. "I'll have the
divell's fish," he said, and with that he slung them over his shoulder,
for they were threaded upon a string.
* * * * *
The jongleur in the hall played upon his crowth, and sang them
Serventes, Lays, and songs of battle. Between each song he rested his
fiddle upon the floor and drank a draught of morat, till his lips and
chin were all purple with the mulberry juice. Then he would say that he
would give them a little something which dealt with the great surquedy
and outrecuidance of a certain baron, the son of a lady of ill-fame, and
how, being in his cups, this man was minded to go up in fight against a
rock. So, forthwith, the hero got him up on his destrier and ran full
tilt against the rock. "Then," the jongleur would conclude in quite the
approved modern music-hall style, "the sward was all besprent with what
remained." Vulgar wit then was own brother to coarse wit to-day, and a
vulgar fool in the twelfth century differed but little from a vulgar
fool in the nineteenth.
A broad grin sat solid upon the faces of the soldiers. When the jongleur
began to sing little catches in couplets, plucking the string of his
crowth the while for accompaniment, they nudged each other with delight
at each coarse suggestion. They were exactly like a group of little
foolish boys in the fourth form of a public school, just initiated into
the newness of cheap wit, whispering ancient rhymes to each other.
Perhaps there was not much harm in it. When we grow to the handling of
our own brain unadorned vulgarity revolts us, as a rule, but there is
hardly a man, before his brain has ripened, who has not sniggered upon
occasion at unpleasant trivialities. It is no manner of use ignoring the
fact. Put the question to yourself, if you are a man, and remember, not
without gratitude for the present, what an unprofitable little beast you
were.
They were children, these men-at-arms. They had the cruelty of
wolves--or children, the light-heartedness of children. Imagine what
Society would be if children of fourteen were as strong and powerful as
their elders. If you can conceive that, you can get a little nearer to
the men-at-arms.
But as the grotesque little man mouthed and chattered, his teeth
flashing white in his purple-stained jaws, like some ape, the more
powerful brains at the high table had no excuse for their laughter.
The hedge priest roared with delight, Fulke sniggered meaningly, and a
sardonic grin lit up the stern countenance of Geoffroi de la Bourne.
Lewin must be given credit for a finer attitude. He seemed insufferably
bored by the whole thing, and longing to be in bed.
The night wore on, and they drank deep, till more than one head lay low.
Geoffroi filled his cup again and again, but each potation left him
clearer in brain, affecting him not at all. At last he rose to seek his
couch. Dom Anselm was snoring heavily, Lewin had already departed, and
Fulke was playing dice with the squire.
"I have no mind to sleep for a while," Geoffroi said, "the night is
hot. Bring a torch," he said to a serf; and then turning to the
jongleur, "come with me, Sir Jester, to my bed-side, and relate to me
some merry tales till I fall upon sleep, for I am like to wake long this
night."
Preceded by the flickering of the torch, and followed by the minstrel,
he left the hall. They descended the steps in red light and deepest
shadow, and came out into the courtyard which was very still. Every one
was asleep save one lean dog, who, hearing footsteps, padded up and
thrust his cold nose into Geoffroi's hand. He fondled the creature,
standing still for a moment, sending a keen eye round the big empty
space, as who should find some enemy lurking there. The two others
waited his pleasure.
"Come, come," he said at length in curiously detached tones, extremely
and noticeably unlike his usual quick incisiveness, "we will get to
bed."
He turned towards Outfangthef. They had taken some three paces towards
the tower, when a lightning flash of dazzling brilliancy leapt right
over the sky from pole to pole, and showed the whole scene as bright as
in the day. Geoffroi stopped suddenly, as did the others, expecting a
great peal of thunder. Suddenly the Baron began to shiver and bend. He
wheeled round tottering, and caught the minstrel by the shoulder. The
little man squeaked like a rat in the jaws of a dog.
"Hist!" said Geoffroi, "What do you hear? What do you hear, man?"
"Nothing, my lord," said the jongleur in deep amazement.
"Listen, jongleur. What do you hear now?" said he.
"My lord, I can hear nothing," answered the little man.
"I have drunken too deep," said the Baron; "surely I am most devilishly
drunk, for I can hear, I can hear"--he leant in the manner of a man
listening--"I can hear now as I speak to you, voices as of a great
company of men praying to Our Lady--listen! their voices are praying
deeply. I think they must be monks."
"Lord, look you to this," whispered the serf, terror-stricken.
The dog, perhaps because he felt the three men were going in fear, or
perhaps from some deeper and more hidden reason which men do not yet
understand, crouched low on the ground and hid his head between his
paws, whining.
"They are praying to the Blessed Virgin," said Geoffroi. "Can you hear
nothing--those deep voices?"
"My lord," said the jongleur with more confidence, "the night is late,
and I have known many sounds appear like human voices in the night. A
cow loweth or a beetle boometh in the orchard flowers."
"What it may be I do not know," answered he, "but I know that it is no
ox a-lowing or fly upon the wing. I am not mocked. There is something
wrong with the night."
"The more reason, Sir Geoffroi, that I should divert you with tales and
jests. These fearful nights of strange lights in the sky and noises from
the fen lands need some light business to fill the mind. To bed, my
lord!"
"Come then," said Geoffroi. "God shield us, it is very hot," and as he
turned, the sweat stood in great drops upon his brow.
At the exact moment the little party entered the door of Outfangthef,
the serfs, far down in the fen, rose from their knees, and began to
steal swiftly and noiselessly up the hill.
The Baron's sleeping chamber was an octagonal stone room with a groined
roof. A faldestol, the great-grandfather of our own armchair, spread
with cushions, stood by a tall candlestick. The bed boasted curtains and
a roof, though its occupant lay upon nothing more luxurious than straw.
On a low table near the faldestol were some vessels of glass and silver.
Arms hung upon the walls, and a litter of shavings on the floor showed
the Baron had been carving at some time during the day. On the perch by
the bed head sat Geoffroi's favourite hawk, now sunk in motionless and
sinister sleep.
Taken as a whole, the apartment was extremely comfortable and even
luxurious in its appearance. To reconstruct it nowadays would cost the
modern æsthete an enormous sum of money.
The serf knelt at the threshold and delivered the torch to the jongleur,
who lit the candle from it. Then Geoffroi shut the door, and, removing
his tunic and short cloak, flung himself on the bed.
"Sit there," he said to the man, pointing to the faldestol. "There is
wine upon the table if you are thirsty." Then he added with a change of
manner, "you are well found in faëry tales and sic like. What means the
noise I have heard to-night?"
"They say, my lord, that souls that cannot rest may be heard singing and
wailing in the fen, calling on each other in reproach."
"The pot upbraiding the kettle for the soot on't! Well, well, that sweet
morat is bad for a man, I think. Better stick to wine. The honey makes
the brain mad."
"There is poison in many flowers," said the jongleur, "and what likes a
bee's belly well enough may be bad for a man. It was the drink in you,
my lord, for I heard no sound."
"It does not matter much. It is done and over. For the minute I was
accoyed. Tell me a story."
"The night before the great fight of Senlac," said the jongleur, "is
told of as a most wonderful strange night. The minstrel, Taillefer, went
a-wandering round the camp fires, cheering the hearts of the soldiers
with songs, by the order of Duke William himself. The Duke had made
order that but little wine was to be given to the troops, and that they
were to ride into battle shriven and fasting. So he sent Taillefer to
cheer them with songs. The minstrel wandered from fire to fire over the
hill till he was weary and would sleep. He came, as he went, to the old
fort of the Haestingas, and there, under a ruined wall, he laid him
down.
"Now my lord, Sir Taillefer was a very evil man. By the rood, but he was
an evil man! Whatever deviltry a could lay his mind to, that did he, and
he was in great favour with the Duke.
"Now two days before the battle the Norman army had come sailing from
Saint Valeri, and had landed on the sands of England at Bulverhithe,
near Pevensey, or Anderida, as some will have it. No Saxon came to
oppose the landing, for the fighting men were all at the northern war on
Derwent banks. In the village, Taillefer came upon a farmhouse, where
the farmer was away at the war, for all the houses were empty of men.
There did he find and ill-use a beautiful Saxon girl, who did resist him
with many tears. He was a gay fellow, with ever a song in's mouth, but
for all that, his dwelling that night was besprent with tears and
wailing.
"Now, as Taillefer lay a-sleeping in the old fort, there came to him and
stood by his side a long, thin man, with yellow hair and a cleft lip.
'What are you?' said Taillefer. 'Look well at me,' said the man, 'for I
am the father of Githa, whom you used with violence. To-morrow morn we
shall meet again. You will be singing your last song.'
"Now Taillefer was a brave man, and loved a fight, so with that he got
him his axe and cleft the man from head to toe. But the blow went
through the air as if no one was there, and the axe, falling upon a
rock, was splintered into pieces and Taillefer a top of it, sprawling
face down, and, they say, bawling most lustily. Two soldiers found him,
and he said he was drunk to them, though he was no more drunk than my
crowth.
"On the morrow, at nine of the clock, the bugles rang out mots of war,
and the Normans were about advancing. Taillefer, in great inward fear,
for he knew that he would die that day, prayed a boon from the Duke,
that he might strike the first blow of the fight. He did not want to
live long with the fear upon him. The Duke said aye to his question, so
a-got on his destrier, and went riding out of the lines singing gaily,
though 'twas said his face was very pale. He couched his lance at a
Saxon, and pierced him through. Then a tall, thin man, with yellow hair
and s cleft lip, came swiftly at him with a sword, and thrust it into
his belly before he could recover the lance. 'It is you, then,' said
Taillefer, and died in great torment."
His voice sank into silence, and he lifted the wine-cup for refreshment.
"It is a strange story," said Geoffroi, "and a pitiful to-do about a
theow girl. I do not believe that story."
"I spun it as 'twas told to me, my lord," said the teller humbly.
The big man moved among the crackling straw and crossed himself, and we
who have no great crime upon our conscience need not be careful to
enquire into his thoughts.
"I will sleep now," he said after a pause.
The minstrel rose to go, bowing a farewell.
"No," said Geoffroi; "stay there, make your bed in that faldestol
to-night. I do not care to be alone. And, mark well! that if you hear
any untoward noise, or should you hear a sound of men's voices praying,
rouse me at once."
He turned his face towards the wall, and before long his deep breathing
showed that sleep had come to him.
The candle began to burn very low and to flicker. The jongleur saw
enormous purple shadows leap at each other across the room, and play,
fantastic, about the bed. He rose and peered out of a narrow unglazed
window in the thickness of the wall. The hot air from the room passed by
his cheeks as it made its way outside. There was no lightning now, and
the sky was beginning to be full of a colourless and clear light, which
showed that dawn was about to begin. Far, far away in some distant
steading, the jongleur heard the crowing of a cock.
As he watched, the daylight began to flow and flood out of the East, and
close to the window he heard a thin, reedy chirp from a starling just
half awake.
He turned round towards the room, thinking he heard a stir. He saw the
elderly man on the bed risen up upon his elbow. His right hand pointed
towards the opposite wall, at a space over the table. With a horrid fear
thumping in his heart and sanding his throat, the minstrel saw that
Geoffroi's eyes were open in an extremity of terror, and his nostrils
were caught up and drawn like a man in a fit.
"My lord! my lord!" he quavered at him.
There was no sign that Geoffroi heard him, except for a quivering of his
pointing, rigid finger. The minstrel took up a vessel of glass from the
table, and flung it on the floor.
The crash roused the Baron. His arm dropped and his face relaxed, and,
with a little groan, he fell face down in a swoon. The minstrel hopped
about the room in an agony of indecision. Then he took the jug of wine,
the only liquid he could find, and, turning the Baron on his back, he
flung it in his face.
Geoffroi sat up with a sudden shout, all dripping crimson. He held out
his red-stained hand. "What is this? What is this?" he cried in a high,
unnatural voice. "This is blood on my hand!"
"No, my lord, it is wine," said the jongleur; "you fell into a deep
swoon, and it was thus I roused you."
"Did you see him?" said Geoffroi. "Oh, did you see him by the wall?
Christ shield us all! It was Pierce, a soldier of mine. His throat was
cut and all bloody, and he made mouths like a man whose throat is slit
in war."
"My lord, you are disordered," said the jongleur. "You ate pork at
supper, a wonderful bad thing for the belly at night."
Geoffroi said never a word, but fell trembling upon his knees.
CHAPTER V
The three trees of Monkshood Glade.
How fresh the morning air was in the wood! A million yellow spears
flashed through the thick leaves and stabbed the undergrowth with gold.
A delicious smell of leaves and forest beasts scented the cool breezes,
and birds of all colours sang hymns to the sun.
An early summer morning in a great wood! In all life there is nothing so
mysteriously delightful. Where the leaves of the oaks and elms and
beeches were so thick that they turned the spaces below into fragrant
purple dusk, what soft bright-eyed creatures might lie hid! In the hot
open glades brilliant little snakes lay shining, and green-bronze
lizards, like toy dragons, slept in armour. The fat singing bees that
shouldered their way through the bracken wore broad gold bands round
their fur, and had thin vibrating wings of pearl. They were like jewels
with voices.
Upon a piece of smooth grass sward, nibbled quite short by rabbits,
which sloped down to a brook of brown and amber water, sat Lewin, the
minter. His fine clear-cut face harmonised with all the beauty around,
and he drank in the air as if it had been wine. There was a soft look in
his eyes as of a man dreaming of lovely things. His face is worth a
little scrutiny. The glorious masses of dark-red hair gave it an
aureola, the long straight nose showed enormous force of character, but
the curve of the lips was delicate and refined, and seemed to oppose a
weakness. There was something dreamy, treacherous, and artistic in his
countenance.
For an hour Lewin had come into the wood to forget his scheming and
ambitions and to be happy in the sunlight. He plucked blades of grass
idly and threw them into the brook. Once he looked up, feeling that
something was watching him, and saw mild eyes regarding him from a
thicket. It was a young fawn which had come to drink in the brook, and
saw him with gentle surprise. He gave a hunting halloa, and immediately
the wood all round was alive with noise and flying forms. Part of a
herd of deer had been closing round his resting-place, and were leaping
away in wild terror at his shout.
The forest became silent again, until he heard feet crackling on the
leaves and twigs, and looking up saw a radiant vision approaching him. A
tall, dark girl, lithe as a willow, was coming through the wood.
Lewin sprang up from the little lawn and went down the path to meet her,
holding out his hands.
"Ah, Gundruda!" he said, "I have waited your coming. How fair you are
this beautiful morning!"
"Go away," she said, with a flash of pearls. "That is what you say to
every girl."
"Of course, Gundruda mine. I love all women; my heart is as large as an
abbey."
"Then your fine speeches lose all their value, minter. But I have a
message."
He dropped his banter at once. "Yes! yes!" he said eagerly.
"My lord goeth after a boar this afternoon with Sir Fulke, and my Lady
Alice will be by the well in the orchard when they have gone."
"Good," said he, "there will I be also. Are Richard and Brian going
hunting?"
"No; they will be hard at work with all the theows and men-at-arms
fortifying the castle. Oh, Lewin, there is such a to-do! Last night as
ever was, came a messenger to say Roger Bigot is coming to Hilgay to
kill us all, and Christ help us! that is what I say."
A shrill note of alarm had come into her voice, for she had seen war
before, and knew something of the unbridled cruelty that walked with
conquerors. At that he put his arm round her waist and drew her close to
him. They were a fine pair as they stood side by side in the wood. Lewin
captured one pretty hand in his--a little, white, firm hand that curled
up comfortably in his clasp. Then he kissed her on her soft cheeks.
"How beautiful you are," he said in a soft, dreamy voice, deep and rich.
He strained her to him. "Oh, how strange and beautiful you are,
Gundruda. I would that for ever you were in my arms. There is nothing
like you in the world, Gundruda. You are worth kingdoms. Oh, you
beautiful girl!"
She abandoned herself to his caresses, with closed eyes and quick
shuddering breaths of pleasure. Suddenly the mellow notes of a horn in
all their proud sweetness came floating through the wood, and this
amorous business came to a sudden end.
Geoffroi was starting out to the hunt.
The two people in the wood went back to the castle by devious ways. They
found that Lord Geoffroi with a few attendants had already left the
castle and entered the forest.
The castle-works were humming with activity. The weapon smiths were
forging and fitting arrow heads, and making quarels and bolts. The
carpenters were building hoards, or wooden pent houses, which should be
run out on the top of the curtains. The crenelets, which grinned between
the roof and the machicolade at the top of Outfangthef, were cleared of
all obstructions. A trébuchet for slinging stones--invented in Flanders,
and very effective at short range--was being fitted together on the roof
of the Barbican. Hammers were tapping, metal rang on metal, the saws
groaned, and a great din of preparation pervaded everything.
In one corner of the bailey a man was cutting lead into strips so that
it could be more easily made molten and poured upon besiegers. In
another a group were hoisting pitch barrels on to the walls with a
pulley and tackle.
In and out of the great gateway rough carts were rattling every moment,
full of apples and wheat from the farmhouses round.
A row of patient oxen were stabled in a pen, hastily knocked up with
beams of fir, in one corner of the bailey. In the field by the castle
side, the swine shrieked horribly as a serf killed them relentlessly,
and in the kitchens the women boiled, dried, and salted before glowing
wood fires.
Long before dawn, scouts on swift horses had been posting along the
Norwich road, and messages had been sent to all the villeins proper to
fulfil their pledge of service.
Tongues wagged unceasing.
"Come ye here, cripples, and give a hand to this beam."
"Have you gotten your money safe, minter? The bastard son a letcheth
after coined monies."
"Aye, and after more things than coined monies. Gundruda, beauty, Roger
hath a fat Turkman privy to him, and going always in his train. He will
marry you to the black man!"
"By the rood, then, I'd as soon wed him as you!"
"Roger taketh with him always a crucet hûs, my son."
"And what is that, then, Father Anselm?"
"Know you not the crucet hûs? fight lustily, then, or you may know him
too well. The crucet hûs, that is a chest which is short and narrow and
shallow. Roger putteth men therein, and putteth sharp stones upon him so
that all his limbs be brake thereby. My Lord Bigot loveth it. Also he
useth the 'Lâŏ and grim.' 'Tis a neck bond, my lad, of which two or
three men had enough to bear one! It is so made that it is fastened to a
beam. And Roger putteth a sharp iron round about the man's throat and
his neck, so that he cannot in any direction sit or lie or sleep, but
must bear all that iron."
"God's teeth! Father! you have a merry way of comfort."
"Truth is stern, Huber; fight then lustily, and get you shriven
to-morrow."
"That will I, Father."
"And you, John and Denys, and Robert, all you soldiers. Come you to me
ere this fight, and pay Holy Church her due fee, and have safety for
your souls. An if you die then you will be saved men, and among the
merry angels and my Lords the Saints, as good as they in heaven. An you
go not to battle with hearts purged of sin, the divell will have every
mother's son of you. Alas, how miserable and rueful a time will be then!
And you who are whilom in shining armour-mail, with wine to drink, and
girls to court for your pleasure, will lie in a portion of fire but
seven foot long."
Thus, Anselm, the hedge priest, passing from group to group in beery
exhortation.
Who knows how it affected them?
The heavenly sun still looks into the lowest valleys. The unclean hands
of that false priest, unfaithful minister that he was, may have given
the mass to a sick soul with great spiritual comfort. The bestial old
man may have absolved dark men, penitent of their sins, because they
themselves earnestly believed in his power.
As he sat in the chapel during that day, the mysterious powers conferred
on him from Saint Peter himself, in unbroken succession, may, indeed,
have flowed through him, giving grace.
Lewin lounged about the courtyard listening to his exhortations with
amusement, yet not without wonder at the strange psychic force which
moved the minds of these rough men. The crafty, sensual sentimentalist,
of course, had no illusions about the abstract, yet the idea always
fascinated him when it came. It was very grand and sonorous, he thought,
this bondage to mystery, this ritual of the unseen. So lonely a man was
he, immured in the impregnable fortress of his own brain, for there was
no mental equal for him at Hilgay, that for mere mind-food he gave
himself over to wild fancies. Our Lord upon the cross was more beautiful
to him than to many devout believers, and he would have told you that he
could hear the going of God in the wind. Sometimes he half-wondered if
it were not true that Christ died.
He went into his mint, deserted now, and sat him down upon a bench in
his little room. The sunshine cut its living way through the dust of the
silent empty place. A whip lay upon the floor, where it had been thrown
by an overseer of the theows who worked in the mint. There were flies
upon it. He kicked the thing aside with disgust; it was a reminder of
the stern terrible age in which he lived, and in which he felt so out of
place. Depression began to flow over him in silent waves, until he
remembered that he was to meet Lady Alice in the afternoon. That turned
the current of his idle, discontented thoughts towards a more palpable
thing. His secret wooing of the Norman lady who was so proud and
stately was very dear to him, and the romance of it pleased him even
more than the mere material joys he hoped some day to gain from it.
Proud as she was, womanlike she at least deigned to listen to him, and
his crafty brain schemed darkly to take opportunity as it came, and make
her his own by treachery. He went out again among the busy workmen, and
began to direct some smiths who were rivetting a suit of brass armour,
engraved with a curious pattern of beetles and snakes in arabesque,
which required delicate handling.
The weapon smiths were grumbling because they were short of hands for
the heavier parts of their labour. Five or six of the most reliable
serfs could not be found anywhere. Some one had seen them going into the
forest, and it was supposed that they were acting as beaters for
Geoffroi. Every one grumbled at the Baron. It was thought that this was
no time for amusements. A boar would keep, herons would last till the
world's end, deer would get them young every year till the world
stopped. Every hour Roger Bigot came slowly nearer, and the men of
Hilgay wanted the comfort of a master mind to direct and reassure them
at a time like this.
The two squires fussed and raved, and stormed till the sweat stood in
great drops upon them, but they could not get half the work out of the
men that Geoffroi, or even Fulke, were able to. They had no personality
and were ineffective, lacking that most potent and most powerful of
human things. But every one did his best, nevertheless, and by
"noon-meat" work had distinctly advanced, and already the castle began
to wear something of an aspect of war.
It is extraordinary how a building or a place can be transformed in our
minds by a few outward touches, combined with an attitude of
expectation. If one has waited for a wedding in an almost empty church,
the coming ceremony has an actual power of destroying the somewhat
funereal aspect of the place. A single vase of flowers upon the altar
seems swollen to a whole tree of bloom, the footsteps of a melancholy
old man unlocking the rusty door, or spreading the priest's robes for
him, is magnified into the beating of many feet. A crowd is created,
expectant of a bride.
In a country lane on a hot summer afternoon, on Sunday, we say that a
"Sabbath peace" is over all the land. The wind in the trees seems
whispering litanies, and the soft voices of the wood-pigeons sound like
psalms, the woods are at orisons, and the fields at prayer. As evening
comes gently on, the feeling becomes intensified, though there is
nothing but the chance lin-lan-lone of a distant bell to help it. The
evening is not really more peaceful and gracious on the day of rest. The
rooks wing home with mellow voices indeed, and the plover calls sweetly
down the wind for his mate, but these are ordinary sounds. You may hear
them on week days. The peace is in our own hearts, subjective and holy,
informed by our own thoughts.
In the very air of the castle there was a tremulous expectation of war.
Lady Alice, in her chamber, far away from the tumult, knew it. Little
Gertrude, in the orchard, felt in her blood that the day was not
ordinary; the very dogs sought wistfully to understand the excitement
that pervaded everything.
At noon-meat, the jongleur, who had remained in the castle, blear-eyed
and silent, got very drunk indeed. A madness of excitement got hold of
him, and he sang war songs in a strident unnatural voice. The stern
choruses rang out in the sunshine, with a pitiful whining of the crowth.
All the afternoon the men hummed fierce catches as they went about their
work. The day was cloudless and very hot. About five o'clock, when the
sun's rays began to strike the ground slantingly, and the world was full
of the curious relative sadness that comes with evening, the toilers
knocked off for a rest. The pantler brought out horns of Welsh ale, and
they sat round the well discussing the great impending event, the
strength of the defences, the number of the enemy, the chances of the
fight. The jongleur was lying insensible by the well-side, and a merry
fool was bedabbling his shameless old face with pitch from a bucket,
when the attention of every one in the castle was suddenly arrested by
the distant but quite unmistakable sound of a horn.
A deep silence fell upon them all. Then they heard it again, no hunting
mot or tuneful call of peace, but a long, keen, threatening note of
alarm!
The thundering of a horse's feet growing ever nearer and nearer throbbed
in the air. The sound seemed a great way off. Some one shouted some
quick orders. The pins were pulled from the portcullis chains, so that
upon releasing a handle it would fall at once. That was all they could
do for the moment. They heard that the horseman was coming on at a most
furious gallop. The sound came from the great main drive of the forest.
Quick conjectures flew about among them all.
"Godis head! surely Roger is ten days away."
"So the scouts have said. He moveth very slowly. Oswald saw it with his
own eyën."
"We shall know before one should tell to twenty, listen!"
The news-bringer, whoever he might be, was now close at hand, and with
startling effect he sent before him another keen vibratory note of his
invisible horn. It seemed to come right up to the very castle gate, and
to break in metallic sound at the feet of those standing near.
In a moment more they saw him turn out from among the interlacing forest
trees, and come furiously down the turf towards them.
"It's Kenulf, the forester," shouted two or three voices at once.
"Surely some one rides after him."
The rider was now close upon them, and vainly trying to pull in his
horse. The animal was maddened by the goring of his spurs--long single
spikes in the fashion of that time--and would not stop. So, with a
shrill shout of warning and an incredible echoing and thunder of noise,
he galloped over the drawbridge, under the vaulted archway of the gate
tower, and only pulled up when he was in the bailey itself, and
confronted with the great rock of the keep.
For a moment he could not speak in his exhaustion, but by his white face
and haunted eyes they saw that he had some terrible news.
There was a horn of beer propped up against the draw-well, which some
one had set down at the distant noises of the forester's coming. Brian
de Burgh picked it up and gave it to the gasping fellow. Then he
stammered out his news, striking them cold with amazement.
"My Lord Geoffroi is dead, gentlemen," said he. "He has been murdered. I
came upon him standing by the three trees in Monkshood. He had an arrow
right through his mouth, nailed to a tree was he, and the grass all
sprent with him. Gentlemen, I came into the glade half-an-hour after I
had seen my lord well and alive. He rode fiercely ahead of us after the
boar, towards Monkshood. My lord loves to ride alone, and Sir Fulke
followed but slowly, and set a peregryn at a heron on the way. But I
pressed on faster, so that an Lord Geoffroi killed the boar, and when he
had made the first cuts, I should do the rest. God help us all, and Our
Lady too! I did come into the glade half a mile away from where the
three trees stand. My eyën go far and they are very keen. There was a
man, I could see, standing still, but as I blew a call he went swiftly
into the underwood. Then came I to the trees and saw my lord standing
dead. Sir Fulke and the train came up soon after, and they are bringing
It home. Make you ready. Cwaeth he to me, that you were to make proper
mourning, to light the torches and say the Mass, and have many lights
upon the holy table. And so my lord shall the quicker find rest. Haste!
haste! for soon they will be near, and there is scant of time withouten
great haste. Take me to my lady, for I would tell her."
"No," said a girl, who was standing by, very hastily, "I will prepare
her first," and with that Gundruda, with a face full of wonder, slipped
away to the postern which led to the orchard.
So this was how the first tidings of Hyla's vengeance came to the
castle.
* * * * *
Now the killing of Geoffroi de la Bourne happened in this way.
As one might imagine, there was no sleep for the serfs on the night
before the attempt. From the time when they had stolen up the hill after
the murder of Pierce to the coming of dawn was but short. They spent it
round the dead fire among the noises of the night.
A great exultation was born in the heart of each man. Hyla showed them
his blood-stained hands, with vulgar merriment at the sight, rejoicing
in the deed. They were all animated with the lust of slaughter. Wild
hopes began to slide in and out of their minds. One could hardly expect
anything fine--in externals--from these rough boorish men. Although
their purpose was noble, and the feelings that animated them had much
that owed its existence to a love for their fellows, a protest of
essential human nature against oppression and foul wrongs, yet their
talk was coarse and brutal about it all. This must be chronicled in
order to present a proper explanation of them, but if it is understood
it will be forgiven. No doubt the canons of romance would call for
another kind of picture. The men would keep vigil, full of lofty
thoughts, high words, and prayers to God. They would have spoken of
themselves as Christ's ministers of wrath; the romancer would have
prettily compared them to King David with his Heaven-ordered mission of
vengeance. And yet King David, for example, mutilated the Philistines in
a fearfully brutal way--it is for any one to read--and how much more
would not these poor fellows be likely to shock and offend our nice
sensibilities. No doubt it was horrible of Hyla to call up a sleeping
puppy and make it lick Pierce's blood from his hands, but this story is
written to make Hyla explicit, and Hyla was not refined.
Early in the morning the conspirators took a meal together before
setting out to play their various parts in this tragedy. Harl was
already far away with the women. Gurth was to go down to the river and
take the swiftest punt away from the landing-place and hide in the reeds
upon the other side. A whistle would summon him when Hyla and Cerdic
came down to the water ready for flight. Gurth was to sink the other
punts, to make pursuit impossible for a time.
Cerdic, Richard, and a third man called Aescwig were to lie in the wood
to turn the boar, as well as they were able, towards the glade of
Monkshood. They were lean, wiry men, swift of foot, and knew that they
could do this. Cerdic had a swift dog concealed, for it was unlawed,
which he used for poaching. It would help them. Hyla himself would lurk
in the glade with his knife, waiting in the hope of his enemy.
After the first meal they slunk off to their posts with little outward
emotion and but few words of parting. The clear cold light of the
morning chilled them, and robbed the occasion of much of its excitement.
But for all that went they doggedly towards their work.
For a certain distance Hyla went in company with the three beaters, but
at a point they stopped, and he proceeded onwards alone.
When he had got far on upon his way to Monkshood he lay down deep in the
fern to rest, and watched the sky between the delicate lace of the
leaves.
He saw a tiny wine-coloured spider swinging from branch to branch like a
drop of blood on a silver cord, the sunlight so irradiated it. The wild
bees were already hard at work filling their bags of ebony and gold with
the sweet juices of flowers. The honeysuckle swung its trumpets round
the brown pillar of an oak, like censers of amber and ivory, shedding
delicate incense on the air. The breezes carried the rich scents to and
fro from tree to tree. Hyla felt weary now that the hour was so close at
hand. He was not excited, nor did he even feel the slightest tremor of
fear. He was simply indifferent and tired. He wanted to sleep for ever
in this silent, sunlit place.
He was wearing Pierce's dagger round his waist, and he took it out to
see if it was sharp enough. The stains of blood still held to it in
films of brown and purple, but its point was needle-like, and the edge
bitter keen. He put it down by his side upon a great fern tuft over
which countless ants were hurrying. It fell among the ants as a streak
of lightning falls among a crowd of men. Then, like some uncouth spirit
of the wood, some faun, one might have fancied, he fell into a long,
dreamless sleep.
He was awakened suddenly, when the sun was already at its height, by the
sweet fanfaronade of distant horns. He glided away towards Monkshood
swiftly and silently, a brown thing stealing through the undergrowth
upon his malign errand. At last he came to the place he sought.
Monkshood Glade was a long narrow drive, carpeted with fine turf and
surrounded with a thick wall of trees. In shape it was like the aisle of
a cathedral. At the far end of the place it opened out into a half
circle, like a lady chapel, and, to carry out the simile, where the
altar should have been three great trees were standing in a triangle.
The trunks of the trees grew within a hand's breadth of each other and
formed a deep recess, with no entry save the one at the base of the
triangle. Inside this place it was quite dark and cool.
Hyla crept into the undergrowth at the side of the glade, about twenty
yards from the entrance to this little tree-cave, and lay waiting,
crouching on his belly.
For an hour or two--it seemed ages to him--nothing happened whatever.
The business of the wood went on all round, but there was no sound of
human life. The waiting made him restive and uneasy. He began to
remember how many the chances were that Geoffroi would not come that
way. He began to see on how slender a possibility his hopes rested, and
to wonder at himself and his companions for having trusted so great an
issue to such a chance.
Then, quite suddenly, his heart leapt up and began to beat furiously,
till the sound of its throbbing seemed to be surely filling all the
wood. Peering out of the scrub he saw far down the glade a grey speck
moving rapidly in his direction. It grew larger every moment as he
watched, and next he saw that it was followed by a second and larger
object, which almost immediately resolved itself into a man on horseback
riding hard. In two minutes the boar and its pursuer were close upon
him. He saw the boar galloping, with blood and foam round its tusks, and
heard its harsh grunting. He could see its eyes as bright as live coals.
Geoffroi was thundering twenty yards behind. Suddenly he saw the Baron
taking aim at his quarry with a short, thick bow. He guided his horse,
still in full career, a little to one side, by the pressure of his
knees. It was a wonderful piece of horsemanship. He saw a quick movement
of Geoffroi's arm, and, though the arrow sped too quickly for him to
trace its course, the great boar with a hoarse squeal stumbled upon its
fore-legs. It rose, staggered round in a circle, for the great forest
beasts die hard, and then with a final squeal rolled over upon its side,
with its hoofs stark and stiff in the air.
This took place between Hyla and the trees.
Geoffroi reined in his horse and, throwing his bow upon the ground,
dismounted and ran towards the boar. He drew his hunting knife as he
went.
As silently as a snake Hyla crept out of the undergrowth. Geoffroi's
back was towards him and he was leaning over the boar with his knife.
Hyla picked up the bow. The horse, heaving from its exertions, regarded
him with mild eyes devoid of curiosity. Hyla took a barbed hunting shaft
from the little quiver at the saddle side. He fitted it carefully to the
bow. Suddenly the Baron stood up and was about to turn round when Hyla
drew the bow-string to his shoulder, English fashion, and shot the
arrow. It struck Geoffroi in the muscles of the left shoulder and went
deep into him.
With a horrid yell of agony he spun round towards his unseen foe. Hyla
had rapidly fitted another arrow to the bow and stood confronting him.
For a moment the two men stood regarding each other. Then very slowly
Geoffroi began to retreat backwards towards the trees. Hyla kept the
arrow pointed at his heart.
"That was for Elgifu," he said.
Geoffroi reached the three trees, and went backwards into the recess.
His eye rolled round desperately. Then he made a last effort. "Put that
down," he roared with terrible authority. But the time had gone by when
he could make Hyla cower.
"This is for Frija," said Hyla, and an arrow quivered in Geoffroi's
mouth and passed through his head, transfixing him to the tree trunk
behind.
A sudden impulse flooded the Serf's brain, quick, vivid, and uplifting:
the tears started into his eyes though he knew not why.
Once more the bow-string twanged as a third arrow sank silently into the
corpse. "For FREEDOM!" he whispered fearfully, wondering at himself.
Hyla stood watching the frightful sight with calm contemplation. The
Baron dead and bloody was nothing. He began to feel a positive contempt
for the man he had feared so long.
As he stood with a smile distorting his face, a horn rang out down the
glade, and he saw that a horseman was riding hard towards him. Making
the sign of the cross, he slipped into cover and began to fly swiftly
through the wood.
CHAPTER VI
Per varios casus, per tot discrimena rerum, tendimus in LATIUM sedes
ubi fata quietas ostendunt.
There is always and forever a haven we can win. In all the chances and
turmoils of this life, howeversomuch we are tossed upon the seas of
circumstance, somewhere, without doubt, there is peace.
For the intellect distracted and pierced through by every fresh morsel
of knowledge, for the brain tired out by the senses, for the body full
of the sickness, let us say, of a great town, somewhere the Fates have a
quiet resting place. There is peace waiting. Let Alecto, Megaera and
Tisiphone shriek and wail ever so loudly, they shall not break it.
Tendimus in Latium--we are all going towards Latium. For some of us it
is the blessed peace of the grave, and others are to find it in this
life. Somewhere there is peace!
Hyla felt an utter weariness of life and all its appeals as he fled
through the forest. The hot wan wine of revenge that had been his blood
was now cool and stagnant. That stern old devil-hearted man that he had
made into a filthy corpse had passed away out of knowledge as if he had
never been. The brain of the serf was all empty of sensation, save for
that great weariness. His body was full of the mere instinct of
self-preservation. The legs on which he ran, the arms which pushed aside
the forest branches, the furtive eyes which sought for foes, all acted
independently of his brain. Nature itself working in him bade him fly.
For himself, had he thought about it, he would hardly have cared, even
though he had been captured. But none the less was his fleeing swift and
sure.
He twisted his tortuous way through the thick hazel shoots, which struck
him in the face as he buffeted them, and his bare arms and legs were
scarred and pricked in a thousand places with thorns from the trailing
undergrowth.
When he had beat back to the other end of Monkshood, walking parallel to
the glade, he heard voices close to him and the noise of a company of
people entering the ride at the far end of the glade. By the three
sinister trees, he heard the keen notes of a horn blowing in eager
summons. Suddenly a new and terrible fear came to him. The dogs, which
were whining all round, would most surely smell him in a moment. He
could hear their excited movements on every side. He realised that he
should have made a much greater detour, and that he had, in fact,
stumbled into the very middle of his enemies.
He could see no way out of his perilous position, and felt that he was
certain of immediate discovery. But the Fates, which were providing a
short peace for him, willed that his capture was not yet to be. The
urgent note of Kenulph's horn, half a mile away, attracted the dogs, and
they gave tongue, and, dashing out of the cover, spread up the drive in
a long line. Fulke, who was within ten yards of the hidden murderer,
cheered them on.
"I can see figures," shouted a huntsman, "one, two horses. They must be
my lord and Kenulph, and Sir Boar is dead. Come along, Sir Fulke, we are
not very far behind after all!"
With that the whole company pressed out into the ride and thundered
away, and Hyla was left solitary. The narrowness of the escape
heartened him into fresh endeavour, and once more he began his swift
career through the wood. After another mile of hard going, he sat for a
moment. 'Twas then that he heard a low sibilant noise, like the hiss of
a snake. He started up, looking round him on every side. He heard the
sound again, and it seemed to come from the sky above.
He looked up into the depths of a beech tree above him, and presently
there appeared a lean brown leg among the leaves. A body followed, and
Cerdic dropped on to the turf.
"Well?" said Cerdic, "God be with you! What have you done?"
"Killed him," said Hyla with a curious pride, though he tried hard to
appear unconscious of his great merit. "He's dead, sure enough. I well
think he is in hell now--he and Pierce in the same fire."
"The Saints have watched thee with kind eyën that you did it, Hyla. In
hell is my lord, and there a will lie, for Saint Peter that hath the key
is not so scant of wit as to let him go. Let us thank Our Lady that did
strengthen your arm."
"Yes, let us thank her," said Hyla. "I gave him two arrows, 'one for
Elgifu,' I said, and 'this one for Frija,' I said. That was how I did
it. So that he might be sure for what he died, you wist. Yes, that was
just how I did it."
He had a curious shame which prevented a reference to the third shaft.
He was not sure if Cerdic would have understood that arrow of FREEDOM.
He hardly realised it himself.
"By Godis rood, you have done well, my friend. But pray, pray that you
may be clean, and that Our Lady may wesshe you of blood guilt."
They knelt down, and became straightway enveloped in a mystery that was
not of this world. The dead man in the tree-cave could not stir Hyla as
this sudden invoking of God's mother, for he was certain that she was
close by in the wood, listening.
Cerdic made prayer, because he was a man of quick wit and glib of
tongue.
"O Lady of Heaven," said he, "we call upon you in our souls' need, and I
will plainly tell you why. And that is this: Hyla has killed our Lord
Geoffroi, for he did take his girls. And Lord Geoffroi has sorely
oppressed us and beaten us, and so, dead is he. And we pray you that we
be made clean of the killing in Godis sight. And if it may be so, we ask
that you will say to the heavenly gateward that he should ne'er let our
Lord Geoffroi therein. For Saint Peter knoweth not how bad a man he was.
And we would that you wilt say by word that he be cast down with Judas
and with all the devils into hell, Amen." And then in a quick aside to
Hyla, "'Amen' fool, I did not hear you say it."
With that Hyla said "Amen" very lustily, and they both rose from their
knees. "I am gride that I said no 'Amen,'" said Hyla, "but I was
listening to the prayer. It was a wonderful good prayer, Cerdic."
"Yes," said the other, "I can pray more than a little when it so comes
to me. Had I but some Latin to pray in I doubt nothing that I would get
my own bocland back before I die. But come, we are far from safety yet.
It gets late, we must go swiftly."
They met with no mishap, and saw no man till they were on the very
outskirts of the wood, and not more than a couple of hundred yards from
the stoke itself. They were about thirty yards from the main entrance to
the wood, a road which was beaten hard with the coming and going of men
and horses.
There they stopped for a consultation. Was it better, they asked each
other, to gather some kindling wood and go boldly through the village as
if upon the ordinary business of the day, or, on the other hand, to make
a wide half circle, and reach the river a mile away from the
landing-stage?
It was quite certain that as yet no news of the Baron's death had
reached the castle. There could be no doubt of that. They might walk
openly through the village with no suspicion. Yet, at the same time,
they might very probably be met by a man-at-arms or one of the minor
officials of the castle, and ordered to some work within its gates. It
was a difficult question to decide upon hurriedly, and yet it must be
settled soon. Every moment wasted in council meant--so they took it--a
chance less for freedom. As they discussed the issue in an agony of
indecision they both found that terror was flowing over them in waves.
Cerdic's throat contracted and was pulled back again into a dry
tightness. He cleared his throat at every sentence, as who should be
about the nervous effort of a public speech.
As for Hyla, his stomach became as though it were full of water, and his
bowels were full of an aching which was fearfully exciting and which at
the same time, strangely enough, had an acute physical pleasure in it.
Their indecision was stopped by an event which left only one method of
flight open to them.
As they tossed the chance back and forward to one another, debated upon
it and weighed it, they heard the noise of a horseman passing by _ventre
à terre_. As he passed he sounded his horn. They wormed their way to the
road as they heard him coming, and saw that it was the forester Kenulph.
His face was ashen grey and set rigid with excitement, and then both
simultaneously saw that he was bearing the news to the castle.
He passed them like rain blown by the wind, and turning the corner was
lost to their sight.
"This makes our way clear algates," said Cerdic. "Sith Kenulph rides to
castle hall, we must be bold. It will take while a man might tell
hundreds for them to take the news. He will hold all the castle in
thrall. They will be forslackt for half-an-hour. He is there by now, all
clad with loam and full of his news. Come out into the village and go
down to river bank. We go to clear the brook mouth. It's all mucky and
begins to kill the fish. Remember, that is what we go to do."
"I obey your heasts, Sir Cerdic," Hyla answered him with a smile. "Come,
come upon the way. I think it matters not much one way or the other, but
we may win our sanctuary by hardiment. Algates, we are ywrocken."[3]
"Yes, that are we, and revenge is sweet. No more will he ill-use our
girls, or burn us on the green. Surely he has a deep debt to pay."
While they had been speaking they had been gathering great armfuls of
fallen twigs and branches, and soon they went slowly down the ride with
these. The frowning gates of the castle came into their view, but
Kenulph had already entered them, and the very guards had left the
gates. They passed by to the right, and came on to the green. One or two
women were busy washing linen at the doors of the houses, but save for
them no one was about.
They passed the long walls of the castle, skirting the moat, by which a
smooth path ran, till they came to the fields. There they were stopped
for a few minutes. One Selred, a serf who tended swine, came out of the
field where his charges dwelt. He was a half-witted creature, but little
removed from the swine themselves. He carried a spear head, broken off a
foot down the shaft, and this had been sharpened on a hone of hard wood
for a weapon with which to kill the swine. He pointed to the row of dead
animals which lay stark and unclean on one side of the field.
[3] Revenged.
"Nearly fifty," said he, "have I killed this day for siege vittaille, to
their very great dreriment. Holy Maid! never did you hear such
squealing."
They shook him off after a time, but with difficulty. He was infinitely
proud of his achievement. "I do love pig's flesh," he gibbered after
them as they fled down the hill.
From the castle there now came the shrill notes of a tucket, and then
the castle bell began to toll furiously, and a confused noise of
shouting floated down the hill. When they hurried to the landing-stage
they found that the boats had been duly scuttled. Here and there a
gunwale projected out of the water, and on the stones lay the windac of
a cross-bow with which holes had been made in the boats.
Hyla gave a long, low whistle, and waited for Gurth to glide out of the
reeds bordering the great fen. There was no reply, and the two fugitives
looked at each other in alarm. Then Cerdic whistled rather louder, but
still the welcome sight of the boat did not come to them.
"Something has happened to the mome," Cerdic said, "I am sure that he
would not forslowe us like this if a were safe."
"What shall we do?" asked Hyla.
"I do not know," said Cerdic, his courage oozing out of him every
moment. Their position was certainly sufficiently perilous. There was,
as yet, nothing to connect them with the crime, but half-an-hour might
alter everything. It was, moreover, quite certain that, in a search, one
party at least would be sent down to the river.
They stood there gazing at each other in great alarm.
"I have a great fear that we are lost," Hyla said.
"Indeed, I believe so," answered the other, with strained, terrified
eyes.
Both of them felt that they were hard in the very grip of unkind
circumstance. They shook like river-side willows when the wind blows.
Now as they stood together communing as to what they should do, and with
a great sinking of heart, it chanced that their faces were turned
towards the river, away from the castle. They looked most eagerly
towards the reeds upon the other side.
The river ran sluggishly like oil, and there was no breaking up of its
surface. Here and there some dancing water-flies made a tiny ripple, but
that was all.
Suddenly a great fish leapt out of the middle water high into the air. A
flash of silver, a glimpse of white belly, and with a loud report it was
gone. Sullen circles widened out and broadened towards them. Then they
saw at the very place where the bream had disappeared the still surface
of the water was violently agitated. They watched in amazement. A great
black object heaved slowly up into view, full six feet long. It was the
body of Pierce, the man-at-arms, all swollen by water. The face was
puffed into an enormous grotesque, and the open eyes seemed cognisant of
them.
The faces of the two serfs became ashen white, and they looked at each
other in terrible fear.
"Christ, what a visnomie!" said Cerdic.
"God shows us that we are to die. My lord will be ywrocken" said Hyla.
"See how it seems alive."
"Yes, that does it. I can see the hole in's neck. The fishes have been
at it."
"Oh, courage, courage! Our Lady never means us to die, whistle for Gurth
once more. Perchance he is nearer now, perchance he is nearer, and, not
knowing we are here, cometh not."
"I cannot sound a note, my breath is hot and my lips are very dry.
Whistle you for me."
Just then a noise of shouting behind their backs made them both wheel
round swiftly. Half-way down the hill a group of men-at-arms were
running towards them.
Cerdic gave a great wail of despair.
One of the soldiers dropped upon his knee, and a long arrow came past
them singing like a great wasp. It ricochetted over the water into the
reeds beyond. The soldiers were now a hundred and fifty yards away,
shouting fiercely as they came on.
Hyla turned a last hopeless glance to the river. Just as he did so a
long nose shot out of the reeds, and the punt they had waited for glided
swiftly towards them.
"Hallo, hallo!" Cerdic yelled in an agony of excitement. "Quick, quick,
else we die!"
There was a sudden jar as the prow of the punt collided with the
masonry. The two serfs leapt into it. Gurth took the long pole and
plunged it deep into the water. The muscles grew rigid on his bare back
and stood out upon his arms as he bent for one mighty stroke. The
soldiers were only twenty yards away. With an incredible slowness, so it
seemed to the fugitives, the arms of the punter began to lengthen as the
boat moved. In another second the propelling impulse gathered force and
speed, and just as the first man arrived upon the landing-stage it
glided rapidly over the water. There was a thud as it struck the
floating body, and a horrid liquid bubbling, and then in another second
they entered the passage and the reeds hid them from view. Gurth sank
down, deadly sick, upon the floor of the punt, and the pole, held by one
hand only, dragged among the rushes with a sound like a sickle in corn.
The three men crouched in the bottom of the boat, listening to the angry
clamour on the opposite shore. An arrow or two passed over their heads,
and one fell from a height into the very prow of the boat, but none of
them were touched. There was not an ounce of courage among them. They
had no strength to go on.
The castle bell away on the hill-top still rang loudly, and the shrill
metallic notes of the tuckets called and answered to each other all
round.
As they lay in the reeds not thirty yards from their pursuers, these
noises of alarm filled them with fear. A voice rang out from the excited
babble across the river and flung an echoing and malignant threat at
them.
Although they could see nothing, the whole scene was painted for them
with noise. They heard the voices sink into a quick murmur of
conversation, and then hurried footsteps sped up the hill with messages
for the castle.
Still they stayed trembling in the punt and made no effort to escape.
All the weight of the terrible traditions that overhung their class was
upon them. The great effort they had made, their incredible boldness,
now left them with little more spirit, in spite of their good fortune,
than whipped dogs. The moment was enough, for the moment they were safe
from capture, and the voices of the soldiers--how terribly near!--did
not stir them to action.
It was only when their peril became imminent that they were roused from
their apathy. Sounds of activity floated over to them. A voice was
giving directions, and then there was a shout of "Now," followed by a
harsh, grating noise. The serfs realised that the soldiers had been able
to drag one of the sunken punts on to the landing-stage. Almost
immediately a noise of hammering was heard. They were repairing the
boat.
At that shrill, ominous sound Cerdic rose from the bottom of the punt
trembling with excitement. "Men," he said in a deep startled voice, "we
have been here too long, and death is like to come our way. Oh, faint
hearts that we have been, and the Saints with us so long, and the Holy
Maid helping us! Come, silent now! take poles and let us get away. I
know the fens better than those divells."
So confident was his voice and so burning with excitement, that in one
moment it lashed their cowardice away. Hyla sprung towards the stern
pole and Gurth lifted the other, then, with hardly a movement save a few
tiny splashes, the boat glided slowly away into the heart of the fen.
The voices of the soldiers became fainter and more faint till they could
hear them no more.
The ringing blows of the hammer pursued them a little further, until in
a few minutes those also died away, and they were alone in the fen.
All round them the great reeds rose and whispered, enormous bulrushes
with furry heads like young water-rats nodded towards them as they raced
for their life down those dark mysterious waterways. Deeper and deeper
into the heart of the great fen sped the boat. Gurth and Hyla worked
with the precision of machines. There was a wonderfully stimulating
effect in the rhythm of the action. The water became a deep shining
black, showing incalculable depths below. In order to propel the boat at
all they had to skirt the very fringe of the morass, for there only
could the poles find bottom. At each heave and lift, under which the
punt kicked forward like some living thing, the poles came up clotted
and smeared with stinking black mud, undisturbed before for hundreds of
years. Sometimes, at a deeper push, the mud was a greyish white and
studded with tiny shells, tokens which the great grey sea had left
behind to tell that once it had dominion there.
All wild nature fled before their racing approach. A hundred yards
ahead, even in those tortuous ways, fat unclean birds of the fen rose
heavily and clanged away over the marshes. As the throb of the poles
came near them, the fish shouldered each other in flight. Every now and
again they rushed over a still, wicked pool teeming with fish, and the
rush of their passage made white-bellied fish leap out of the water in
terror. Once they saw a great black vole, as large as a rabbit, swimming
in the middle of the water. He heard them coming, and turned a wet
smooth head to look; then with a twinkle of his eyes he dived and
disappeared.
Gradually the speed of the boat slackened as the two men grew tired. The
excitement of the day began to tell on them, and they felt in their arms
how weary they were. Cerdic, who perhaps by virtue of his years or
personal magnetism seemed to be indubitably their leader, saw it in
their faces. He saw that not only were they physically worn out, but
that energy was going from their brains also.
"Stop you," said this shrewd person. "We are far from them now. It is
time for rest and belly food." Nothing loth, they put down the punt
poles, and pushed the nose of the boat into a little bay of reeds, out
of the main water.
"Food?" said Hyla, "with all my heart, I did not know you had any. Where
is it pight?"
Cerdic gave a little superior grin. He took up a skin wallet which lay
by his side and produced the materials for a feast. Six great green
eggs, stolen from a sitting duck which had belonged to the ill-fated
Pierce, were the staple food. Boiled hard and eaten with black bread and
some scraps of cold meat, they were a banquet to the fugitives. For
drink they had nothing but marsh water, which they sucked up through a
hollow reed. It was blackish and rather stagnant, but it refreshed them
mightily.
"And how far have you got now, do you think?" said Gurth.
"Near half way," answered Cerdic, "but it has been easy going, and we
shall not get such free water now. It is a back way to Icomb that we
have come by up till now. Whybeare there was a broad passage, a great
stretch of water, but that was in King William's time, when boats
brought corn from Edmundsbury. Now the monks have corn-land of their
own, and corn comes from Norwich also. The passage is all grown with
weed and reeds, and no man may go up it in any vessel."
"Where must we go, then?" Hyla asked him.
"Nor'wards for some miles, taking any way we can that is open. Then we
shall come to the lake of Wilfrith, and beyond that is the Abbey."
"What is Wilfrith lake, and who was he?" said Hyla. "I have been upon
its water, but I do not know why it is called that. Also, it has a bad
name, and they say spirits are seen upon it."
Cerdic crossed himself at that.
"Wilfrith was once Prior of Icomb," he said, "a good priest, and much
loved by God. Upon a day he was walking by the lake side, when he was
seized by lawless men and robbed of his gold cross, and left bound to a
tree in the forest, near the monastery. It was evening, and he could see
the robbers getting into their boats to cross the lake. So he prayed to
God. 'Lord,' he cried, 'I have not loved Thee enough. Deliver me from my
need, and with Thy help I will so correct and frame my life that
henceforth I may serve Thee better.' As he prayed, and when the thieves
were about half way over the lake, there came a great black hand up out
of the water and seized the boat and dragged it into the depths. At the
same time his bonds fell from him, and he became free."
"A black hand," said Hyla uneasily, "that would be a fearful thing to
meet with."
"We shall not do so," said Cerdic, "for I believe that the Great Ones
are helping us to-day. Who knows that they are not with us now? We have
killed Lord Geoffroi for his cruelty and sins, for all he was a lord. Do
you think Lord Christ would have let him be killed if he had not wished
it? Not he. He's no fool. I tell you," he said, cracking the shell of
his second egg, and with great sincerity in his voice, "I tell you that
like as not Sir Gabriel or Lord Abdiel, or one of the angels is flying
over the boat with his sword in's hand and his tucket on his shoulder."
They all looked up to see if the angel was there, but only a little wind
rustled the tops of the rushes, though the sky above was beginning to be
painted with evening.
They prattled there a little longer, willing that their rest should be
complete.
Now, at eventide, all the fishes began to rise at the flies, and the
waters became like stained-glass, and peace was over all that wild
scene.
The voices of the serfs insensibly dropped, and made low murmurs, no
louder than the sounds of the cockchafers and long-mailed water-flies
that now boomed and danced over the fen.
The moon was slowly rising when they put out again on the last stage of
their journey, punting with less haste, but making good going,
nevertheless. They were in excellent spirits.
CHAPTER VII
"Introibo ad altare Dei."
"Surely," said a monk of Bec, "God has made the evening beautiful and
full of lights, so that we may think on Him at that time, and as we
watch the very gates of heaven in the sky, pray to our Father that we
may some day be there also."
It was a holy and wonderful evening-time, as the boat glided on through
the vast shining solitudes. The heavenly influence stole into the souls
of the three serfs, and purged them of all fear and sorrow. Imagine the
enormous change in their lives. A curtain seemed to have fallen over all
that they had known. The noise of the horrible castle, the sharp orders,
the lash of the whip, the foetid terrors of the stoke, had all
vanished as if they had never been. Before them might lie a wonderful
life, possible happiness, freedom. At any rate, for the moment they were
free, and the sky shone like the very pavements of heaven.
All three of them noticed the beautiful sunset with surprise, as if it
were a thing that had never been before their eyes till now.
Day by day, as their work at Hilgay was drawing to a close, the sky had
been as beautiful as this. The sky had been all gold and red, and copper
green and great purple clouds had passed over it like a march of kings.
But they had never seen it until now. Freedom had come to them and
whispered in their ears. She had passed her hands over their eyes, and
they began to know, with a sort of wonder, that the world was beautiful.
Nor was this all of the gracious message. Everything was altered. Hyla,
it will be remembered, had a face of little outward intelligence. He
had, in fact, the face of a serf. But the latent possibilities of it had
been made fine realities within the last few hours. What he had done,
his own independent action, woke up the God in him, as it were. His
voice was not so slipshod. Round his mouth were two fine lines of
decision, his lips did not seem so full, his eyes were alert and
conscious.
Gurth was a sunny-haired, nut-brown youth, straight as a willow wand,
and of a careless, happy disposition. But he had been cowed by the stern
and cruel subjection under which he had lived. One could see the change
in him also. He flung his arms about as he punted, with the graceful
movements of a free man who felt his limbs his own. Little smiles
rippled round his lips, he looked like a young man thinking of a girl.
It is obviously most difficult for us to project ourselves with any
certainty into the mood of these three men. The whole conditions of our
lives are so absolutely different. But we can at any rate imagine for
ourselves, with some kindness of spirit, how joyous these tremulous
beginnings of freedom must have been! The modern talk of "freedom," the
boasting of nations that enjoy it, does not mean very much to us. The
thing is a part of our lives, we do not know how much it is. But who
shall estimate the mysterious splendour that irradiated the hearts of
those three poor outcasts?
The long supple poles went swishing into the water and the boat leapt
forward. They rose trailing out of the water, and the drops fell from
them in cascades of jewels, green, crimson, and pearl. Every now and
again the turnings of the passage brought them to a stretch of water
which went due west. Then they glided up a sheet of pure vivid crimson,
and at the end the fiery half-globe of the sun.
Just as the sun was dipping away they rested again for half-an-hour, and
when they went on it was dark. At last, when the night was all velvet
black and full of mysterious voices, they turned a corner, and suddenly
the punt poles could find no bottom, though they went on with the
impetus of the last stroke.
A greater silence suddenly enveloped them, they saw no reeds round them,
the horizon seemed indefinite.
"This is Wilfrith Lake," said Cerdic, "and we are near home."
Now an unforeseen difficulty presented itself. The lake was far too deep
to punt in, and they had no oars. For the next hour their progress would
be slow. Cerdic came to the rescue. With his knife he cut a foot of wood
from each punt pole, with infinite labour; then he fashioned the tough
wood into four stout pegs. Gurth drilled two holes in the gunwales of
the punt, with the dagger which had been taken from Pierce. Then they
hammered the pegs into the holes and made rough rowlocks. There were no
seats in the punt, and the thin poles did not catch the water very well,
but by standing with their faces towards the bow they were able to make
slow but steady progress.
It was a little unnerving. They could not be sure of their direction
except in a very general way. It was chilly on this great lake, and very
lonely. Hyla, and Gurth also, began to think of the great black hand.
Who knew what lay beneath those sombre waters?
Never before in their lives had they spent such an exciting day. Hardy
as they were, inured to all the chances and changes of a rough day, they
began to be rather afraid, and their nerves throbbed uncomfortably.
Indeed, it is little to be wondered at. They were men and not machines
of steel. Once a great moth, which had strayed far out over the waters,
flapped into Hyla's face with an unpleasant warmness and beating of
wings. He gave a little involuntary cry of alarm, which was echoed with
a quick gasp from the other two.
"What is that?" said Cerdic.
"Only a buterfleoge," Hyla answered him. "For the moment I was fearful,
but it was nothing, and as light as a leaf on a linden tree."
The other two crossed themselves without answering, and strained their
eyes out into the dark.
"Hist!" said Gurth suddenly. "Listen! Cannot you hear anything? Wailing
voices like spirits in pain!" They shipped the poles and bent out over
the boat listening intently.
Something strange was occurring some half a mile away, judging from the
sound. A long musical wail came over the water at regular intervals, and
it was answered by the sound of many voices.
As they watched and listened in terror, they saw a tiny speck of light
on a level with the water, which appeared to be moving towards them. The
voices grew louder, and then with a gasp of relief the fugitives heard
the tones of men singing.
"They are the fathers from Icomb," said Hyla; "they are looking for us,
and have come out in their boats."
In the still night a deep voice chanted a verse of the sixty-ninth
psalm. The sonorous words of comfort rolled towards them:
"_Deus in adjutiorum meum intende: Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina._"
Then came the antiphon in a great volume of sound: "_Confundantur et
revereantur: qui quaerunt animam meam._"
The single voice complained out into the night: "_Avertantur retorsum,
et erubescant; qui volunt mihi mala._"
The many voices replied in thunderous appeal: "_Avertantur statim
erubescentur: qui dicunt mihi, euge, euge!_"
Then the cantor sang with singular and penetrating sweetness:
"_Exsultent et laetantur in te omnes qui quaerunt te: et dicant semper,
magnificetur Dominus, qui diligunt salutare tuum._"
And the poor monks answered him of their estate: "_Ego vero egenus et
pauper sum. Deus adjuva me!_"
The boat of the fathers was now quite close to the serfs. The lantern in
the bows sent out long wavering streaks of light into the dark, and the
many voices were full, and clear, and strong.
"Ahoy! ahoy!" shouted Cerdic in tremulous salutation.
The singing stopped suddenly, save for the cantor, who quavered on for a
word or two of the _Gloria_. "What are you?" came over the water.
"Hyla of Hilgay, with Cerdic and Gurth."
There was a full-voiced shout of welcome, and the great boat came
alongside with a swirl of oars.
The lantern showed many dark figures, some of them wearing the tonsure,
and rows of pale faces gazed at the three serfs with eager interest.
A tall man in the bows of the boat, with a thin, sharp face peered at
them. "We expected you," he said simply, "and we prayed that you might
come, Benedicite! What news bring you? What is done? Christ be with you!
Have you struck the tyrant and avenged the blood of the saints whom he
slew?"
"Father," said Hyla, "I did kill the divell, sure enough. With two
arrows--'One for Frija,' I said, and 'this for Elgifu.' I have blood
guilt upon me."
The man in the bows lifted his right hand and stretched out two fingers
and a thumb. They saw he was a priest. Then he said the _Confiteor_:
"_Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te
ad vitam aeternam._"
And every man in the boat answered "Amen."
Then the priest changed his tone, and became brisk and business-like.
"You have lost your oars, fools," he said. "Or, perhaps, you brought
none. Should'st have remembered the lake. Take a stern rope and we'll
tow ye home like knights. Now then, brethren, ye have heard the news,
God in His mercy hath sent power to these poor men and aided their arm,
so that they have slain the burner of His priests and ravisher of poor
maids. God has answered our prayers. Sing we to Him then a song of
thanksgiving. Sing up every man-jack of you, for God has wonderfully
dealt with these poor men."
And then with a sudden crash of sound they began to sing the greatest of
all hymns, the _Te Deum_.
"_Te Deum Laudamus: te Dominum confitemur_," pulsed and rang through the
night in glad appeal. So fervent and joyous was the song, the monks sang
it so merrily, and withal it was to such a good and jocund tune, that
Hyla was overcome entirely. He knelt in the swiftly-moving punt sobbing
like a little child. Once he raised his face to heaven, and behold,
there was a bright white moon silvering all the sky!
Very soon they came to the opposite shore of the lake, indeed, before
the final "_In te Domine_."
The shore sloped gradually down to the lake's edge in a smooth sweep of
grass sward which met the water without any break. A few yards up the
slope high trees fringed a road which led to the Abbey on the hill-top.
Icomb was, in fact, a low island about half a mile square. Its highest
point was hardly out of the fen mists. Round about in the county, the
place was always spoken of as an Abbey, though it was, as a matter of
fact, no more than a Priory, and of no great importance at that.
Icomb was a new offshoot from Saint Bernard's famous Abbey of Clairvaux.
Very little was as yet known of the Cistercians, and the monks of Icomb
were regarded as mysterious and not altogether desirable people by the
great religious houses at Ely and Medhampstede.
It was part of the Cistercian rule that the founders of an abbey should
choose some lonely, dismal place for their home. The idea was not
entirely that of the eremite, for the Cistercians were improvers as
well as colonists.
Icomb was the most lonely place in all the Eastern counties that the
monks could have chosen for their retreat from the perils and unrests of
this world. The low, tree-crowned island hill, surrounded by vast
waters, protected by savage swamps, hidden in the very heart of the fen,
was ideal for their purpose.
In that time not even churches were safe from lawless bandits like
Geoffroi de la Bourne or Roger Bigot. Although men like these were
belted knights of noble family, and still kept up much of the ceremonial
of their position, they were little more than robbers, and instances
abound of their sacrilege.
But as yet none of them had troubled Icomb. The place was very
inaccessible; it was excellently protected by Nature, the defences were
very strong, and the garrison a fine one.
The lay-brothers or _fratres conversi_ were lusty and used to arms. Many
of them had borne a pike in battle before entering into the peace of the
Church. Then there were a goodly number of serfs and fenmen employed on
the daily business of the Priory, who would all fight to the death if it
were attacked.
No better sanctuary could be found for fugitives. Richard Espec, the
prior of Icomb, was always ready to extend the hand of welcome to the
oppressed. The time was so black and evil, such a horrible cloud of
violence hung over England, that he felt it his bounden duty to make his
house a refuge.
The Priory, like all Cistercian monasteries, was surrounded by a strong
wall for defence. The buildings, though large and well built, were of a
studied plainness. No glorious tower rose into the sky, but little
ornament relieved the bareness of the walls. By the rules of that order
only one tower, a centralone, was permitted, and that, so it was
ordained, must be very low. All unnecessary pinnacles and turrets were
absolutely prohibited. In the chapel the triforium was omitted, and the
windows were of plain glass with no colour. The crosses on the altars
were of simple wood, and the candlesticks of beaten iron. Lewin would
have been absolutely disgusted with Icomb.
The buildings consisted of the chapel, a chapter-house adjoining,
connected with the church by a sacristy and a cell, the refectory and
monks' dormitories, and the calefactorium, or day-room. Here the monks
met in the daytime to gossip and to grease their sandals. In winter it
was warmed by flues set in the pavement. The centre of the block of
buildings was occupied by the cloisters and a grass plot.
The two boats were hauled up the slope, and the party went singing up
the hill in the moonlight. The dark trees which lined the road nodded
and whispered at their passing, as the holy song went rolling away among
the leaves. The three serfs felt wonderfully safe and happy. The dark
depths of the thicket had no suggestion of a lurking enemy, the moon
shone full and white over the road, and above, the tall buildings of the
Priory waited for them. The hand of God seemed leading them, and His
presence was very near.
They came to the gateway and the priest beat upon it with his
walking-stick. In a moment it swung open, and they heard the porter say
"Deo gratias," thanking Heaven that it had afforded him the chance of
giving hospitality. Then, according to use, he fell upon his knees with
a loud "Benedicite."
The priest who had met them went at once in search of the prior. In a
minute or two he returned, saying that the prior was praying in the
chapel, but that he would see them in the sacristy when he rose.
They were shown into a low, vaulted room with oak chests all round, and
lit by a horn lantern. A half-drawn curtain separated it from the
church, and through a vista of pillars they could see the high altar
gleaming with lights, and a bowed figure on the steps before it. The
rest of the great place was in deep shadow.
They sat down upon one of the chests and waited. A profound silence
enveloped them, the wonderful and holy silence of a great church at
night. A faint, sweet smell of spices pervaded the gloom.
Suddenly they realised that they were tired to death. All three leant
back against the wall in motionless fatigue and let the silence steal
into their very blood. They ceased to think or conjecture, and let all
their souls be filled with that great, fragrant peace.
At last they heard some one coughing in the church, waking shrill
echoes, and in a moment the sound of approaching footsteps. Richard
Espec came in at the door. He was a short, enormously fat man, with a
shrewd, benevolent face. He wore a white scapular and a hooded cowl,
and on his breast gleamed the gold cross of Wilfrith. He blessed them as
he entered, and they fell on their knees before him. He turned and drew
the curtain over the door, shutting out the view of the church, and then
sitting down upon a chest, regarded them with a penetrating though
kindly glance.
"Ye are tired, my men," he said. "I can see it in your faces. Sit down
again. Now I know from Harl, your friend, and Gruach, the wife of Hyla,
what business you went out to do. Which of you is Hyla?"
"I am Hyla, father."
"Well?"
"Father," said poor Hyla, trembling exceedingly, "I have killed Lord
Geoffroi."
The prior gave a slight start, and said nothing for a minute or two. At
last he spoke.
"I may be wrong, Hyla, but I wist not. I do tell you here that I believe
our Heavenly Father has guided your arm, and that you were appointed an
instrument of His hand. Therefore, to-morrow you shall confess to one of
the brethren and receive absolution for your act, if indeed you need it.
And you shall be with your friends, servants to the monastery, well
treated. Outside the walls live many of our fishermen and farm hands,
and you and your wife and daughters shall be given a hut there. And I
charge you three that you live well and wisely with us. Remember, ye
come from Satan his camp, and from among evil men, and that we were not
as they. But I well think you will be good and live for Christ. Not in
fear of God's anger, but in pleasure and joy at His love and kindly
_régime_, so that at last ye may join the faithful who have scand to
heaven before you. I will pray for you, my sons, very often. Now I will
call Brother Eoppa, our hospitaller, and he will give you food and a
nipperkin of wine. But before you go to your rest I ask you to pray with
me."
He knelt down, panting a little with the exertion, and said the Lord's
Prayer in Latin. Then he opened a door which led into the cloisters.
Outside the door the light of the sacristy lantern showed a thin sheet
of copper hanging from an iron bracket. The prior struck this with his
clenched fist, and a brother came running in answer. He committed the
serfs to him with a kind smile, and then went back into the great,
silent church.
The four went down the North Walk together, and turned into the western
cloister. A door leading out of this led them into the hospitium, where
the lay-brother, who had charge of guests, presently joined them.
"Hungry?" said he, "I think well you must be that. Brother Maurice is
broiling fish for ye, and that is a dish that Saint Peter himself loved.
It would be waiting now, but that kitchen fire was very low. Here is
wine, a nipperkin for each of you."
Presently they heard footsteps echoing in the cloister.
"I can smell your fish in the slype," said the hospitaller. "It's here.
Fall to, and bless God who gives ye a fat meal."
He left them alone to eat, meeting another lay-brother in the cloister
and going with him into the kitchen.
"Dull fellows, I call them," said he.
"Yes. They do not look very sensefull."
"Poor men, they have been evilly used, no doubt. They have rid the world
of as bloody a devil as ever cumbered it. I mind well what he did to the
hedge priest in Hilgay fen," and they fell talking of Geoffroi and his
iniquities with bated breath.
Hyla, Cerdic, and Gurth made a great meal.
"It's wonderful well cooked," said Gurth.
"And good corn-bread," said Cerdic.
"Never did I drink such wine before," said Hyla, and without further
words, they fell asleep upon three straw mattresses placed for them
against the wall. The tolling of the bell in the centralone, calling the
monks to the night-offices, did not disturb them. Nor were they assailed
by any dreams. "Nature's dear nurse," tended them well at the close of
that eventful night.
CHAPTER VIII
"And after that, the Abbot with his couent
Han sped hem for to burien him ful faste."
They buried Geoffroi de la Bourne, the day after his murder, in a pit
dug in the castle chapel, under the flags. The bell tolled, the tapers
burnt, the pillars of the place were bound round with black. Upon the
altar was a purple cloth. Dom Anselm got him a new black cope for the
occasion, and was sober as may be. After the coffin had been lowered,
and the holy water sprinkled upon it, all the company knelt at a Mass
said for the repose of that dark soul.
"Do Thou, we beseech Thee, O Lord, deliver the soul of Thy servant from
every bond of guilt." Anselm went down to the grave-side from the
altar-steps, while page-boys, acolytes for the time, carried the cross
and the holy water.
It was not a very impressive ceremony. I do not think that the little
chapel made it appear sordid and tawdry. It was not the lack of
furniture for ritual. Some more subtle force was at work. God would not
be present at that funeral, one might almost say.
After the service was over and the Mass was said, Fulke summoned Lewin
and Anselm to him in his own chamber. The squires were not there, for
the preparations for the siege were being pushed on rapidly, and they
were directing them.
The three men sat round a small, massive table drinking beer. "Well,"
said Fulke, "it is most certain that it was this theow Hyla. Everything
points to that. As far as we have found, he was the chief instrument in
the plot. For, look you, it was to him, so that boy said before he died,
that the others looked. He seemed to be the leader. By grace of Heaven
all the rogues shall die a very speedy death, but for him I will have
especial care."
"The thing is to catch him," said Dom Anselm, "and I wist no easy job.
Are you going to pull down Icomb Priory?"
"I would do that, and burn every monk to cinders if I had time and men
enough."
"That is impossible," said Lewin. "I have been there to buy missals for
barter from their scriptors. My lord, it's in the middle of a lake, up a
steep hill, and with a great moat and twin outer walls. We could never
come by Icomb."
"Also," said Anselm, "we have but a week at the most before we are
within these four walls with no outgoing for many a day. The Bastard
will be here in a week."
"What's to do?" Fulke asked gloomily.
Lewin contemplatively drained a fresh rummer of beer. "This is all I can
think of," said he. "These serfs have fled to Icomb, and, no doubt, have
been taken in very gladly by the monks. We are not loved in these parts,
Lord Fulke. But Richard Espec is not going to keep them in great ease
with wine and heydegwyes. They will work for their bread. Outside the
monastery walls there is a village for the servants, on the edge of the
corn-lands. Now see, lord. A man may go begging to Icomb, may he not?
For the night he will sleep in the hospitium. After that, if he wanteth
work, and will sign and deliver seisin to be a man of Icomb for three
years, I doubt nothing but the monks will have him gladly. They do ever
on that plan. He will live in the village. Well, then, that night let
there be a swift boat moored to the island, and let the first man come
to it and tell those therein where this devil Hyla lies. The rest is
very easy. A man can be bound up and thrown into the boat in
half-an-hour, and then we will have him here."
"Ventail and Visor!" said Fulke, "that is good, Lewin, we will have him
safe as a rat. But I have another thought too. I had forgotten. The
man's daughter Elgifu is still in the castle. It is not fitting that she
should live."
"'Tis but a girl," said Lewin, the sentimentalist.
Fulke snarled at him. "Girl or no girl, she shall die, and die heavily.
By the rood! I will avenge my father's murder so that men may talk of
it."
His narrow face was lit up with spite, and he brought his hand down upon
the table with a great blow.
"Perhaps you are right, my lord," said Lewin; "it is as well that she
should be killed. I only thought that she is a very pretty girl."
"There are plenty more, minter."
He went to the door and opened it, shouting down the stairs. A
man-at-arms came clattering up to him, making a great noise in the
narrow stone stairway. He ordered that the girl should be brought to
him, and presently she stood in front of them white and trembling, for
she saw their purpose in their eyes.
"You are going to be hanged, girl," said Fulke, "and first you shall
be well whipped in the castle yard. What of that? Do you like that?
Hey?"
She burst into pitiful pleadings and tremulous appeals. Her voice rang
in agony through the room. "I cannot die, lord," she said. "Oh, lord,
kill me not. My lord, my lord! my dear lord! For love of the Saints! I
cannot bear it!"
The brute watched her with a sneer, and then turned to the man-at-arms.
"Tie her up to the draw-well, strip her naked, and give her fifty
stripes. Then hang her, naked, on the tree outside the castle gate."
The man lifted her up in his arms, a light burden, and bore her
shrieking and struggling away.
Fulke leant back against the wall with a satisfied smile. Dom Anselm had
composed his features to an expression of stern justice, Lewin was white
and sick. Human life went for very little in those days, but he did not
like this torture of girls.
Gundruda, the pretty waiting maid, who watched the execution with great
complaisance, told him afterwards that the poor girl was dead, or at
least quite insensible to pain, long before the whipping was over.
"Little fool to stay here when she might have gone with the other,"
concluded Gundruda.
"Fool indeed," said he, "I cannot forget it--I am not well, Gundruda,
pretty one." She put her arms round him, and they strolled away
together.
So Elgifu paid bitterly for her folly, and went to a rest which was
denied her in this world.
In the early afternoon one of the men-at-arms, dressed as a peasant, set
out for Icomb by water.
Lewin stayed with Gundruda a little while, trying to find comfort in her
smiles and forgetfulness in her bright laughing eyes.
But the minter could find very little satisfaction with the girl. Her
beauty and sprightly allurements had no appeal for him just then. There
was no thrill even in her kisses. So after a while he left her, for a
sudden longing to be alone came over him. The idea was strong in him to
get as far away from the world as possible. By many steps he mounted to
the top of Outfangthef. As he emerged into the light, after the dusk of
the stairs, it began to be evening.
Down below, over all the castle works, men were busy at the defences,
clustering on the walls like a swarm of flies. Presently, one by one,
torches flared out, so that work might still go on when it was dark.
Lewin leaned over the parapet and surveyed the dusky world, full of
trouble and despair. A great truth came to him. He realised that he had
been born too soon, and was not made for that age of blood and steel.
The solitary isolation of the tower top intensified the loneliness of
his own soul.
Surveying life and its possibilities for him, he could see nothing but
misery in it. As the unseen nightwinds began to fly round him and
whisper, he took a resolve. When this siege began and Lord Roger
attacked Hilgay, he would arm and go out to death, seeking it in some
brave adventure. He would give up, he thought, his treason plot with
Anselm. There was nothing else that he could do, there was no
enjoyment--every man he knew was the same, the same, ever-lastingly the
same. Life was dull. He laughed a bitter, despairing laugh, and went
down to the castle again.
There was a great carouse that evening at Hilgay, for the works were
nearly done, and a spy had brought word that the forces of Lord Roger
were not as strong as earlier reports had led them to believe.
While the candles burnt all night by the grave in the chapel, all the
castle garrison, with the exception of the sentries, got most gloriously
drunk. Lewin was no exception.
It is a relief to turn from the contemplation of that sordid, evil place
to the quiet of the Priory in the lake. Yet it must be remembered that
Hilgay is an exact type of hundreds of other strongholds existing in
England at that time. The incalculable wickedness of the space of years,
when the secluded historian wrote that "Christ and all His angels seemed
asleep," is very difficult to imagine.
In truth, it was a bestial, malignant, inhuman time. We are not grateful
enough for the blessings of to-day. Imagine, if you please, what these
people were.
There is no need to outrage our nice tastes by revolting detail. Realism
can be pushed too far. But, for the sake of a clear understanding, take
Baron Fulke of Hilgay, and listen to a few personal details.
The beast was a very well-bred man. That is to say, he was of the
aristocracy, a peer with a great record of birth. We have seen that he
stripped his mistress naked, and had her killed by rough scoundrels in
his pay. He never had a qualm. So much for his character, which was as
much like the legendary devil as may be. But about the man as a
personality.
Supposing that we could draw a parallel between that time and our own
time. Fulke would correspond to half a dozen young gentlemen we all
know, considered from the point of view of social status. A boy we meet
at a dance, or a dinner, who is a member of a great family, for example.
Fulke, unpleasant as it is to say it, _hardly ever washed_. Brutally, in
a modern police court, he would be considered as a verminous person. In
the time of King Stephen, no one--and we can make no exception for the
saints of God themselves--had ever heard of a pocket handkerchief. The
world was malodorous! A dog-kennel would hardly have suffered any one of
our heroes and heroines, That is one reason why it is so difficult for
the veracious historian to present his characters as they really were.
It is hard to explain them, people are too accustomed to Romance.
There is hardly anything in our steam age so delightful as "Romance."
The romance of the early Middle Ages has a quality of glamour which will
hold our attention and have our hearts for ever. We always look for, and
desire refinements of fact in life. Human nature demands some sort of an
ideal. Our friends of the fens can hardly be called romantic, but they
are human.
While all these cut-throats were rioting in the keep, Richard Espec, the
prior of Icomb, was sitting in his cell working.
A candle in an iron holder stood on the table by him, and threw a none
too brilliant light upon a mass of documents. "Contrepaynes" of leaves,
pages of accounts, and letters from brother churchmen.
At the moment, the prior was checking the accounts of the oil mill,
which was a source of revenue to the house.
There came a knock at the door with a "Benedicite," the prior bid the
knocker enter. The new-comer was the sub-prior, John Croxton, Richard
Espec's great friend and counsellor.
"Sit down," said the prior, "and tell me the news--is there any news? I
am very weary of figuring, and I feel sad at heart. Richard Cublery has
paid no rent for a year and a half, since he fell to drinking heavily
with John Tichkill."
"We can survive that," said the sub-prior.
"Yes, yes; I am not accoyed at that, brother, but the letters and
tidings from the outside world oppress me. The various and manifold
illegalities and imposts which never cease or fail on the wretched
people, and the burnings and murders lie heavy on my heart. Oh, our Lord
has some wise purpose, I do not doubt, but it is all very dark to mortal
eyes."
"I have read," said the sub-prior, "somewhat of history in my time. But
never in Latin times, nor can I hear of it of the Greeks, was there such
a spirit of devilish wickedness abroad over a land."
"The lords of this country seem to me to be the daemons of hell in
mortal dress. Mind you what Robert Belesme did? His godchild was hostage
to him for its father, and the father did in some trifling way offend
him. Robert tore out the poor little creature's eyes with his nails.
William of Malmesbury hath writ it in his book, and, please God, the
world will never forget it."
"The king has got to him all the worst rogues from over the seas.
William of Ypres, Hervé of Léon, and Alan of Duran, there are three
pretty gentlemen! The king is no king. There are in England, so to
speak, as many kings, or rather tyrants, as lords of castles."
"Well, one of them is gone," said Richard Espec, "and I trust God will
forgive him, though I feel that it is not likely. He was one of the
worst ones, was Geoffroi de la Bourne."
"That was he. For myself, I cannot even understand how a man can be as
bad as that. A sinner, yes, and a bad one, but from our point of view,
you and I, can you see yourself, even if you were not a monk, doing any
of these things?"
"Without doubt, brother. Only an old man like I can really know how foul
and black a thing the human heart is. Every one is a potential Geoffroi,
save but for the grace of God, given for sweet Christ's sake."
"Yes, father," said the younger man, folding his arms meekly. The
candles on the tables began to gutter towards their end, and throw
monstrous shadows upon the faces and over the forms of the two monks.
They were talking in low tones, and the little stone room was very
silent. The dying candle-flames filled it with rich, velvety shadows,
and dancing yellow lights.
"Hyla and his friends have been given the large hut that Swegn had
before he died. I saw the meeting between him and his womenfolk. They
hardly looked to see him again."
"I do not care much to have so many women about," said Richard, with the
true monkish distrust of the other sex. "Nevertheless, the men can not
be easily kept without their wives. And of this Hyla--what do you think
of him?"
"He seems a very strong nature for a serf. Singularly contained within
himself, and, I think, proud of his revenge."
"That must not be, then. We must not let him be that. I well think that
he has been chosen by God as His instrument, and for that I rejoice. But
the man must not get proud. He is a serf, and a serf he will be always.
It is in his blood, and it is right that it should be so. I am no
upholder of any destruction of order. It is our duty to treat our slaves
well, and that we do; but they remain our slaves. Tell the brother who
directs the serfs that this Hyla should be well looked to, that he lie
in his true place."
The prior concluded with considerable vehemence. No one was more
theoretically conservative than he, and although, in this time of
anarchy, he approved of Hyla's deed, yet it certainly shocked his
instinctive respect for _les convenances_. It would have been difficult
to find a better creature than the fat prior of Icomb, a man more truly
charitable, or of a more pious life. But, had the course of this story
been different, and had Hyla lived his life at the monastery, he could
never have risen in the social scale. If the prior had discovered the
force of the man, his potentialities as a social force, he would have
sternly repressed them. Hyla's duty was to work, and be fed for his
work. The Catholic Church, with its vast hierarchy, its huge social
machinery, crushed all progress in the direction of freedom. No doubt,
Richard Espec, worthy gentleman though he was, would have been
considerably surprised if he had been told that he would be as Hyla,
and no more, in heaven. We hear too much about the humility of the
priesthood in the early Middle Ages. Of course, the great political
churchmen, such as Henry of Winchester or Thurston of York, were petty
kings, with ceremonial courts and armies. People knelt as they passed,
because they were princes as well as priests. But there is a delusion
that the ordinary monk or priest was, in effect, a perfect radical,
holding doctrines of equality, at any rate, as far as he himself was
concerned. Nothing of the sort was possible in the face of the one
crushing social fact of serfdom. Richard Espec would have washed Hyla's
feet with pleasure--there was precedent, and it was a formal act of
humiliation. At the same time, he would not have made his bed in Hyla's
hut or sat with him at meat.
The sub-prior received his superior's remarks with due reverence, and
the talk glided into other channels. While they sat there came footsteps
running down the cloister, and then a beating at the door. A young monk
entered, breathless, and knelt before the prior.
"News, father," said he, and craved permission to tell it. "Father,"
said the young man, and tears streamed down his cheeks, "our good
friend, Sir John Leyntwarden, is dead, and among the martyrs. Sir John
was saying Mass at the wayside altar of Saint Alban, the protomartyr
whom God loves. Sir John doth ever say a wayside Mass in the early
mornings, and calls down a blessing upon the Norwich road thereby. Now
the boy Louis Seéz was helping Sir John to serve the Mass, and his tale
is this--Sir John had just divided the Host, and allowed the particle to
fall into the chalice. Indeed, he was saying the _Haec commixtio_.
Suddenly they heard a loud laugh, and so harsh was it in the holy
stillness that verily Satan might have had just such a laugh. Father,
thinking that it was indeed some daemon come out of the wood, Sir John
started and turned round. There he saw five gentlemen on horseback and
in armour. They had ridden up very quietly over the turf. Down the road,
a mile away, Sir John saw a great company moving. He saw spears, and the
sun on armour and waggons. He knew then that this was some great lord's
war train, and that the gentlemen who were watching him had ridden on
before."
The young monk stopped a moment for lack of breath and labouring under
great agitation. The other two gazed intently at him in great
excitement. Sir John Leyntwarden, the priest of Hawle, was their very
good friend, and a holy man. The news was horrible.
"Calm, brother," said the prior, "say an _Ave_ and pray a moment, peace
will come to you then."
The curious remedy served its turn wonderfully well--wherefore let no
man smile at Richard Espec--and the young monk resumed his narrative.
"Then said Sir John to the gentlemen, 'Sirs, the _Agnus Dei_ is not yet,
and there is time for you to kneel and take our Lord's Body with us.
_Vere dignum et justum est aequum et salutare._ Then the leader of the
party, a powerful, great man, laughed again. Louis says it was verily
like a devil mocking, for it was very bitter, mirthless, and cold. This
lord said, 'We take no Mass, but, by hell, we will have these thy
vessels. They are too good for a hedge priest.' Then he did turn to a
lady who sat by upon a white horse, very dark, and with white teeth
which laughed. 'What Kateryn?' said he. 'They will make thee a
drinking-cup and a plate until I can give thee better from the cellars
of Hilgay.' Then Louis knew who it was. That was my Lord Roger Bigot
with Kateryn Larose, his concubine, and the war train was on its way to
Hilgay Tower to overthrow Fulke de la Bourne.
"Sir John held up the cross at his girdle and dared them that they
should come nearer to the Body of Christ. The harlot in the saddle
kissed her fingers to him, and the whole company laughed. Then, with no
more ado, they took him and bound him. In the melley little Louis
slipped away, and the grievous things which happened he saw from a tree
hard by. They emptied the chalice and pyx upon the ground. 'Look,' said
Lord Roger, 'there is your God, Sir Priest, and thus I treat Him.' With
that a-stamped upon the Host, and all the company laughed at that awful
crime."
Richard Espec and John Croxton burst into loud cries of pity and horror
at this point. Tears rained down the prior's face as he heard how these
evil men had entreated the Body and Blood.
"Louis thought to see heaven open and Abdiel drop from the morning sky,
like fire, to kill them. But God made no sign.
"Then Sir John, lying bound upon the ground, began to pray in a loud
voice that God would terribly punish these men. He called upon them the
curse of all the Saints, and he said to Roger Bigot that for this deed
he should lie for ever in hell. There was something strange about his
voice, or perhaps they were frightened at the curses. Roger ground his
mailed heel into Sir John's face till it was no face and he was silent.
Then for near half-an-hour they did torture him with terrible tortures,
and with one unspeakable. You know, father, in what manner the saints
have suffered that have fallen into the hands of Robert, or Roger, or
Geoffroi. Sir John could not abear it, and he screamed loudly till his
voice rang through all the wood. So died dear Sir John in the fresh
morning."
Richard Espec made the sign of the cross, and said solemnly, "_Posuisti,
Domine, super caput ejus, coronam de lapide pretioso. Alleluia_." Then
he said, "Go and summon all the brethren to the chapter-house, for I
have somewhat to say to them." And being left alone he fell upon his
knees in prayer.
The great bell in the centralone began to toll loudly.
This dreadful news touched the prior very nearly. Dom Leyntwarden, the
vicar of Hawle-in-the-wood, a tiny hamlet now deserted, was an intimate
and close friend of his. The murdered priest was a shrewd adviser upon
business affairs, and would often come over to the monastery and be its
guest for a few days, to help in any worldly business that might be
afoot. He was endeared to the whole Priory. It was a terrible instance
of the times in which they lived. The good priest saying Mass at the
little wayside altar by the wood in the fresh morning air. The sneering,
relentless fiends in mail, and the smiling girl upon her palfrey. In one
short hour their friend had passed from them in agony, from the real
presence of God into the real presence of God made manifest to his eyes.
The prior was resolved to address the assembled brethren in the
chapter-house, not one being absent.
We are enabled to see how all this bore upon the fortunes of Hyla.
Sir John Leyntwarden was martyred by Roger Bigot on his way to attack
Hilgay.
Sir John was a friend of the monks with whom Hyla had taken refuge. On
the occasion of the news the prior summoned a chapter of the brethren,
and all the men living in the monastery village on the hill who were not
serfs.
The village was practically empty and free to the hands of a long boat
of armed men, which, under cover of the dark, was now moving swiftly
over the lake.
CHAPTER IX
"Justorum Animae in Manu dei sunt, et non Tanget Illos Tormentum
Malitiae: Visi sunt Oculis Insipientium Mori, Illi Autem sunt in
Pace."
The chapter-house at Icomb was a low, vaulted chamber divided into three
compartments by rows of pillars bearing arches. A stone seat ran all
round it for the monks, and the prior's seat was opposite the entrance.
Two arches on each side of the doorway--there was no actual
door--allowed the deliberations to be heard outside in the cloister.
This was according to the invariable Cistercian plan. No one, save the
monks themselves, could actually sit in the chapter-house, but
others--in this case, the head men of the village--could stand in the
cloister, and so become fully cognisant of the proceedings within.
The brothers filed through the dark cloisters towards the red doorways
which showed that the chapter-house was lit within. The big bell in the
centralone kept tolling unceasingly. One by one the brothers entered and
seated themselves upon the stone bench. Two of the _fratres conversi_
stood by the prior's throne with torches. A sudden murmur of talk hummed
through the place. The night was exceedingly hot.
A glance round at the seated figures would hardly have prepossessed the
modern spectator. One and all, young and old, were as frowsy and
unsavoury a lot as ever poisoned the air of a warm summer's night. The
white, emaciated faces smeared with dirt, the matted beards, and
glowing, excited eyes, all combined to produce a singularly unpleasant
picture.
Yet as the torchlight revealed one distressing detail after another it
also played upon a congregation of as holy men as could have been found
anywhere in that century. Not for them the licence and luxury of some of
the great monasteries, where the monks pursued the deer or set their
falcons at feathered game with no less ardour than they followed a
petticoat through a wood. Not for them chased cups of pimentum and morat
while the tables groaned under fish, flesh and fowl. It is a pity, no
doubt, that they were not nice according to our ideas, but we can well
forget that if we remember that they were indeed very holy men.
Presently the prior came in and took his seat upon the stone throne
after he had said a short Latin prayer. The farmers and other villagers
pressed to the archways of the opening, and, rising to his feet, Richard
Espec spake in this wise:
"Brethren, this is a perilous time; and such a scourge was never heard
since Christ's passion. You hear how good men suffer the death.
Brethren, this is undoubted for the offences of England. Ye read, as
long as the children of Israel kept the commandments of God, so long
their enemies had no power over them, but God took vengeance of their
enemies. We have erred, I wist, in our own lives, and God has sent this
upon us. For when the Jews broke God's commandments then they were
subdued by their enemies, and so be we. Therefore let us be sorry for
our offences. Undoubted He will take vengeance of our enemies; I mean
those blood-stained lords that causeth so many good men to suffer thus.
Alas! it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood should be shed.
Therefore, good brethren, for the reverence of God, every one of you
devoutly pray, and say this psalm, 'O God, the heathen are come into
Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled, and made Jerusalem
a heap of stones. The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be
meat to the fowls of the air, and the flesh of Thy saints unto the
beasts of the field. Their blood have they shed like water on every side
of Jerusalem, and there was no man to bury them. We are become an open
scorn to our enemies, a very scorn and derision to them that are round
about us. Oh, remember not our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and
that soon, for we are come to great misery. Help us, O God of our
salvation, for the glory of Thy name. Oh, be merciful unto our sins for
Thy name's sake. Wherefore do the heathen say, Where is now their God?'
Ye shall say this psalm," continued the prior, "every Friday, after the
Litany, prostrate, when ye lie upon the high altar, and undoubtedly God
will cease this extreme scourge."
Then he went on to tell them of the martyrdom of Dom John, and what a
good and holy man he was. "Even now, my dear brethren," said he, "I know
him to be a saint in heaven. _He has seen God_, and talked with His
Holiness, Saint Peter. Our Lady has smiled upon him. In the golden
streets he has walked with gladness. I think that perhaps he is here
with us now, our dear brother, that he sees us, and is full of love
towards us all."
As his voice dropped towards the close, full of emotion, there was loud
applause. As in very early Christian times, the brethren saluted the
oration with a beating of hands.
And with that noise we must leave the hooded figures sitting among the
shadows.
The curtain of this short chronicle must fall upon them for ever, in a
red light, with black shadows, with the noise of a clapping of hands.
Their lives were framed in stone, and swords were about them. They were
very ignorant, very prejudiced, superstitious and dirty--a big
indictment! Nevertheless, it is certain that their influence upon the
time was good and pure. It is the fashion to rail at monasteries of all
periods. Many blockheads can never get over the mere _fact_ of the
Dissolution! In a spirit of curiosity I examined half-a-dozen histories
of the baser type--the sort of histories that are still given to
fourth-form boys and quite grown-up girls. One and all, if they
mentioned the monasteries in the reign of King Stephen at any length,
either openly condemned them or damned them with faint praise. I take
this opportunity of correcting messires, the historians, upon a point of
FACT. It is odd that the hopelessly incompetent clergyman-schoolmaster
should so invariably turn historian to-day. His monumental and appalling
ignorance of the times and peoples he treats of--ignorance unillumined
with a single ray of insight--is displayed on every line of his
lucubrations. Nothing, apparently, would lead him to read and dig and
sift for himself so that he might know just a little of what he writes
about. Let me, at any rate, assure him, that while, as is natural, there
were plenty of bad monks in the reign of Stephen, as a whole, the
monasteries were very praiseworthy institutions, and had a beneficent
influence upon the country. In short, my little priory at Icomb, is a
perfectly fair and typical example of its class.
While the monks were in the chapter-house, and afterwards attending a
special service in the chapel, a long boat glided rapidly over the lake.
It was a dark, thunderous night, and nothing betrayed the quiet passage
of the craft, save the dusky glitter of the water as the oars rose and
sank. Now and again some low orders in Norman-French regulated the pace
or altered the direction of the boat.
When the voyagers were about half-way across the mere, as near as they
could judge, they heard the sudden tolling of the great bell of the
Priory. The sullen, angry notes came across the water, out of the dark,
in waves of booming sound. There was a muttered order, and the oars
stopped in their swing. The boat rushed on for thirty yards or so,
gradually losing its momentum, until at length it became stationary.
"What does that betoken, Huber?" asked a voice.
"I do not know," replied the man-at-arms. "Pardieu, I cannot tell."
"Do you think they know that we are near?"
"Not unless they have found out that Heraud has come with a certain
purpose. Perchance Hyla saw him and recognised him."
"Not he. Heraud shaved his face and cropped his hair, and the minter
drew lines upon his face, and painted the poor divell's visage all over
with some hell brew. I seed them at it. His own mother would never have
thought him made of her blood."
"Then, by Godis teeth! what does the bell mean?"
"Oh, the old women are making prayers or saying Mass."
"Pagan! Mass is not at this hour, nor would they ring the great bell in
that way."
"Then the prior has given up his vows, and is about to wed the Lady
Abbess of Denton, and the monks are ringing for joy that one of them
should at length prove himself a man." A chuckle went through the boat
at this none too excellent a joke.
"Like enough," Huber said, "but whatever it may mean we must keep our
tryst with Heraud. It was to be a church's length from the main landing
where the monks keep their boats. A church's length to the left."
"It will not be easy to find, the night is very thick. We must go very
slow."
"Yes," said Huber "we must go with great care. Come forward! Are you
ready? Allery!"
The boat glided slowly on again towards the direction of the island.
Presently a deeper blackness loomed up in front of them, and they saw
that they were close to land. The smell of land, of herbage and flowers,
came to them, and hot as it had been upon the lake, it seemed hotter now
that they were come to shore.
As the nose of the boat brushed the outgrowing reeds, hissing at the
contact, the bell on the hill above stopped suddenly. A great silence
enveloped them as they waited.
Huber gave a long, low whistle, but there was no answer. He repeated it
at intervals of about a minute.
They were getting restive, wondering what might have happened, when
Huber changed his tactics. He began to whistle very softly and
sweetly--the scamp had a pipe like any bird--the lilt of a love-song. It
was a plaintive air which rose and fell delicately in the night. Most of
them knew it, for it was a popular song among the soldiers of that day,
and had been made by a strolling minstrel one evening in the Picard camp
at Gournay, and thence spread all over Northern Europe by the
mercenaries.
The men-at-arms began to nod to its rhythm and beat quiet time to it.
Then one fellow began to whistle a bass under his breath, and another
and another took up the air very quietly, till the boat was like a cage
of fairy singing birds. They were so amused by their occupation, and,
indeed, they were producing a very pretty concert, that they quite
forgot their purpose for the moment, and abandoned themselves one and
all to the music. It recalled many merry memories of Tilliers and
Falaise, of Mortain and Arques, and of the orchards of their Norman
home.
They were beginning the whole thing all over again--so much did it
please them--when they became aware of another and more distant
augmentation to their concert. They stopped, and the silvery whistle
from the bank still shivered out a note or two before it stopped. In a
moment more they heard splashing, and a dark figure pushed aside the
reeds and waded out to them.
"It is all safe," said the new-comer. "The murderer is here sure enough.
He does not know who I am, and I am in a hut close to his."
"Bon," said Huber, "I am glad to see you. Lord Fulke will be very
pleased. We feared something was wrong when we heard the bell."
"Depardieux! and well you might. I did not think of that. But natheless,
that bell means good fortune for our little plan, my friends. All the
monks and all the villeins from the village have gone inside to service
in the chapel. Only the theows are alone, and it will be an easy matter
to take the man without interference if we are quick."
"How far is it from here?"
"As a bird flies, about two furlongs. But it will be longer for us, for
we must make a detour to keep away from the walls. We shall come on the
village from behind. There is a big midden ditch, but I have a plank to
cross it."
"We'll give Sir Hyla a dip in it as we pass."
"'Twould be a fitting mitra."
Then with no more words, led by Heraud, they left the boat and stole
silently up the hill in the dark.
An archer remained in the boat to guard it and to help them to find it
again.
Hyla retired into his hut about half-past eight. He had been working all
day, cleaning out pig-styes and carting the manure to the ditch which
ran north of the village, and which served as a slight defence, and also
as a storing place for fertilizing material to spread upon the fields. A
strange occupation, perhaps, for a man who had but lately done a deed
of such moment, and who was more than half a hero! But he had been set
to this work purposely by the monks, who knew human nature, and thought
it best for the man. The monks were the only psychologists in the
twelfth century.
With some men this would have been wise, no doubt, but to Hyla's credit
it should be said that he thought very little about himself. His rather
heavy, sullen manner may easily have conveyed a false impression as to
his own estimate of himself, but he was humble enough in reality.
In fact, Hyla was too humble, and more so than befitted his strong
nature. He cleaned the filth from the styes with never a thought that he
might be better or more profitably employed. And in this fact we have
another vivid expression of the psychology of serfdom.
The only certain way in which it is possible to get at the inner meaning
of a period in history, is by the comparison of the attitude of an
individual brain towards his time, and the attitude of a general type of
brain. The individual with the point of view must, of course, be a known
quantity.
Historians, I am certain, have not yet entirely realised this simple and
beautiful method. Properly understood, it is as mathematically exact as
any comparative method can possibly be. It is the way in which history
will be written in the future when the modern Headmaster-Historian will
no longer be allowed to write an "epoch" and dispose of the two first
editions entirely among the boys of his own school.
Of its extreme fascination as a pursuit the cultured cannot speak too
highly. It combines the pleasures of the laboratory with the pleasures
of psychology, and never was Science so happily wedded to Art.
Here is a trifling case in point. Friend Hyla--whose temperament we know
something of--felt no degradation in cleaning out the pig-stye, although
he had just done a great and noble thing. We know Hyla as a man very far
from perfect. We know him subject to the ordinary failings of mankind.
Why, then, was Hyla content? The answer supplies us with a luminous
exposition of serfdom as a social state, how stern a thing it was, how
bitter. Pages of rhetoric could give no better explanation of that hard
fact.
So Hyla had been quite content, and as the sun was setting he sat down
outside his hut with his wife on one side and his daughter on the
other, as happy as a man could be. Bread and meat lay upon the ground by
his side. A cow's horn full of Welsh ale was stuck into the turf by him.
He was now working for kind masters who would not beat him or ill-treat
his womankind. His hut was weather-proof, his food was excellent, and
the peace of the holy life near by was stealing over him, and he was at
last at rest. The peace of it all was like a cup of cold water to a poor
man dying of thirst.
He stroked his wife's hard gnarled hand, very glad to be so close to
her. He looked with unconscious admiration at the frank beauty of Frija
as she lay gracefully by his side. Only one grief assailed him now, and
that was the thought of Elgifu. He put it from him with a shudder. Yet,
he thought, they would hardly hurt her. He was a man of bitter
experience, and felt that she would be fairly safe in that wicked time.
Before the little family retired to rest, Cerdic came to them to pray.
The ex-lawer of dogs had, it must be confessed, most of the instincts of
the street-corner preacher. He was never so happy as when he was making
an extempore prayer, and in his heart of hearts he felt sure that he
should have been a priest. Hyla regarded this accomplishment of his
friend's with unfeigned admiration. Cerdic's praying was his one great
pleasure. Both men were perfectly sincere about it. Cerdic and Hyla were
both quite certain that the Saints heard and remarked upon every word.
At the same time, in an age when music was a monopoly, literature a
thing for the fortunate few, and the theatre was not, these poor fellows
found their æsthetic excitement in family prayers. Indeed, if we come
to think of it, the Puritan classes in England to-day are much the same.
Indeed, as long as the saving grace of Sincerity is present, the plan
seems excellent. It will not fill the pockets of the theatrical manager,
but it will keep a good many fools out of mischief.
So, with full bellies and in great peace of mind, Hyla and Cerdic prayed
to God, and fell upon sleep.
Another hour of peaceful sleep remains for you, poor Hyla. Another
little hour, and then good-bye to sleep. Good-bye to wife and child and
comfort for ever and a day. A few short hours and you go to the
beginning of your great martyrdom. Your works shall live after you.
But hush! the time is nearly gone, the sands are running very rapid in
the glass. Sleep has still a gift for you, lie undisturbed!
CHAPTER X
"At the sight therefore, of this river, the Pilgrims were much
stunned; but the men that went with them said, 'You must go
through, or you cannot come at the gate.'"
Hyla slept ill after an hour or two. Tired nature gave him a physical
oblivion for a time, but when his exhaustion was worked off, he began to
toss uneasily and to dream. The events of the past days danced in a
confused jumble in his brain, and the dominant sensation was one of
gliding over water.
Water and the vast lonely fen lands were vividly before him in a hundred
uneasy and fantastic ways. He awoke to find the hut hot and stifling
beyond all bearing. The deep breathing of his women folk was all the
immediate sound he heard, though an owl was sobbing intermittently in
the wood by the lake.
How hot it was! The rich earthy smell, a fertile, luxuriant odour of
life, was terribly oppressive. There was an earthen jar of lake water at
the door of the hut, but when he groped a silent way to it, he found it
warm and full of the taste of weeds and tree roots. There was no comfort
in it.
He stood looking out into the night. There was no moon, but it was
hardly dark. Now and then a ghostly sheet of summer lightning flickered
over the sky. Late as it was the air was full of flying insects. The
cockchafers boomed as they circled over the enclosure in their long,
swift flight. Great moths, with huge fat bodies, hung on the roofs of
the huts or flapped to the neighbouring trees. The heavy, lazy Goat
Moths, three years old, and nearly four inches from wing to wing. The
male Wood Leopard, more active than his great brother, the
sombre-coloured Noctuas, the evil-looking, long-bodied Hawk Moths, all
danced in the dusky air.
Out in the fields the crickets sang like a thousand little bells, and
the atropus, a tiny insect from which bucolic superstition has evolved
the "death watch," ticked as it ran over the door posts.
Glow-worms winked in pale gleams among the grass, and louder than any
other noise was the deep hum of the great Stag-beetle as he flew by. A
myriad night life pulsed round the waking man. The Goatsucker flew round
the borders of the wood catching the insects in his flight, and his
strange, jarring pipe thrilled all the heavy air; among the leaves and
undergrowth the Hedgepig, rested with his long day's sleep, rustled in
search of food, making his curious, low, gurgling sound, and rattling
his spines.
In those far-off days wild life luxuriated and throve. Day and night
were full of strange sounds heard but rarely now. As Hyla stood wearily
by his hut, the Polecat was fishing for eels in the mud of the lake
shore. Old dog-foxes slunk through the woods in search of prey, while
their cubs frisked like kittens in the open spaces of the woods, playing
hide-and-seek, and engaging in a mimic warfare. The air was full of
Noctules and Natterers, great silent bats.
In some dim way, Hyla was influenced by all this vitality around him.
Richard Espec in his place would have said, "In wisdom Thou hast made
them all, the earth is full of Thy riches. Thou openest Thy hand and
fillest all things living with plenteousness; they continue this day
according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee. He spake the
word and they were made, He commanded, and they were created!"
That would have been the logical expression of a good man who spent his
life in reconciling the concrete with the unseen. Hyla's attitude was
just the same, though he was not educated to elevate a thought into an
expression of thought.
But, nevertheless, he felt the mystery of the night, and the live
creatures at work in it.
The Spirit of God worked in him as it worked in wiser and more
considerable men.
But it was rather lonely also. His great deed still had its influence of
terror upon him. A man who violently disturbs the society in which he
lives and moves, as Hyla had done, wants human companionship. It is ill
to know one is absolutely alone.
He thought that he would seek Cerdic, if, perchance, he was in a mood
for talk, and not too drowsy. He went towards his friend's hut. In the
dim light, as he threaded his way across the stoke, he saw that many
other serfs had found their shelters too noisesome and hot for comfort.
They lay about in front of the huts in curious twisted attitudes,
breathing heavily with weariness and sleep.
Cerdic had also chosen the air to lie in. He was stretched on a skin,
lying on his back, and in his hand was a half-eaten piece of black
bread, showing that sleep had caught him before he had finished his
supper.
Hyla lent over him and whispered in his ear. It was interesting to see
how quickly and yet how silently the man awoke. With no sound of
astonishment or surprise, he sat up, with alert enquiring eyes, full
awake and ready for anything that might be toward.
"Peace!" said Hyla, "there is nothing to trouble about. But I cannot
sleep, and feel very lonely, and want speech with a man. The air is full
of winged things, and the shaw yonder of beasts. I do not know why, I
want a man's voice."
"You made your bede to-night?" said Cerdic.
"Yes, I prayed, Cerdic, and you with me. But I feel ill at ease, and
sweating with the heat."
"Yes, yes," said Cerdic, as one who was used to these fleeting
sicknesses of the brain, and as one who could prescribe a cure. "I wist
well how you feel, Hyla. 'Tis the night and the loneliness of it.
Onnethe can a man be alone at night unless he is busy upon something.
Come sit you down and talk."
They reclined side by side upon the grass, but neither had much to say.
Hyla found something comforting in the companionship of Cerdic.
"I keep minding _His_ face," said Hyla suddenly.
"Then you are a fool, Hyla. But I wist that is only because 'tis
nighttime. You are not troubled in the day. You have had your wreak upon
your foe. Let it be, it is done, and Sir Priest hath absolved you from
sin, and eke me."
He looked at Hyla with a smile, as who should say that the argument was
irresistible.
"Cerdic," said Hyla, "I feel in truth something I cannot say. I am
absolved and stainless, I wist well, yet I am accoyed. I fear some evil,
and the night is strange. The air is thick with flies and such volatile,
and--I wist not. I wist not what I mean."
"Hast eaten too heavily and art troubled by this new place. Shall I pray
for you a space?"
His face lit up with eagerness as he said it.
"Not now, Cerdic," said Hyla, "I am not for bede to-night. Come you
with me to lake-side; there will be air upon the water, perchance. I
cannot breathe here."
"I have slept enough and will go with you, but these sick fancies are
not in your fashion. You have never been y-wone to them; and for my
part, Hyla, I put my trust in my lords the angels, and think that evil
thoughts come from devils of Belsabubbis line."
Hyla crossed himself in silence. "Rest a moment," he said. "I will see
if Gruach wakes, and if she does, tell her I am going to the lake-side
for coolness, and that I cannot sleep."
But when he got to the hut it was as silent as when he had left it, and
he heard the untroubled breathing of the women he loved.
With a curious expression of tenderness for so outwardly unemotional a
man he made the sign of salvation in the gloom of the door, and with a
heart full of foreboding turned towards Cerdic.
The lawer-of-dogs was not anxious to leave his sleep and wander through
the night. Far rather would he have lain sleeping till the sun and birds
of morning called him to work in a happy security he had never known
before. But there was a great loyalty in him, and a love for his friend
that was as sincere as it was unspoken.
Moreover, he began to see of late new traits in Hyla. He found him
changed and less easily understood. Mental influences seemed at work in
him which raised him, or removed him, from the ordinary men Cerdic knew.
Cerdic only _felt_ this. He did not think it. Yet his unconscious
realisation of the fact made him defer to Hyla's moods and fall in with
his suggestion.
He was a shrewd, gentle, fine-natured man. I should like to have clasped
his hand.
He put a lean, brown paw on Hyla's broad shoulder, and together they
threw the plank over the evil-smelling ditch, malodorous and poisoning
the night, and strode out into the wood.
They flitted noiselessly among the dark trees, silent amid the noble
aisles and avenues which sloped down to the lake.
The air was certainly cooler as they left the stoke behind.
They had gone some distance upon their way when they sat for a moment to
rest upon the bole of a fallen oak tree in a little open glade some ten
yards square. The clearing was fairly light, but a black wall of trees
encompassed it. There, such was the influence of the place and hour,
they fell talking of abstractions with as much right and probably as
luminous a point of view as their betters.
"What think you, lad, Geoffroi be doing now?" said Hyla.
"Burning in hellis fire," said Cerdic in a tone of absolute conviction.
"Think you for ever?" said Hyla musingly.
"Aye, Hyla, I pray Our Lady. The Saints would not have him in heaven,
and I wist St. Jesu also."
"We might go to him," said Hyla.
Cerdic gazed at him through the dark with genuine astonishment.
"By Godis ore!" he said, "never shall we two roast for long. Prior hath
prayed with us and we are shriven. We have done no man harm. I am
certain, Hyla, that the Saints and Our Lady will take us in. An it only
be to carry water or dung fields, we shall be taken in."
The absolute assurance in his tone told upon the other and comforted
him.
"Art not accoyed to die?" he asked.
"No wit. Natheless, I would live a little longer now we have won kind
masters. Yet would I die this night withouten fear. I would well like to
see the Blessed Lady and all her train. It will be a wonderful fine
sight, Hyla."
As they sat thus, talking simply of that other life, which was so real
to them in their childlike, undisturbed faith, they did not hear the
moving of many feet through the underwood or the low whispers of a body
of men who were approaching the glade in which they sat.
One loud word, a chance oath, would have startled them away and saved
them. Indeed, had they not been so intent upon high matters they must
have heard footsteps. Trained foresters as they were, creatures of the
fields, the woods, and the open heavens, no men were more quick to hear
the advance of any living thing or more prompt to avoid hostile comers.
The first intimation that came to them was the sudden clank of a
steel-headed pike as it fell and rattled against a tree stump. They
leapt to their feet, but it was too late. The wood seemed peopled with
armed men. Their alarm came upon them so quickly that each tree all
round was transformed into a man-at-arms. Before they could turn to fly
the leaders of the band were up with them, and strong mailed arms
grasped them.
Black-bearded faces peered into theirs, striving to see who they were in
that dim light.
"Are ye prior's men?" said Huber, in a low, eager voice.
Then with a sick fear the two serfs knew into whose hands they had
fallen. With an icy chill of despair, they realised that these were
Fulke's men, and that his vengeance was long-armed, and had come upon
them stealthily in the night.
Then in that moment of anguish, they tasted all the bitterness of death.
The new, fair life that was opening before them so brightly vanished in
a flash. The old cruel voices of their masters were like heavy chains; a
black curtain fell desolately and finally over their lives.
Suddenly one of the men who had been scrutinising them closely gave a
loud and joyous cry. "God's rood!" he shouted. "These be the two men
themselves a-coming to meet with us in t' wood! Mordieu, these be the
murderers!"
The men-at-arms crowded round the captives with cries of savage joy.
"The Saints have done this," cried one man. Then, being above all things
soldiers, and alive to all the fortunes and chances which await men in a
hostile neighbourhood, they bound the serfs with thongs, and hurried
them swiftly down the hill to the boat.
CHAPTER XI
"Roweth on fast! who that is faint
In evil water may he be dreynt!"
They rowed hard and sung thereto
With hevelow and rumbeloo.
The boat glided through the reeds and hissed among the stalks as it
floated off into deep water.
The man-at-arms who had been pushing it scrambled over the flat stern
drenched to his waist.
Hyla and Cerdic lay bound where they had been flung at the bottom of the
boat as roughly and carelessly as sacks of meal.
They moved slowly over the deep black waters. "The priests'll wake to
find the pies flown," said Huber, emphasising his remark with a lusty
kick upon the prostrate Cerdic.
"What will they think?" asked some one.
"I neither know eke care. Perchance it will be thought the divill has
took them to his own place."
"Whence they will shortly go."
"Not before they have tasted of hell in Hilgay," and the speaker went on
to enumerate with much spirit and vividness the several tortures to
which the captives would be subjected before Death was merciful.
That these were no idle boasts to frighten them Cerdic and Hyla were
very well aware. They had seen with their own eyes how men were punished
for a far less offence than theirs. Nameless atrocities were committed
upon the serfs, and the mocking words of the soldier had a terrible
significance for them. The boat moved but very slowly. It was heavy, and
the men were all tired out. Moreover, the night was oppressively hot
even out upon the water.
Most of the rowers stripped to the waist and flung their garments down
into the bottom of the boat. Hyla and Cerdic were covered with heavy,
evil-smelling garments, and almost suffocated.
"I cannot breathe," whispered Hyla to Cerdic.
"Hist, listen! Get thy head down lower. Yes, so. Feel you my hands and
the thong. There now; bite till I am free and can get at my dog-knife.
God be praised, they did not see it!"
With a sudden leaping of his heart, forgetting the awful heat, Hyla
cautiously lowered his head and began to nibble at the thong with
strong, sharp teeth.
He could hear the muffled notes of an old Norman-French ballad telling
of the nimbleness of Taillefer, as they sang to help the oars along.
"L'un dit à l'altre ki co veit
Ke co esteit enchantement,
Ke cil fesait devant la gent,"
and so forth, the doggerel sounding very melodious as the blended voices
sent it out over the water.
The singing was an aid to their work, for it took away the attention of
their guards. The greasy strap for a time resisted all his efforts. His
teeth slid over the slippery surface and could not pierce it. Once there
was a sharp crack, a twinge of pain, and a tooth broke in two. He was
dismayed for a moment, but soon found the accident helped him.
The jagged edge of the broken bone soon made an incision in the leather,
and with considerable pain he severed it at last.
The relief to Cerdic was extreme. They had tied his wrists so tightly
that the thongs had cut deep into the flesh. For a moment or two his
hands were quite lifeless and he could not move them. Then as the blood
came flowing back into the stiffened fingers, pricking as though it were
full of powdered glass, his mind also began to recover from its torpor
and fear. He became alert, and his thoughts moved rapidly. He reached
down cautiously for his knife and, inch by inch, withdrew it from the
sheath. The jerkins which covered him were so thickly spread that more
vigorous movements could hardly have been seen, but he trusted nothing
to chance.
Soon Hyla's hands were free, and the thongs binding his ankles severed.
They began to whisper a plan of escape.
Hyla was a good swimmer, and Cerdic a poor one, but death in the lake or
the deep fen pools was far better than death with all the hideousness
that would attend it at Hilgay Castle. The plan was this: When the men
rested for a morning meal, which, they calculated would be at sunrise,
they would make a sudden dash for freedom. By that time the lake would
have been traversed, and the boat slowly threading the mazy waterways
of the fen. It would go hard with them if they could not get away from
the heavily clad men-at-arms, all unused as they were to the country.
Meanwhile the rowers had got three parts of the way over the water. The
sky was quite light now, with that cold grey-green which lasts for a few
minutes before the actual sunrise.
"Sun will soon rise," said Heraud; "it's colder now, I will put on my
jerkin."
"And I also," said several others, and the pile of clothes began to be
lifted from the serfs.
It was a terribly anxious moment for them. If it was seen that bonds
were cut, then they must risk everything, and jump into the lake, for
they knew the boat could not have won the fen as yet.
Once in the lake their chance was small, unless it might happen that
they were near the reeds which bordered it, and could swim to them and
be lost in the fen. The boat could go far more swiftly than they could
swim. In all probability there were cross-bows in it; they would be
hunted through the water like drowning puppies.
One by one the rowers, chilled by their exertions, lifted the heavy
leather garments from the two men. Cerdic continued to push his knife
under him, and both men lay upon their stomachs, with their hands placed
in the position they would have occupied had the thongs remained uncut.
Fortune was kind to them. When they at length lay bare to view, and the
cold air came gratefully to their sweating bodies, the soldiers saw
nothing. Heraud was the last man to take his coat, and he smote the back
of Hyla's head heavily with his clenched fist.
The sudden pain and the foul words which accompanied the blow made the
prostrate man quiver with rage. For a moment an impulse to fly at the
throat of the man-at-arms, and risk everything in one wild exultation of
combat, shook him through and through. He quivered with hatred and
desire. But a low sibilant warning from Cerdic kept him fast, and with a
mighty effort he restrained his passion.
Somewhat to the dismay of the serfs, the boat was stopped, and the
soldiers produced food and beer from a basket and began to make a meal.
Although they did not dare raise their heads to see, Cerdic and Hyla
could hear from the talk of the men above them that they were yet a
good half mile or more from the fen. The air began to grow a little
warmer, and the sky to be painted in long crimson and golden streaks
towards the East. Above their heads the heavy beating of great wings
told them that the huge wild fowl of the fen were clanging out over the
marshes for food.
Suddenly one of the soldiers, who was in the article of raising an apple
to his mouth, began to snigger with amusement. The others followed the
direction of his extended finger with their glance. He was pointing at
Heraud. "Well, Joculator," snarled that worthy, "what be you a-mouthing
at me for?"
"It's your face, Heraud," spluttered Huber. "By St Simoun, but I never
thought of it till now. Should'st have washed it off!"
"Pardieu!" said Heraud "it be the minter's paint which I had forgot. A
mis-begotten wretch I must look and no lesing! I will to the water and
wash me like a Christian."
The man presented a curious and laughable appearance. Lewin had
disguised him well, so that he might spy out where Hyla lay, but the
exertion of rowing had induced perspiration, and the dusky colouring
and painted eyebrows trickled down his hot, tired face in streaks. A
black stubble of newly sprouting beard and moustache added to the comic
effect.
"Ne'er did I see such a figure of fun as thou art, comrade!" said Huber
in an ecstasy of mirth.
"Then, by Godis rood, I will make me clean," said Heraud
good-humouredly. With that he got him to the boatside, and leaning over
the gunwale began to lave himself vigorously in the fresh water.
In an earlier part of this book occurs a passage which is at some little
trouble to explain that these men-at-arms were little more than
ferocious unthinking children. The kneeling man presented a mark not
only for quips of tongue but for a rougher and more physical wit. With a
meaning wink at the others, John Pikeman withdrew a tholepin, about a
foot long, from its socket, and with that stick did give Heraud a most
sounding thwack upon the most exposed part of him.
With a sudden yell the unlucky wretch, as might have been foreseen,
threw up his legs, and, with a loud gurgle, disappeared into the water.
Now to these men, water was a thing somewhat out of experience. Not one
in a hundred of them could swim; they were seldom put in the way of it,
and a lake or river presented far more terrors to them than any walled
town or field of battle.
The fact induces a reflection. Courage is purely relative. All of us can
be brave in dangers we know, few of us but are not cowed in perils which
are new. Poor Heraud was a striking example of the sententious truth. He
rose choking, and his face was so white with fear, his eyes so pleading,
his strong arms beat the water in such agony, that every rough heart in
that boat was filled with anguish.
With one accord they rushed to the side of the boat, and immediately the
inevitable happened.
The gunwale sank lower and lower, the cruel lip of black water rose
hungrily to meet it, there was a sound like a man swallowing oil, a
swirl, a rush of black water creamed into foam at its edge, and with a
loud shout of dismay and terror the whole crew were struggling furiously
in the water.
In a second the overturned boat had drifted yards away, and only the
slimy green bottom projected above the flood.
Hyla and Cerdic, not being at the side of the boat, were not flung some
distance out by the force of its turning, but sank together directly
beneath it.
They rose almost at once, and both received smart knocks on the head
from the timber. With little difficulty they dived and came up by the
boat side. Each put a hand upon the slippery curved timbers, only
obtaining a rest for the tips of the fingers, and, treading water,
looked towards the drowning crowd a few yards away. The water was lashed
into foam, as if some huge fish were disporting itself upon the surface.
Heads kept bobbing up like corks, and sinking with a gurgling noise. Now
and then a hand rose clutching the air in a death convulsion.
Amid all the confusion and tumult the wicker basket, which had held
food, floated serenely, and the oars clustered round about it.
Every second, with a long groan, some sturdy fellow would catch at an
oar end, the water pouring from his mouth and dripping from his cap. The
thin pole would tip up with a jerk, and he would sink gurgling and
coughing to his death. Meanwhile the sun came up the sky with one red
stride, and illumined all the waters. The day broke cool and glorious,
while these were dying. The day broke as it had done a thousand years
before, and will a thousand years after you and I have sunk from one
life and risen in another. Calm, glorious, unheeding, the sun rose over
the waters, smiling inscrutably on those who were to know its secret so
very soon.
In a few moments it was nearly over. Three heads remained above the
water, as the serfs watched in fear. Huber swam round and round the
other two, shouting directions and advice. One was Heraud, the other
Jame, a cut-throat dog of no value. Both had but a few strokes, and
their strength was failing fast.
The two heads sank lower and lower, the chins were submerged, the red
line of the lips for a moment rested in line with the water, and then,
with no sign or cry, they sank gently out of sight. Bubbles came up to
the surface from a ten-yard circle, burst, and disappeared, the last
sign that ten good fighting men were sinking asleep, deep down in the
mud below.
As he saw his last two comrades go to their death, Huber gave a loud
despairing cry, wrung from his very heart. Then he started slowly and
laboriously, for his strength was fast failing, to swim to the boat.
By this time Hyla and Cerdic were in a safer position. The long-armed
little man had made a great leap out of the water from Cerdic's
shoulders. He pushed his friend far down beneath the surface with the
force of his spring, but the slight resistance of Cerdic's body had
given him the necessary impetus, and his strong arms clutched the keel.
He was very soon astride it, and when Cerdic came spluttering up again
he too was easily assisted into comparative safety.
Suddenly Huber saw the two seated there, and his white face became drawn
and furrowed with despair as he saw his last hope gone.
"Hyla! Cerdic!" he called quaveringly, "ye two have beaten twelve brave
men, and me among 'em. Ye have Godis grace with you, curse you! and I am
done and over. Give you good-day."
"You fool, Huber!" said Hyla in concern, "think you we are foes in this
pass? Wait, man, keep heart a little while!" He lifted his leg from the
other side of the keel and dived into the water, sending the boat
rocking away for yards as he did so. He made the exhausted archer place
two hands upon his shoulders, and in ten exhausting minutes the three
were perched upon the boat keel, the sole survivors of that ill-fated
crew. The sun began to be hot, and they saw they were near land by now.
"I will just make a prayer," said Cerdic, with some apology. "It will do
no harm, and perhaps please Our Lady, who, I wist, has done this for
Hyla and me and Huber."
With that he fell fervently to uncouth thanksgivings, while the sun came
rushing up and dried them all.
Hyla and Huber glanced at each other in mute admiration of his
eloquence.
CHAPTER XII
"Through the gray willows danced the fretful gnat,
The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree,
In sleek and oily coat the water-rat,
Breasting the little ripples manfully
Made for the wild-duck's nest."
They won to land, with the aid of a floating oar. Hyla and Cerdic were
for getting back to Icomb and explaining what had befallen them to the
fathers, but Huber flatly refused to accompany them. He said it was his
duty to go back to Hilgay and say what had become of his comrades, and
how they had met their end.
"But if you tell Lord Fulke how you have eaten and slept in
friendship--for we must rest and eat before we go--with those that did
kill his father, what then?" said Cerdic.
"Lord Fulke would not dare harm me for that, even were I to tell him. I
am too well liked among the men. Natheless, I shall say nothing. I shall
say that I clomb on the boat, and won the shore, and so made my way
home. Look you to this. Can I give up the only life I know, and my
master, and eke my wife to serve the priests, or live hunted and outlaw
in the fens with you?" He argued it out with perfect fairness and good
sense, and, with a sinking of the heart, they saw that their ways must
indeed lie very far apart.
Material considerations made the whole thing difficult. They were in an
unenviable position, and one of great danger, and their only means of
transport was the one boat. "There is only one way," said Cerdic, "and
that is this: we must row over the lake to the Priory first, and then
leave the boat with Huber to make his own way back over the lake and
through the fenways."
The man-at-arms crossed himself with fervour.
"Not I," he said. "I would not venture again upon that accursed lake for
my life. It is cursed. You have heard of the Great Black Hand? It is an
evil place, and has taken many of my good comrades. Leave you me here
and go your ways. I will try to get back through the fen."
"Art no fenman, Huber, and canst scarcely swim. Also, that is the most
dangerous part of the fen, the miles between the river and this lake.
It's nought but pools, waterways, and bog. You could not go a mile."
"Then I will stay here and rot. There is no mortal power that shall make
me upon that water more."
There was such genuine superstitious terror in his face and voice that
they felt it useless to attempt persuasion, and they cast about in their
minds for some other solution of the difficulty. It was long in coming,
for in truth the problem was very difficult. At last it was solved,
poorly enough, but with a certain possibility of safety.
The three men had landed but a few hundred yards from the opening of the
waterway which led to Hilgay, winding in devious routes among the fen.
To regain the monastery there were two ways--One, the obvious route, by
simply crossing the great lake, for the Abbey was almost exactly
opposite, and the other, most difficult and dangerous, to skirt the lake
side, where there was but little firm ground, and go right round it to
the Priory.
Seeing no help for it, they decided on attempting that. Huber was to
have the big, heavy boat, and as best he could, make his way back to
Hilgay. It was a curious decision to have arrived at. By all possible
rights, Hyla and Cerdic should have kept the boat for their own use, and
let Huber shift as best he could. He was, or rather had been, an enemy;
they had not only treated him with singular kindness, but he owed his
very life to them. It is difficult to exactly gauge their motive.
Probably their long slavery had something of its influence with them.
Despite their new ideals and the stupendous upheaval of their lives, it
is certain that they could hardly avoid regarding Huber from the
standpoint of their serfdom. He had been one of their rulers, and there
still clung to him some savour of authority. Yet it was not all this
feeling that influenced them. Some nobler and deeper instinct of
self-denial and kindness had made them do this thing.
In a closed locker, in the stern of the boat, they found some fishing
lines, and a flint for making fire. It was easy to get food, and they
spent the day resting and fishing. At length night fell softly over the
wanderers, and they fell asleep round the fire, while the other went
scraping among the reeds searching for fresh-water mussels, and the
night wind sent black ripples over all the pools and the great lake
beyond.
They were early up, catching more fish for breakfast, and, rather
curiously for those times, they bathed in the fresh cold water, whereby
they were most heartily refreshed and put into good courage. Then came
the time of parting. It was fraught with a certain melancholy, for they
had seemed very close together in their common danger.
"I doubt we shall ever clap eyes on you again, Huber," Hyla said.
"Cerdic and I are not likely to trouble Hilgay again, unless indeed my
lord catch us again, and I think there is but little fear of that."
"No, friend Hyla," said the man-at-arms; "we must say a long good-bye
this morn."
"You will get back in a day," said Cerdic, "though boat be heavy and the
way not easy. What tale will you tell Lord Fulke?"
"Just truth, Cerdic, though indeed I shall not tell all the truth. I
shall tell how my good comrades died, and how I did win to land with you
two, and left you by the mere. I shall tell Lord Fulke that I could not
over-come you, for that you were two to my one, and eke armed. That you
saved me from the water I must not say, though well I should like to do
so. They would think that I was in league with you, and had failed in my
duty, if I said anything to your credit."
"Without doubt," said Hyla.
"You are right, Huber. But I do not look to see Hilgay again."
"And I pray that you never may, friend, for your end would be a very
terrible and bloody one. And now hear me. You have taken me to your
hearts that did come to use you shamefully. My life is your gift, and I
will save pennies that prayer may be made for you by some priest that
you be kept from harm, and win quiet and safety. Moreover, never will I
do ill to any serf again, for your sakes. For you are good and true men,
and have my love. Often I shall remember you and the lake and all that
has come about, when I am far away. And give me your hand and say
farewell, and Lord Christ have you safe."
They said the saddest of all human words, "farewell," and turning he
left them. The big boat moved slowly away among the reeds until it was
hidden from their sight. Once they thought they heard his voice in a
distant shout of farewell, and they called loudly in answer, but there
was no response but the lapping of the water on the reeds.
"A true man," said Hyla sadly.
"I think so," said Cerdic, "and there are many like him also. We have
never known them, or they us, but chance has changed that for once.
Nevertheless I am not sorry he has gone. We are of one kind and he of
another, and best apart. Let us set out round the lake; we have a long
task before us, and I fear dangerous."
They gathered up their fishing lines and the remaining fish, which they
had cooked for their journey, and set out upon it.
They were full of hope and courage, resolute to surmount the perils and
difficulties which were before them, and yet, all innocent of fate, one
was going to a sudden death and the other was moving towards an
adventure which would end in death and torture also.
It is surely a very good and wise ordering of affairs, that we do not
often have a warning of what shall shortly befall us. Only rarely do we
feel the cold air from the wings of Death beat upon our doomed faces.
Now and then, indeed, we get a glimpse of those unseen principalities
and powers by whom we are for ever surrounded. Women in child-birth
have, so it is said, seen an angel bearing them the new soul they are
going to give to the world, as God's messenger came to Our Lady of old
time.
More often the black angel, who is to take us from one life to another,
presses upon a man's brain that he may know his near translation.
Visions are given to men who have lived as men should live, and have
beaten down Satan under their feet.
A wise and awful hand moves the curtain aside for them. And it is
sometimes so with a great sinner. When that arch scoundrel Geoffroi was
close upon his end, he also had a solemn warning. Fear came to him in
the night and whispered, as you have heard, that he was doomed.
But these two children were given no sign. It was not for them; they
could not have understood it. God is a psychologist, and He watched
these two simple ones very tenderly.
A mile of heavy going lay behind them. Over the quaking fen bright with
evil-looking flowers, as beautiful and treacherous as some pale sensual
woman of the East, they plodded their weary and complacent way.
Lean, brown, old Cerdic was to die. Radiance was waiting for this poor
man, as the sun--how dull beside that greater radiance which was so soon
to illuminate him!--clomb up the sky.
They crossed various ditches and water-ways, leaping some and wading
breast-high through others, covered with floating scum and weeds. Once
or twice a wide pool of black water alive with fish brought them to a
check, and they had to swim over it or make a long detour. After about
three hours their journey became more easy. There was not so much water
about, and the ground, which was covered with fresh, vividly green grass
in wide patches, was much firmer.
Cerdic went on in front with a willow-pole, probing the ground to see if
it was safe for them to venture on, a most necessary precaution in that
land of bog and morass.
They were passing a clump of reeds when, with a quick scurry, a large
hare ran out almost under their feet. Something had happened to one of
its forelegs, for it limped badly, and scrambled along at no great rate.
A hare's leg is a wonderfully fragile piece of mechanism, despite its
enormous power. Often when the animal is leaping it over-balances
itself in mid air, and coming down heavily breaks the thin bone. This
is what had happened to the creature that startled them from the reeds.
The quick eye of the old lawer-of-dogs saw at once that the animal was
injured and could not go very fast. Here was a chance of food which
would be very welcome. With a shout to Hyla he went leaping after it.
His lean, brown legs spread over the ground, hardly seeming to touch it
as he ran. He soon came up with the hare, but just as he was stooping to
grasp it the creature doubled, and was off in a new direction. Hyla saw
Cerdic pick himself up, stumble, recover, and flash away on the new
track. In a minute a tall hedge of reeds, which seemed as if they might
fringe a pool, hid him from view.
Hyla plodded slowly on, wondering if Cerdic would catch the hare, and
thinking with a pleasant stomachic anticipation what a very excellent
meal they might have if that were so. In about five minutes he came up
to the reeds, and just as he approached them his heart gave a great leap
of fear. Cerdic was calling him, but in a voice such as he had never
heard him use before, it was so changed and terrible. Half shout, half
whine, and wholly unnerving. He plunged through the cover, the wet
splashing up round his feet in little jets as he did so, and then he
came across his friend.
Six or more yards away there was a stretch of what at first glance
appeared to be pleasant meadow land, so bright was the grass and so
studded with flowers. In the centre of the space, which might measure
twenty square yards, Cerdic stood engulfed to the waist, and rapidly
sinking deeper. He made superhuman efforts to extricate himself. His
arms beat upon the sward, and his hands clutched terribly at the tufts
of grass and marsh flowers. His face, under all its tan, became a dark
purple, as the terrible pressure on his body increased, and he began to
bleed violently from the nose, and to vomit. Hyla went cautiously
towards him, but every step he took became more dangerous, and he was
forced to stand still in an agony of helplessness. Even in his own
comparative security he could feel the soft caressing ground sucking
eagerly at his feet.
He watched in horror. Slowly now, though with horrible distinctness, the
body of his friend was going from him. The green grass lay round his
arm-pits, and his arms were extended upon it at right angles like the
arms of a man crucified. His fingers kept jumping up and down as if he
were playing upon some instrument.
Then there came a gleam of hope. The motion ceased, and the head and
upper part of the shoulders remained motionless.
"Have you touched bottom, Cerdic?" Hyla called in a queer high-pitched
voice that startled himself.
"No, Hyla," came in thick, difficult reply, "and I die. I am going away
from you, and must say farewell. I have loved you very well, and now
good-bye. I am not afraid. Good-bye. I will pray to God as I die. Do you
also pray, and farewell, farewell!"
He closed his staring eyes, and very gradually the sucking motion
recommenced.
Hyla stared stupidly at this slow torture, unable to move or think.
It was soon over now, and the body sank very quickly away, and left the
survivor gazing without thought at the spot where nothing marked a
grave.
As he watched, a hare with a broken leg began to hobble across the vivid
greenness.
CHAPTER XIII
"A most composed invincible man, in difficulty and distress
knowing no discouragement, in danger and menace laughing at the
whisper of fear."
There is a wonderful steadfast courage about men of Hyla's breed. Even
though the object they pursue has lost its value, they go on in a dogged
relentless "following up" from which nothing can turn them.
For two hours or more he mourned and thought of old times, gazing in a
kind of strange wonder at the silent carpet of grass. The shrewd
weatherworn face, the twinkling eager eyes, the nasal drawl which so
glibly offered up petitions to heaven, all came back to him with a
singular vividness. He was surprised to find how actual and clear his
friend's personality was to him. It almost frightened him. He glanced
round him once or twice uneasily. Cerdic seemed so real and near, an
unseen partner in the silence.
When one has heard bells tolling for a long time, and suddenly they
stop, the brain is still conscious of the regular lin-lan-lone.
While this psychic influence eddied round him, and the kindly old face,
ploughed deep with toil and sorrow, was still a veritable possession of
his brain, there was a certain comfort.
As it began to fade, as day from the sky, his loneliness came upon him
like death. The real agony of his loss began, and it tortured him until
he could feel no more. Pain is its own anodyne in the end.
The cordage of his brave heart was so racked and strained by all he had
endured that its capacity for sensation was over. So he mourned Cerdic
dead no longer, his heart was dead.
But we know nothing of this poor brother, if not that in him was a sound
piece of manhood, hardened, tempered, and strong. His soul was sweet and
healthy, his rough-built body proud of blood and powerful. He must go on
and fear nothing. Once more he must rise from his fall and try fortune
with a stout sad heart, proving his own Godhead and the glory of his
will, over which Fate could have no lordship.
In this only, as the poet sang, are men akin to gods, and in all life
there is no glory like the "glory of going on."
Then did Hyla, the invincible, rise from the ground to breast
circumstance--_per varios casus_--to seek his Latium once more.
He fell to eating cold roast fish.
When he set out again, he had to make a long detour. The sounding pole
still remained to him, and he probed every step as he slowly skirted the
treacherous green. It was characteristic of him that as he left the
fatal spot where the dead Cerdic lay deep down in the mud he never
looked round or gazed sadly at the place. He had no thought of
sentimental leave-taking, no little poetic luxury of grief moved him. It
were an action for a slighter brain than this.
It began to be late afternoon, as Hyla made a slow and difficult
progress. He had got round the swamp, and pushed on over the fen.
Sometimes he waded through stagnant pools fringed with rushes and
covered with brilliant copper-coloured water plants. Once, pushing his
pole before him, he swam over a wide black pond in which the sun was
mirrored all blood red. Often he broke his way through forests of reeds
which spiked up far above his head. Everywhere before him the creatures
of the fen ran trembling.
Sometimes the firmer ground he came to was as brilliant as old carpets
from the house of an Eastern king. The yellow broom moss was maturing,
and bright chestnut-coloured capsules curved among it. The wild thyme
crisped under his feet. The fairy down of the cotton grass floated round
them.
Little tufts of pale sea-lavender nestled among the long leaves of the
marsh zostera, plump, rank, and full of moisture. The fox-tail grass and
the cat's-tail grass flourished everywhere.
We of to-day can have but a faint idea of that wonderful and luxuriant
carpet over which he trod. The fair yellow corn now stands straight and
tall over those solitudes. The broad dyke cut deep in the brown peat now
straightly cleaves the fen, still beautiful and rich in life, but
changed for ever from its ancient magic.
By night the lone sprites of the marsh with their ghostly lamps flit
disconsolate, for the hand of man has come and tamed that teeming
wilderness which was once so strange and alien from Man. Man was not
wanted there in those old days, and the cruel swamps claimed a
life-sacrifice as the price of their invasion.
Hyla's hard brown feet were all stained by the living carpet on which
they walked. His advancing tread broke down the great vivid crimson
balls of the _agaricus fungus_, and split its fat milk-white stem into
creamy flakes. The crimson poison painted his instep, and the bright
orange chanterelle mingled its harmless juice with that of its deadly
cousin. His ankles were powdered with the dull pink-white of the hydnum,
that strong mushroom on which they say the hedgehog feeds greedily at
midnight, the tiny fruit of the "witches' butter" crumbled at his touch.
Over all, the fierce dragon-fly swung its mailed body, the Geoffroi of
the fen insects.
The light and shadow sweeping over the wheat in its ordered planting are
beautiful, but Hyla saw what we can never see in England more, saw with
his steadfast, regardless eyes more natural beauties than we can ever
see again.
In every clump of reeds that fringed the pool, he came suddenly upon
some old pike basking in the sun, like a mitred bishop in his green and
gold. The green water flags trembled as he sunk away.
The herons paddled in the shallow pools, and tossed the little silver
fish from them to each other, the cold-eyed hawk dropped like a shooting
star, and fought the stoat for his new-killed prey.
The shadows lengthened and lay in patches over the wild world of water.
The blue mists began to rise from a hundred pools, and the bats to
flicker through them. The sunlight faded rapidly away, the world became
greyish ochre colour, then grey, a soft cobweb grey, through which fell
the hooting of an owl, and the last call of a plover.
Resolute, though wearied and faint, firm in resolve, though with a
bitter loneliness at his heart, Hyla plunged on through the twilight.
For some little time the ground had been much firmer and a little raised
above the level of the fen, but as day was dying, he found he had
entered upon a long and gradual slope, and that once more it behoved him
to walk with infinite care.
Old rotting tree-trunks cropped up here and there, relics of some vast,
ancient forest, which, mingling with rotting vegetation of all kinds,
sent up a smell of decay in his nostrils. At every step he sank up to
the knees, and brown water, the colour of brandy, splashed up to his
waist.
He seemed to have arrived at a more desolate evil part of the fens than
before. The approaching night made his progress more and more difficult.
It was here that the night herons had their nests and breeding-places,
inaccessible to men. The ground was bespattered with their excrements,
and with feathers, broken egg-shells, old nests, and half-eaten fish
covered with yellow flies.
Then as he ploughed on he saw a sight at which even his stout heart
failed him. His long struggle seemed suddenly all in vain. Right before
him was a wide creek or arm of the lake, two hundred yards from reeds to
reedy shore, entirely barring the way. Too far for him to swim, all
dead-weary as he was, mysterious and ugly in the faint light, it gave
him over utterly to despair.
It began to be cold, and the chilly marish-vapour crept into his bones
and turned the marrow of them to ice.
He sat on a mound formed by a great log and the _débris_ of a mass of
decayed roots, the whole damp and cold as a fish's belly, and covered
with living fungi and slimy moss. His feet were buried in the brown
water.
It was now too dark to move in any direction with safety, and until day
should break again he must remain where he was. He had no more food of
any kind, and was absolutely exhausted. So he moaned a little prayer,
more from habit than from any comfort in the act, and stretching himself
over the damp moss fell into a fitful sleep. He dreamed he was back at
the Priory, and heard in his dreaming the distant sound of the monks
singing prayers.
It was a picture of his own life, this sorry end to all his day's
endeavour. It fore-shadowed his career, so rapidly darkening down into
death. His life-path, trod with such bitterness, growing ever more
devious and painful, while the _ignes fatui_ of Hope danced round its
closing miles!
CHAPTER XIV
"So, some time, when the last of all our evenings
Crowneth memorially the last of all our days,
Not loth to take his poppies, man goes down and says:
'_Sufficient for the day were the day's evil things_.'"
Free will, warring with fate, produces Tragedy, so it is said. To-day,
we have lost much of the significance of the old "[Greek: tragôdia]."
When the priest poets Tyrtæus and Æschylus clamorously exalted--held
high that all might see--the Godhead of men who fight and do, it was not
so much the tragedy itself, but the circumstances that made it which
inspired men's hearts.
"Free will warring with Fate"--it was the clash of that fine battle,
which those old Greeks found significant and uplifting.
For a moment let us look into this so seeming-piteous a one of ours, on
which soon the iron curtain is resonantly to fall.
It is a hard, stern story this of our poor serf. The rebel lifted his
hand against an established force. For that he perished in bitter
agony. But, going so soon to his death, he shows us a Man in spite of
all his woes. And we can be uplifted in contemplating that. It is Hyla's
message to us no less than to his scarred brethren on the castle hill.
The Lord of Hilgay could maim and kill his body, but the Manhood in him
was a flame unquenchable, and burnt a mark upon his age. The clash of
his battle rings through centuries.
His doings sowed a seed, and we ourselves sit to-day in that great
blood-nourished tree of Freedom which sprang therefrom.
* * * * *
The stars that night were singularly bright and vivid. The sky was
powdered with a dust of light, among which the greater stars burned like
lamps.
Below that glorious canopy Hyla lay in an uneasy sleep. Every now and
then he awoke, chilled to the bone. Though the stars were all so clear
and bright they seemed very remote from this world and all its business,
as he looked up with staring, miserable eyes. Hyla believed, as little
children in Spain are taught to this day, that the stars were but
chinks, holes, and gaps in the floor of heaven itself. He thought their
bright white light but an overflow of the great white radiance of God's
Home.
That comforted him but little as he lay cold and hungry in the swamp.
Indeed it was easier to pray in the day-time, when even a hint of heaven
was absent. The enormous radiance was so remote in its splendour. It
accentuated his forlorn and forgotten state.
He was lying but a few yards from the edge of the broad pool which
barred his progress, and as the hours wore on and the stars paled, the
blackness of the water became grey and tremulous.
It was nearing dawn, though the sun had not yet risen, when he thought
he saw a red flicker in the mist which lay over the lagoon. It was too
ruddy and full-coloured for a marsh light, and his hopes leapt up, half
doubting, at the sight. In a moment or two, the light became plainer,
and he knew he was not deceived. The thing was real. It advanced towards
him, and seemed like a torch.
He sent a husky shout out over the water. Whether the light betokened
advance of friend or foe he did not know or care.
No answer came to his call, but he saw the red light become stationary
immediately, and cease to flicker.
He shouted again louder than before, standing up on the rotting log, and
filling his lungs with air. An answering voice came out of the mist at
this, and the light moved again.
And now the grey waste began to tremble with light. The sun was rising,
and at the first hint of his approach, the mists began to sway and
dissolve.
Coming straight towards the bank, Hyla saw a fen punt urged by a tall,
thin man dressed in skins like a serf. He used the long pole with skill,
and seemed thoroughly at home in the management of his boat.
About six yards from the shore, he dug his pole deep down and checked
the motion of the punt. Hyla waded down among the mud as far as was
safe, and hailed him. "For the love of God, sir," he said, "take me from
this swamp."
The stranger regarded him fixedly for a moment, without answering. Then
he spoke in a slow, deliberate, but resonant voice.
"Who are you? How have you come here in this waste? I thought no man
could come where you are."
"I am starving for food," said Hyla, "and like to die in the marsh an
you do not take me in your boat. I am of Icomb, thrall to the Prior Sir
Richard. The Lord of Hilgay's men took me and another who lies dead in
the swamp. They were upon the big lake when the boat upset, and all were
drowned save one. He has got him back to the castle, and I am journeying
to Icomb, if perchance I may come there safely."
"You tell of strange things," said the tall man, "and I will presently
ask you more of them. Now hearken. I am not one of those who give,
taking nothing in return. I will take you safe back to the Fathers, and
feed you with food. But for three days you must labour for me in work
that waits to be done in my field. I need a man's arm."
"For a week. If by that you will save me from this."
"So be it," said the tall man with great promptness. "You shall work for
a week, and then I will take you to Icomb."
With that he loosened the dripping pole, drove it again into the water,
and the nose of the punt glided up to Hyla.
He clambered carefully on board, and sat dripping.
"I have no food here," said the man, "for I live hard by, and did but
come out to look at some lines I set down overnight, but we shall soon
be there."
As he spoke he was poling vigorously, and they were already half way
over the pool.
As they neared the opposite shore, Hyla saw the reeds grew to a great
height above them, forming a thick screen with apparently an unbroken
face. But he knew that suddenly they would come upon an opening which
would be quite imperceptible to the ordinary eye, and so it proved.
With a sure hand the stranger sent the bows at a break but a yard wide
in the reeds. The punt went hissing through the narrow passage, pushing
the reeds aside for a moment, only that they should spring back again
after its passage. A few yards through the thick growth brought them
into a circular pool or basin. This also was surrounded with reeds which
towered up into the air. It was very small in diameter, and floating on
its placid black water was like being at the bottom of a jar.
The place was full of the earliest sunlights and busy with the newly
awakened life of the fen.
But what arrested the serf's immediate attention was a curious structure
at the far side of the pool. It resembled nothing so much as a small
house-boat. A wooden hut had been built upon a floating platform of
timber, and the whole was moored to a stout pile which projected some
three feet from the water.
A fire smouldered on the deck in front of the hut, and a cooking pot
hung over it by a chain.
"This is my home," said the man, pointing towards the raft. "Where I go
I take my house with me, and ask no man's leave. I have lived on this
pool for near two years now."
They landed on the raft.
"Now you shall fill your belly, Sir Wanderer," said the man, "and then I
will hear more of you. Here is a mess of hare, marsh quail, and herbs.
It's fit for a lord eke a thrall, for I see you wear a thrall's collar.
Here is a wooden bowl, fill it, and so thyself."
He came out of the cabin with two rough wooden bowls, which he dipped
and filled in the cauldron.
Then for a space, while the sun rode up the sky, there was no sound
heard but the feeding of hungry men.
Hyla began to feel the blood moving in him once more, and the strength
of manhood returning. The sun shone on his chilled limbs and warmed
them, the night was over.
At the finish of the meal the tall man turned on him suddenly and
without preparation. "How should Hyla of the long arms, thrall of
Geoffroi de la Bourne, be making his way to Richard Espec? Has the devil
then made friends with Holy Church? Is Geoffroi about to profess for a
monk?"
Hyla stared at him stupidly with open mouth, and swift fear began to
knock at his heart.
"I doubt me there is something strange here," said the tall man, with a
sudden bark of anger. "There is something black here, my good rogue. I
pray you throw a little light upon this. If ever I saw a man with fear
writ upon him you are that man, Hyla. I beg leave to think there are
others of you not far away! There are more from Hilgay about us in the
fen."
Hyla glanced hurriedly round the quiet little pool. "Where? where?" he
said in a tone of unmistakable terror. "Have you seen them, then? Are
they in wait to take me?"
The other looked at him with a long searching glance for near a minute.
"We two be at a tangle," he said at length. "You are in flight, then,
from the Hilgay men?"
"For my life," said Hyla.
"Then you and I are in one boat, Hyla, as it is said. I doubted that you
had come against me just now. So they are after you? Have you been
killing game in the forest or stealing corn?"
"It was game," said Hyla quickly; "big game," he added in an uneasy
afterward.
There was silence for a minute. The long, lean man seemed turning over
something in his mind.
"So you got to Icomb for sanctuary," he said slowly. "And Geoffroi sent
his men after you. It is a long way through the fen to go after one
thrall. And also they say Lord Roger Bigot is going to Hilgay with a
great host. It is unlike Geoffroi de la Bourne to waste men hunting for
a serf at such a time. He is growing old and foolish."
Hyla glanced at him quickly. He knew by the man's mocking tone that he
was disbelieved. Hyla was but a poor liar.
"Then you know Lord Geoffroi?" he said, stumbling woefully over the
words.
"I know him," said the man slowly. "I am well acquainted with that lord,
though it is eight years since we have met." Suddenly his voice rose,
though he seemed to be trying to control it. "God curse him!" he cried
in a hoarse scream; "will the devil never go to his own place!"
Hyla started eagerly. The man's passion was so extreme, his curse was so
real and full of bitter hatred that an avowal trembled on his lips.
The other gave him the cue for it.
"Come, man," he said briskly, resuming his ordinary voice; "you are
keeping something. Tell out straight to one who knows you and Gruach
also--does that surprise you? There are no friends of the house of
Bourne here. What is it, what hast done?"
"Killed him," said Hyla shortly.
"Splendeur dex!" said the man in a fierce whisper. His face worked, his
eyes became prominent, he trembled all over with excitement, like a
hunting dog scenting a quarry while in the leash.
Then he burst out into a torrent of questions in French, the foreign
words tumbling over each other in his eagerness.
Hyla knew nothing of what he said, for he had no French. Seeing his
look of astonishment, the man recovered himself. "I forgot for a
moment," he said, "who you were. Now thank God for this news! So, you
have killed him! At last! At last! How and why? Say quickly."
Hyla told him in a few words all the story.
"And who are you, then?" he said, when he had done.
"I call myself Lisolé to the few that I meet in the fen. But agone I had
another name. Come and see."
He took Hyla by the arm and led him into the cabin. It was a comfortable
little shelter. A couch of skins ran down one side, and above it were
shelves covered with pots, pans, tools, and fishing gear. A long
yew-bow stood in one corner among a few spears. An arbalist lay upon a
wooden chest. Light came into the place through a window covered with
oiled sheep-skin stretched upon a sliding frame. In one corner was an
iron fire-pan for use in winter, and a hollow shaft of wood above it
went through the roof in a kind of chimney.
The place was a palace to Hyla's notions. No serf had such a home. The
cabin was crowded with possessions. Unconsciously Hyla began to speak
with deference to this owner of so much.
"See here," said the man. At the end of the cabin was a broad shelf
painted in red, with a touch of gilding. A thick candle of fat with a
small wick, which gave a tiny glimmer of light, was burning in an iron
stand. In the wall behind, was a little doorless cupboard, or alcove, in
which was a small box of dark wood, heavily bound round with iron bands.
At the back of the alcove a cap of parti-coloured red and yellow was
nailed to the wall.
The man who called himself Lisolé lifted the box from the alcove
carefully, and as he did so the edge touched a bell on the end of the
pointed cap. It tinkled musically.
Hyla crossed himself, for the place he saw was a shrine, and the
iron-bound coffer held the relic of some saint.
"On this day," said the man, "I will show you what no other eyes than
mine have seen for eight long, lonely years. I doubt nothing but that it
is God His guidance that has brought you here to this place. For to you
more than all other men this sight is due."
So saying, he fumbled in his coat, and pulled therefrom a key, which
hung round his neck upon a cord of twisted gut.
He opened the box and drew several objects from it. One was a great lock
of nut-brown hair, full three feet long, as soft and fine as spun silk.
Another was a ring of gold, in which a red stone shone darkly in the
candle-light. There were one or two pieces of embroidered work, half the
design being uncompleted, and there was a Christ of silver on a cross of
dark wood.
"They were Isoult's," said the man in a hushed voice.
"Isoult la Guérisseur?" said Hyla.
"Isoult, the Healer."
"Then you who are called Lisolé----?"
"Was once Lerailleur, whose jesting died eight years ago. It was buried
in Her grave."
"God and Our Lady give her peace," said Hyla, crossing himself. "See you
this scar on my arm? A shaft went through it in the big wood. Henry
Montdefeu was hunting with Lord Geoffroi. I was beating in the
undergrowth, and a chance shaft came my way. La Guérisseur bound it up
with a mess of hot crushed leaves and a linen strip. In a week I was
whole. That was near ten years ago."
"You knew me not?"
"Nor ever should have known hadst not told me. Your hair it is as white
as snow, your face has fallen in and full of lines, aye, and your voice
is not the voice that sang in the hall in those days."
"Ah, now I am Lisolé. But thank God for this day. I can wait the end
quiet now. So you have killed him! Know you that I also tried? I was not
bold as you have been. I tried with poison, and then fled away by night.
I took the poppy seeds--_les pavois_--and brewed them, and put the juice
in his drink. But I heard of him not long after as well and strong, so I
knew it was not to be. I never knew how I failed."
"I can tell you that," said Hyla, "it was common talk. Lord Geoffroi
went to his chamber in Outfangthef Tower drunken after dinner in the
hall. Dom Anselm led him there, and the priest was sober that night, or
'twould have been Geoffroi's last. On the table was his night-draught of
morat in which you had put the poison. Geoffroi drank a long pull, and
then fell on the bed and lay sleeping heavy among the straw. Dom Anselm,
being thirsty, did go to take a pull at the morat, but had scarce put
lip to it when the taste or smell told him what it was. Hast been a
chirurgeon, they do say, and knoweth simples as I the fen-lands. So he
ran for oil and salt, and poureth them into Geoffroi until he vomited
the poison. But for two days after that he was deadly sick and could
hold no food. I mind well they searched the forest lands for you and eke
the fen, but found not."
"Aye, I fled too swiftly and too far for such as they. It takes wit to
be a fool, and they being not fools but men-at-arms had no cunning such
as mine. I built this house of mine with wood from Icomb, and have lived
upon the waters this many a year."
"Ever alone and without speech of men?"
"Not so. Sometimes I get me to Mass at Icomb, and I am well with the
monks. And sometimes they bring a sick brother to this place to touch
this hair and cross, and be cured. For know, Hyla, that my wife, a
healer in her life, still heals by favour of Saint Mary, being gone from
this sad world and with Lord Christ in heaven. The Fathers would have me
bring these relics to Icomb there to be enshrined, and I to profess
myself a monk. Often have they sent messengers to persuade me. But I
would not go while He was living, for I could not live God's life
hating him so. But now perchance I shall go. It will bear thinking of."
They knelt down before the lock of hair and the crucifix and prayed
silently.
It was a strange meeting. This man Lerailleur had been buffoon to
Geoffroi, and had come with him from Normandy. His wife, Isoult, was a
sweet simple dame, so fragrant and so pure that all the world loved her.
She was a strangely successful nurse and doctor, and knew much of herbs.
In those simple times her cures were thought miraculous, and she was
venerated. The jester, a grave and melancholy man when not
professionally employed, thought her a saint, and loved her dearly. Now
one winter night, Lord Geoffroi being, as was his wont, very drunk, set
out from his feasting in the hall to seek sleep in his bed-chamber.
Isoult had been watching by the side of a woman--wife to one of the
men-at-arms--who was brought to bed in child-birth. She crossed the
courtyard to her own apartment, in front of Geoffroi de la Bourne. He,
being mad with drink, thought he saw some phantom, and drew his dagger.
With a shout he rushed upon the lady, and soon she lay bleeding her
sweet life away upon the frosty ground.
They buried her with great pomp and few dry eyes, and Geoffroi paid for
many Masses, while Lerailleur bided his time. The rest we have heard.
Hyla and Lisolé sat gravely together on the deck of the boat. The relics
were put away in their shrine.
Neither said much for several hours, the thoughts of both were grave and
sad, and yet not wholly without comfort.
They seemed to see God's hand in all this. There was something fearful
and yet sweet in their hearts. So Sintram felt when he had ridden
through the weird valley and heard Rolf singing psalms.
The "midsummer hum"--in Norfolk they call the monotone of summer insect
life by that name--lulled and soothed them. There was peace in that deep
and secret hiding-place.
In the afternoon they broiled some firm white fish and made another
meal. "Come and see my field," said Lisolé afterwards.
They got into the small punt and followed a narrow way through the
reeds, going away from the wide stretch of water on the further shore
of which they had first met. At a shelving turfy shore they disembarked.
Climbing up a bank they came suddenly upon three acres of ripening corn,
a strange and pastoral sight in that wilderness. Small dykes covered
with bright water-flowers ran through the field dividing it into small
squares. It was thoroughly drained, and a rich crop.
"All my own work, Hyla," said the ex-jester, with no inconsiderable
pride in his voice. "I delved the ditches and got all the water out of
the land. Then I burnt dried reeds over it, and mixed the ashes with the
soil for a manure. Then I sowed my wheat, and it is bread, white bread,
all the year round for me. I flail and winnow, grind and bake, and no
man helps me. The monks would lend me a thrall to help, but I said no. I
am happier alone, La Guérisseur seems nearer then. I have other things
to show you, but not here. Let us go back to home first. To-day is a
holiday, and you also need rest."
When the moon rose and the big fishes were leaping out of the water with
resonant echoing splashes in the dusk, they were still sitting on the
deck of the boat in calm contemplation.
They spoke but little, revolving memories. Now and then the jester made
some remark reminiscent of old dead days, and Hyla capped it with
another.
About ten o'clock, or perhaps a little later, a long, low whistle came
over the water to them, in waves of tremulous sound. Lisolé jumped up
and loosened the painter of the punt. "It's one of the monks," he said;
"now and again they come to me at night time."
Hyla waited as the punt shot off into the alternation of silver light
and velvet shadow. Before long he heard voices coming near, and the
splash of the pole. It was a monk from Icomb, a ruddy, black-eyed,
thick-set man. His coracle was towed behind the punt.
He greeted the serf with a "benedicite," and told him that Lisolé had
given him the outlines of his story.
"Anon, my son," said he, "you shall go back with me to peace. We
thought, indeed, that you had left us with the thrall Cerdic, and we
were not pleased. Your wife and daughter have been in a rare way, so
they tell me."
For long hours, as Hyla fell asleep covered with a skin upon the deck,
he heard the low voices of the monk and his host in the cabin. It was a
soothing monotone in the night silence.
In the morning Lisolé came to him and woke him. "The father and I have
talked the night through," he said, "and soon I leave my home for Icomb.
'Twill be better so. We will start anon. It is hard parting, even with
this small dwelling, but it is Godys will, I do not doubt."
CHAPTER XV
"Though you be in a place of safety, do not, on that account,
think yourself secure."--SAINT BERNARD.
Brother Felix, the monk who had come to them from Icomb, bade them rest
another day before setting out over the lake.
"Ye have had a shrewd shog, Lisolé, in the news that Hyla brought, and
he also has gone hardly of late. Let us rest a day and eat well, and
talk withal. There is a bottle of clary that the Prior sent. It is good
to rest here."
His merry black eyes regarded them with an eminent satisfaction at his
proposal. It was his holiday, this trip from the Priory, and he had no
mind to curtail it.
There was yet a quaint strain of melancholy humour about the ex-fool.
The joy had gone, the wit lingered. His sojourn alone among the waters
had mellowed it, added a new virtue to the essential sadness of the
jester.
And Felix was no ordinary man. He had been an epicure in such things
once. What the time could give of culture was his. He had been a writer
of MS., a lay scriptor in the house of the Bishop at Rouen; he had
illuminated missals in London, was a good Latinist, and, even in that
time, had a little Greek. A day with Lisolé was a most pleasant variant
to a life which he lived with real endeavour, but which was sometimes at
war with his mental needs.
So they sat out on deck, among all the medley of the jester's rough
household goods, on deck in the sunshine, while the monk and the
prospective novice ranged over their experiences.
Hyla had never heard such talk before. Indeed, it is not too much to say
that through all the years of his life he had never, until this day,
been present at a _conversation_. Nearly all the words the serf had
heard, almost all the words he himself had spoken, were about things
which people could touch and see.
He and his friends, Cerdic notably, had touched on the unseen things of
religion--"principalities and powers" who dominated the future--in their
own uncouth way. But conversation about the abstract things of this
earthly life he had rarely heard before.
For the first hour the novelty of it almost stunned him. He listened
without thought, drinking it all in with an eagerness which defied
consideration. It was his first and last social experience!
"Wilt not be so lonely in the cloister, friend," said Felix.
"Say you so?" answered the jester. "Yet to be alone is a powerful good
thing. I have but hardly felt lack of humans this many a year. Many
sorry poor ghosts of friends, gone to death back-along, come to me at
night-time."
"And she, that saint that was thy wife, comes she to thee, Lisolé?"
"Betimes she comes, and ever with healing to my brain; but it is not the
wife who slept by my side."
"More Saint and less Woman! Is that truth?"
Lisolé nodded sadly. The big monk stretched himself out at length so
that the hot sun rays should fall on every part of him.
"I have no more to do with women," he said; "but in those other days I
liked a woman to be a very woman, and not too good. Else, look you,
wherein lieth the pleasure? It is because of the difference. Never
cared I for a silent woman. If you would make a pair of good shoon, take
the tongue of a woman for the sole thereof. It will not wear away. Full
many a worthless girl has enslaved me--me whom no enemy ever did. Yet
knowing all and seeing all, yet loved I all of them. And now--quantum
mutatus ab illo!"
He sighed, a reminiscent sigh. "They took from me all I had," he
continued, "and being poor and in distress I turned my thoughts
Godwards."
"Women, priests, and pullets have never enough," said Lisolé with a
sudden and quaint return of his professional manner. "They are past all
understanding, save only the saints. Truly I have found a woman to be
both apple and serpent in one. A woman, she is like to a fair table
spread with goodly meats that one sees with different eyes before and
after the feast."
"But hast feasted, brother, natheless? Forget not that."
"Art right, and it was well said. One should take bitter and sweet
together. Yet, friend, I do not doubt but that when the Lord Jesus fed
the concourse out of His charity and miracle, there were some at that
feast who told one another the bread was stale and the fish too long out
o' water! Men are so made. It is so in this life."
"Aye, and thou doest well in leaving this world for the Church's peace.
Now thy enemy is dead and thy hate with him thou shalt find peace, even
as I have done. For in what a pass is England! Peace being altogether
overthrown love is cooled; all the land is moist with weeping, and all
friendship and quietness is disappeared. All seek consolation and quiet.
Almost all the nobles spend their time in contriving evil; the mad
esquires delight in malice. These cruel butchers despise doctrine, and
the holy preachers have no effect. These men will not be amended by
force of sermons, nor do they take any account of the lives of men. They
all plunder together like robbers."
His voice rose in indignation, and both Hyla and the jester raised their
heads in bitter acquiescence.
It was so true of that dark time. Each one there was a waif of life, a
somewhat piteous jetsam from the dark tides which had almost
overwhelmed them. The Anglo-Norman song was very true--
"_Boidie ad seignurie, pes est mise suz pé._"
("The fraud of the rulers prevails, peace is trodden underfoot.")
Lisolé began to sing the air under his breath. The monk stopped him.
"Not so," he said. "I was wrong to speak of these things to-day. They
have passed us by. And this is my holiday, and I would not have it a sad
one withal. We have no cause for sadness, we three. Let us eat, for our
better enjoyment. Sun hath clomb half-way upon his journey, and I am
hungry."
He bustled about, helping them to prepare the meal.
"Wine, fish, and eke wheaten-cakes," he cried merrily. "Do not we read
in the Gospels that it was Christ His fare?"
Hyla noticed that a curious change had taken place in his host's face.
The strained, brooding look in his eyes had disappeared. Already it was
calmer, happier.
The monk, full of meat and once more basking in the heat, began to chat
on all trivial subjects. He made little, aimless, lazy jests;
contentment was exhaled from him.
The sun seemed to draw out the latent humour on the jester's
countenance. He capped one remark by another; on the eve of taking the
Vows, the clown flickered up in him, as though to rattle the bells once
more in a last farewell.
Felix had thrown off his habit, and his massive neck and chest, covered
with black hair, lay open to the genial warmth. His black hair and eyes,
his ruddy cheeks, were in fine colour contrast; he was a study in black
and crimson. He lay at length, his head pillowed on a catskin rug, and
looked up at Lisolé, who leaned his length against the side of the
cabin.
The jester had a thin metal rod in his hand, part of his cooking
apparatus, his poker in fact, and all unconsciously he began to use it
to emphasise his remarks--the fools bâton of his happier days. Now that
the pressure on his brain, the dead-weight of hate, had been removed, a
kind of reflex action took place. He became a little like his former
self.
"Old Fenward," said the monk, "thou art changing as the worm to the
winged fly! Thy wit fattens and mars with sorrow! On this day of
deliverance make some sport for us; show thy old tricks, as Seigneur
David leapt before the Lord. There is no sin in mirth--out of
cloister," he added with a sudden afterthought, as a quick vision of
Richard Espec crossed his mind.
Hyla sat at the edge of the little deck and looked on, wondering, his
hard brown feet just touched the water. His face had sunk once more into
its old passive unemotional aspect. A gaudy marsh fly, in its livery of
black and yellow, had settled upon his hand, but he made no movement to
brush it away.
The trio were beautifully grouped against the background of vivid green
reeds, surrounded by the still brown water. To any one coming suddenly
upon the quaint old boat lying among the white and yellow
water-flowers, and its strange distinctive crew, the picture would have
remained for long as an unforgettable mental possession.
The accidents of time, place, and colour, had so beautifully blended
into a perfectly proportioned whole that it seemed more of design than
chance.
Lisolé smiled down at the big man. "My jesting days are long gone by,"
he said. "But, messires, I will try my hand for you this noon if
perchance it has not lost all cunning. Once I had knowledge of the art
of legerdemain, by which the hands, moving very swiftly and with
concealed motions, do so trick and deceive the eye that he knows not
what a-hath seen."
With a gurgle of satisfaction, Brother Felix sat up and propped himself
against the cabin. Hyla drew nearer, with attentive eyes.
Lisolé left them for a moment and went inside the cabin. He came out
with several articles in his hands, which he put beside him on the deck.
He showed them his bare hands, and then suddenly stretching out his
right arm he caught at the empty air, and, behold! there came into his
hand, how they could not tell, a little rod of black wood a foot in
length or more.
A swift change came into his voice. It sank a full tone and became very
solemn. His face was very grave. Hyla watched him with wide eyes and
parted lips.
He turned to the serf, "Now, Hyla," said he, "art about to witness art
magic, but none of Satan's, so be brave. Take you this little wand of
enchaunted ebon-wood and say what dost make of it."
Very timidly, and with a half withdrawal, Hyla's great brown paw took
the toy. He examined it, smelt it like a dog, and then with some relief
gave it back to the owner.
"'Tis but a little stick of wood," he said.
"Natheless, a stick of good magic, thrall, for 'twas of this wood that
the coffin of Mahound was built."
Hyla crossed himself reverently. He was surprised to see the monk was
smiling easily. "The holy man has known these things of old," thought
he, with a humble recognition of his own limitations and ignorance. "He
seemeth nothing accoyed."
Lisolé cleared a space on the deck in front of him, and laid the wand
upon it. Then he stretched out his hand over it, as though in
invocation. "_By the Garden of Alamoot where thou grew_," he cried,
"_and by the virtue of the blood of Count Raymond of Tripoli, whose
blood fell on thee as he died in that garden, I command thee to do my
will, little black stick_."
He took a little pipe of reed from his belt, and, stopping one end with
his finger, blew softly through it.
A mellow flute-like note quivered through the air. Hardly pausing for
breath, the jester continued the monotonous cooing sound for several
minutes.
Hyla watched the wand with fascinated eyes. Suddenly it began to tremble
slightly and to roll this way and that. The pipe changed its notes and
broke into the lilt of a simple dance. Simultaneously with the change
the little stick rose up on its end and inclined itself gravely to each
of them in turn. Then it began to hop up and down, retreating and
advancing, in time to the music.
Hyla's tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. His lips were hot and dry,
his throat seemed as if he had been eating salt.
A horrid fear began to rise within him, such strange fear as he had
never known, as he watched the devilish little stick--how human it
was!--in its fantastic dance. He did not see that both Felix and Lisolé
were regarding him with the most intense amusement. The monk was
grinning from ear to ear, and his hands were pressed to his sides in the
effort to control a paroxysm of internal laughter.
Suddenly the music stopped. The stick ceased all movement, standing
upright upon its end. Then--horror!--very slowly, but with great
deliberation, it began to hop towards Hyla. Nearer and nearer it came,
in little jumps of an inch or so. The tan of the serf's face turned a
dusky cream colour, he put out both hands to ward off the evil thing.
But it hopped on relentlessly.
It came within a foot or two, and Hyla's terror welled up within him so
fiercely that he gave a loud cry, stepped back, and with an echoing
splash disappeared into the water over the boat side.
He rose almost immediately, spluttering and gasping, the shock depriving
him of his senses.
Peals of laughter, echoing uncontrollable peals, saluted him. Felix
thundered out his joy, the jester's thin voice shrieked in merriment.
Hyla trod water, staring at them in amazement.
"Come aboard, man! Come aboard!" cried the monk at length. "'Twas naught
but a jest, a jougleur's trick, oh slayer of Lords!" His laughter
forbade speech once more.
They helped the poor fellow on deck once more, and reassured him. But it
was long before he began to like his company again. He remembered the
shrine inside the cabin, the sudden appearance of the jester's torch
through the mists of night, and longed most devoutly to be back at work
on the good brown fields.
Till evening fell and supper-time was at hand, Lisolé entertained them.
Never had he been more skilful and more full of humour than on this, his
"farewell appearance," as he would have called it nowadays.
In his hands a wild duck's egg came, went, and changed, until Hyla's arm
was tired with crossing himself. Water poured into an earthen jar
changed into chopped straw in a single moment. Never were such wonders
before on earth.
But as day went, so gaiety went with it. And before rest the monk said
prayers at the lighted shrine of Isoult the Healer. He prayed for a safe
passage over the waters on the morrow, and that the healing virtues of
the relics before them might grow stronger and more powerful as they
reposed before the Host in Church.
Then they all said the Lord's Prayer together, and so to sleep.
But Hyla's rest was fitful and disturbed. Strange broken dreams flitted
through it. Often during the night he lay awake and heard the heavy
snoring of his companions. The sound brought little sense of
companionship with it. He was alone with his thoughts and the night.
* * * * *
In the early morning they set forth gravely, as befitted the solemn
business they were about.
The precious coffer was laid reverently upon a bed of reeds in the punt,
and, as the air was very still, the thick candle was lighted and placed
before it. It was a very feeble, dusty, yellow gleam in the sunshine.
They set slowly out, down the brown channel among the rushes. The birds
were singing.
The monk blessed the boat and the holy relics, and Lisolé took a last
long look at his floating home ere they turned a corner and it passed
from view.
He was very silent now that he had left everything. His thoughts were
sad, for he was but human. That little refuge had been Home. He had been
alone with the memory of Isoult there. They forged up the creek towards
the lake, and his eyes fell upon the iron-bound box.
Then his face brightened. He set it towards the Island of Icomb, and
made the sign of the cross. Nor did he look back any more.
About half-way over the lake they rested, and ate some bread and broiled
fish. Till then Hyla's strong arms had rowed them, and now Lisolé
prepared to relieve him.
They were busy with the victuals in the bottom of the boat when a shout
floated over the water, sudden and startling. They had thought no one
near.
Looking up they saw a large boat manned by many oars, but two hundred
yards away. It was strange they had not heard the rattle in the
rowlocks.
A man in a shirt of chain mail stood upright in the bows, and a levelled
cross-bow threatened them.
They gazed stupidly at the advancing terror. In forty seconds the boat
was lying motionless beside them. Hyla saw many cruel, exulting,
well-known faces. The monk began Latin prayers. Lisolé grasped the
iron-bound box.
Suddenly Hyla became aware that a harsh voice was speaking. "We have no
quarrel with you, Sir Monk, nor with your boatman. Natheless, unless you
wish death, you will give that serf Hyla up to us without trouble. We
are in luck to-day. We but thought to find the bodies of dead friends."
The rapid pattering Latin went on unceasingly, Hyla was lifted from the
punt by strong, eager arms. A push sent the smaller vessel gliding
away, he saw the distance opening out between--the ripples sparkled in
the sun.
The wail of a farewell floated towards him, and then some one struck him
a heavy blow upon the head, and everything flashed away.
CHAPTER XVI
"In that same conflict (woe is me!) befell,
This fatall chaunce, this dolefull accident
Whose heavy tidings now I have to tell.
First all the captives which they here had hent
Were by them slaine by generall consent."
Dom Anselm was strolling about the courtyard of the castle at Hilgay.
His hands were behind his back, and his head was thrust forward and
slowly oscillated from side to side.
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, and he was pretending to
take an intelligent interest in the activity all round. He regarded four
great bundles of newly made arrows tied up with rope in the manner of a
connoisseur. He even took one out from its bundle, felt the point, and
held it on a level with his eye to make sure that the shaft was
perfectly straight and true.
Then he went to a heap of raw hides and felt their texture. This done he
stood before a mangonel, which was being hoisted up upon the walls by a
windlass, and surveyed it with an affectation of the engineer and a
flavour of the expert at home. But he did it very badly, and the whole
proceeding was an obvious effort. After that, feeling that he had done
his duty, he went to the draw-well in the centre of the courtyard, and,
sitting on the ground on the shady side--for it was a structure of
masonry some four feet high, like all Norman walls--composed himself to
sleep. The creature felt out of place. Upon first news of the coming
attack he was hard at work shriving blackguards, and allowing each one
to believe that should an arrow of the enemy put a swift end to his
sinful life, the saints and angels would meet them at the jasper gates
of heaven with trumpets and acclamations. The fools believed him; it
flattered them to hear of these fine things provided for an unpleasant
contingency, and no one was more important than Sir Anselm. Then came
the ceremonial importance of the funeral and the votive Mass. That kept
him well in the public eye for a little time. But this and that done, he
found time hang very heavy upon his hands.
All round him activity was being pushed to its furthest limit, and in
all that hive he was the only drone. The squires passed him with a jest,
the waiting maids threw a quip at him. Lewin alone was friendly, but the
minter had but little time to spare. That quick brain and alert eye for
the main chances in life were very valuable at Hilgay, and Lewin was in
constant request. The man suggested, advised, and directed operations
which were the wonder of all who saw them.
But he said nothing of the crack in the orchard wall.
The precious couple were quite resolved upon the treachery which they
had plotted in the fen. In truth Fulke was a bestial young fool, and
offered no inducement to his followers to be faithful. Roger Bigot was a
bigger man in the world, and reputed to be very fair with all his
people. Lewin certainly would gain by the change. As for Dom Anselm, he
knew perfectly that Roger would never need a priest, for--a strange fact
even in those dreadful days--he was an open scoffer. At the same time,
the scoundrel was rather tired of the business. Among men-at-arms it was
not lucrative, though their superstition enjoined a certain amount of
respect for him. He knew a little about the rude medicine of that time,
had some skill in simples, and he would, he thought, join Roger as a
chirurgeon provided that all went well.
So he and Lewin laid their plans together.
Dom Anselm slept on the cool side of the wall, all undisturbed by the
noise around. The appearance of the courtyard had quite altered by this
time. Sloping scaffolds of wood, connected by plank galleries, ran up to
the walls and made it possible to instantly concentrate a large force of
men upon any given point which should be attacked.
The fantastic arms of the mangonels and trebuchets, and other slinging
instruments rose grimly above the battlements. A great crane upon the
top of a tower, slung up piles of rocks and barrels of Greek fire with
steady industry. Shields of wood, covered with damp hide and pierced
with loopholes, frowned on the top of the battlements towards the
outside world.
Great heaps of a sort of hand grenade, made of wicker work and full of a
foul concoction of sulphur and pitch, were arranged at intervals, and
iron braziers, standing on tripod legs, were dotted here and there, so
that the soldiers could at once obtain a light for a pitch barrel or
grenade.
A large copper gong with a wooden club to beat it was being fitted to a
stand of ash-wood. The harsh reverberations of this horrid instrument
could be heard above the din of any fight, and made a better signal than
trumpets.
Amid all the metallic noises, the dishonoured priest slept sweetly. He
was roused by two startling events.
The first was this. With a great clatter a soldier rode into the
courtyard. His horse was foam-flecked, his furniture and arms all
powdered grey with dust. He swore with horrid oaths that he had one
great overpowering desire, and that not to be denied. It was beer he
said that he wanted, and would have before he spoke a single word. He
bellowed for beer. When they brought it him, in a crowd, for he was a
scout with news from the Norwich road, he gurgled his content and
shouted his news.
Lord Roger had pressed on with great speed, and was now close at hand.
Probably as evening fell that day, certainly during that night, his
force would camp round the walls. They took him away to Fulke's chamber,
where that worthy, who had been up all night, was snatching a little
sleep. They thronged round him clamouring for more news.
Dom Anselm once more sat him down in the cool shade of the draw-well,
this time with a feeble pretence at reading in his dirty drink-stained
little breviary. It was curious to see how early habit reasserted itself
in this way.
Then the second startling event occurred.
There came a burst of distant cheering, an explosion of fierce cries at
the gates, and a little mob of men-at-arms rushed into the bailey,
followed by half a dozen sentinels with pikes in their hands.
In the middle of the crowd a man stood bound, dressed in a leathern
jacket, and the soldiers were beating him over the head with the shafts
of their pikes. His face ran with blood and there was an awful stare of
horror in his eyes.
So Hyla came back to Hilgay.
At the gate of the castle they had halted him, with many oaths, and
turned his head towards a tree, from one of whose branches hung the
naked swollen corpse of Elgifu.
Dom Anselm lurched up from the side of the well and shouldered his way
through the press. Here again was his dramatic opportunity. Face to
face with the prisoner, he stopped short and spat venomously into his
face. With that, Dom Anselm also passes out of the story.
They held Hyla and buffeted him, while the soldiers from all parts of
the castle works ran towards the courtyard.
They came running down the slanting bridges leading from the walls, and
their feet made a noise like thunder on the echoing boards. The cooks
came out of the kitchens, the serfs from the stables, until there was a
great bawling, shouting crowd, struggling and fighting to get a look at
the captive.
None were louder in their menace than the serfs.
Some zealous soul, inspired by uncontrollable excitement, feeling the
curious need of personal action that often comes to an excitable nature
labouring under a sudden nerve stress, got him to the chamber at the
foot of Outfangthef and fell to pulling lustily at the castle bell.
Suddenly, with the swiftness of a mechanical trick, a deep stillness of
voice and gesture fell upon the tumult. It was as though some wizard had
made his spell and turned them all to stone. Every eye turned towards
Outfangthef and a lane opened among the people. Fulke was seen coming
down the steps, and behind him was his sister, the Lady Alice de la
Bourne.
The lady stayed on her coign at the head of the stairway, palpitating,
and he came slowly down towards the prisoner. In a second they were face
to face.
Twice Fulke put his hand to the pommel of his dagger, and twice he let
it fall away. He said nothing, but his sinister eyes looked steadily at
Hyla till the serf dropped his head before the gaze of his victim's son,
so hard, bitter, and cruel it was.
At last Fulke turned to the soldiers: "Take him to the guard-room," he
said, "and keep him in safety there until I send you word. As for the
rest of you, get you back to work, for there is not a moment to lose.
Let the portcullis fall and heave the drawbridge up, keep station all of
you. I promise you a merry sight with that"--he pointed to Hyla--"ere
long. He will cry meculpee with his heart's black blood."
He saw the two squires and Lewin among the crowd, and nodded that they
should come to him. Then, turning, he went with them into the tower, to
his own room again.
To be frank, there was very little drama in that meeting. One might have
expected drama, Romance would certainly require it, but Fulke was not
the nature to rise to the occasion. He lacked temperament. He would have
better pleased his men if he had made more display. Indeed, as they
separated into little groups and discussed the incident, Dom Anselm was
discovered as the hero of the moment. Holy Church had distinctly scored.
When the Baron reached his room he proceeded to discuss the method of
Hyla's execution with his friends.
He wanted, he said, to make a very public thing of it, indeed he was
quite determined to hang him from the very top of Outfangthef. At the
same time that was far too easy a death.
They turned their four evil brains to the question of torture, a grim
conclave, and, curiously enough, it was the keenest and most refined
intelligence which invented the worst atrocities. Lewin proposed things
more horrible than Fulke could ever have thought of. They applauded him
for his very serviceable knowledge of anatomy. The pain of Hyla, it was
eventually settled, was to last till he could bear no more, and he
should hang from the Tower at the end. With that decision made they fell
drinking, for Hyla was not to suffer until after the mid-day meal.
The two men chosen to inflict the torture were two swarthy foreign
scoundrels from Mirebeau, men who knew no earthly scruple. About two in
the afternoon a little procession started to the guard-house.
Lewin's interest in the proceedings was already over. He did not join
them. He had suggested various tortures, it was a mental exercise which
amused him, but that was all. Nothing would have induced him to watch
his own horrible brutalities being inflicted on the victim.
He threaded his way among the pens of lowing cattle and the litter of
war material to a tower in the forework, and presently, as the long
afternoon waned lazily away, his quick eyes caught sight of a clump of
spears, a mile away, on the edge of the wood.
By half the night was over, Hilgay was invested. All round the walls
camp-fires glowed in the dark, and snatches of song in chorus could be
heard, or a trumpet blaring orders. Now and again the guards upon the
battlements would hear the thunder of a horse's hoofs, as some officer
or galloper went _ventre à terre_ down the village street, and a few
random arrows went singing after him.
Every one anxiously awaited the day.
CHAPTER XVII
"So when this corruptible shall have put on in corruption, and
this mortal shall have put on immortality; then shall be brought
to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy
victory?"
Huber, the man-at-arms, went slowly round the battlements as the sun
rose. He was in full panoply of war time. A steel cap was on his head,
and he wore a supple coat of leathern thongs laced together, and made
stronger by thin plates of steel at the shoulder and upper part of the
arms.
He had a long shield on his left arm, a cavalry shield notched at the
top for a lance. He was inspecting the defences, and he carried this
great shield to protect himself from any chance shaft from the enemy,
for he made a conspicuous mark every now and again against the sky line.
The two squires followed him, well content to learn of such a veteran.
He was pure soldier; nothing escaped him. He saw that each archer, with
his huge painted long-bow, had his bracer and shooting glove ready. He
found three sharp-shooters had only one small piece of wax among them,
and sent for more, cursing them for improvident fools.
When he came to an arbalestrier his eye brightened at the sight of the
weapon--by far the deadliest of that day, despite the praisers of the
English yew--which he loved. He tested the strong double cords with the
moulinet, inspected the squat thick quarrels which lay in large leather
quivers, hung to the masonry by pegs, and saw that each steel-lined
groove was clean and shining.
The man's eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he went his rounds. "Look
you, sir," he said to Brian de Burgh, "we are well set up in this
fortalice. Never a thing is lacking! Nary castle from here to London is
so well found." He pointed to a pile of brassarts, the arm-guards used
by the archers, which lay by a trough full of long steel-headed arrows,
with bristles of goose and pigeon feathers.
"This is a powerful good creature in attack," he continued, pointing to
a heap of lime. "A little water and a dipper to fling the mess with,
and a-burneth out a man's eyes within the hour."
A serf came clambering up the wooden scaffolds which led to the walls.
He carried seven or eight long ash wands. At the end of each hung a long
pennon of linen. He gave them to Huber.
"What are these, Huber?" said young Richard Ferville, as the soldier
took them.
"It is a plan I saw at Arques," he answered, "Tête Rouge was head bowyer
there. _Ma foi_, and he could shoot you a good shoot! At Arques, sir, as
you may know, strong winds blow from the sea on one side, though 'tis
miles inland, and on the other the wind cometh down the valley from
Envermeau. Now but a little breeze will send an arrow from the mark. A
man who can shoot a good shoot from tower or wall must ever watch the
wind. Now Tête-Rouge was a ship-man once, and watched wind in the manner
of use. But he could not train his men to judge a quarter-wind as he was
able. So he raised pennons like these. 'Tis but a ribbon and every
breeze moveth it, so the long-bow-men may shoot the straighter."
As he spoke the archers were fixing the thin poles in staples, which
had been prepared for them.
"Holà!" cried Brian de Burgh, "the bastard's flag goes up." Even as he
spoke a distant flourish of tuckets came down the morning wind. They
leant out over the crenelets and strained their eyes down the hill,
fenwards.
A flag hung from a tall pole, which stood before a white pavilion.
"A banneret!" said Huber. "The bastard has grown in roods and perches of
late. Can you read it for me, Master Richard?"
The squire made a funnel of his hands and gazed at the flag. "A moline
cross, if I see aright," he said, "but it does not matter. Roger's flag
eke his coat-armour, are what he has a mind to use, not what he useth by
any right of birth."
"Can'st see what they are doing out by the carts--by the edge of the
orchard?"
"Yes, sir. They be working on the mantelets, and anon they will wheel
them up to protect those who would raise a palisade on the moat's edge.
But come, Master Richard, we must be on the rounds. Much must be looked
to. Now look you, Sir Brian, in a siege the hoards are your defender's
chief stand-by. Now we are going into each one, for it is in those
defences that we must trust in time of attack. When your hoards are
breached, then your castle is like to fall."
He spoke with the technical assurance of a veteran--a sergeant-major
respectfully imparting his own riper knowledge to a brace of subalterns.
The "hoards" were wooden structures, little pent-house forts, run out
from the curtains, standing on great beams which fitted into holes in
the masonry. From behind the breastwork of thick wood the archers could
shoot with a freedom--this way and that--which was denied them by the
long oblique openings in the wall itself. They commanded all points.
The group walked out along the narrow gangway, which stretched out over
the black moat below, and entered the temporary fort of wood. It was
built for the accommodation of four or five men, sharpshooters, who were
practically safe from everything but heavy artillery fire from mangonel
and catapult.
They surveyed the scene before them in silence. The morning had risen
clear, calm, and hot. For weeks the morning had been just as this was,
and they had strolled along the battlements to catch the cool air and
sharpen an early appetite. But on those other days the meadows beyond
the moat, which ran to the forest edge, had been silent and empty, save
for herds of swine and red peaceful cattle. Now, but two hundred yards
away, scarce more than that it seemed in the clear keen air of dawn,
were the tents, the dying fires, the litter and stir, of a great hostile
camp.
The lines of men, horses, and carts, stretched away right and left in a
long curve, till Outfangthef hid them on one side, and the gateway
towers, with their pointed roofs, upon the other.
They could hear the trumpets, the hammers of the carpenters, a confused
shouting of orders, and the hum of active men, as the besiegers began to
prepare the manifold engines of attack, which--perhaps before night
fell--would be creeping slowly towards the walls of Hilgay.
That great low shed which lay upon the ground like a monstrous tortoise,
would presently creep slowly towards them, foot by foot, until it
reached the edge of the moat, and the men beneath it would build their
great fence of logs and empty carts of rubbish into the sullen waters.
They could see men upon the sloping roofs, gradually sloping from a
central ridge, men like great flies, nailing tanned hides over the
beams. The sound of tapping hammers reached them from the work which
should be protective of Greek fire and burning tar from above.
And against the light green of the meadow-lands, and the darker olive of
the thick forest trees, the many colours of pennons, the glint of
sunlight upon arms, gave the animation of the scene an added quality of
picturesqueness. How "decorative" it all was! how vivid and complete a
picture! And yet how stern and sinister in meaning.
"BELLA PREMUNT HOSTILIA,
DA ROBUR, FER AUXILIUM."
The soldiers were silent as they leaned out over the pent-house. Huber
crossed himself, for the chapel bell began to toll down below in the
fortress.
The squires left the works and descended to the bailey. Huber remained
on the wall. From where he stood he could see all over the castle. Such
of the garrison as were not on guard or employed in active preparation
straggled slowly over the grass towards the chapel door. Some of the
serfs followed, the man-at-arms could easily distinguish their
characteristic dress.
He turned curiously pale beneath his bronze. Then his eyes turned
towards the noble tower Outfangthef, and presently fixed themselves on a
low iron door, between two buttresses, which was nearly below the level
of the yard, and must be reached by a few old mildewed steps.
His eyes remained fixed upon the archway of the door, and his face
became full of a great gloom and horror.
The sentinels passed and re-passed him as he stared down below with set
pale features. At length he turned and entered one of the hoards. The
angle of the side hid him from view of the men upon the walls.
There Huber knelt down and prayed for the serf who had saved his life on
Wilfrith Mere, and now lay deep down behind that iron door.
The strong man beat his breast and bowed his head. As he prayed, with
unwonted tears in his eyes, he heard the distant silver tinkle that
meant the elevation of The Host. He bowed still lower with his hands
crossed upon his breast.
For to this rugged and lonely worshipper also, the message was coming
that all men are brothers.
"_Suscipe, sancte Pater,--hanc immaculatam Hostiam_," that was what
Anselm was saying down there in the chapel; and He who heard the one
offering would not despise the other, a broken and a contrite heart.
And so farewell to Huber.
* * * * *
In a dark place, under the ground, full of filth and rats, Hyla lay
dying in the crucet hûs. It is not necessary to say how they had used
him.
He was not unconscious, though now and again the brain would fly from
the poor maimed body, but the swoon never lasted long.
In the long and awful night, in that black tomb, with no noise but the
pattering of the rats, what did he think of?
I think there were two great emotions in his heart. He prayed very
earnestly to God, that he might die and be at peace, and he cried a
great deal that he could not say goodbye to Gruach. The unmarried
cannot know how bitterly a man wants his wife in trouble. Hyla kept
sobbing and moaning her name all night.
The second day, though he never knew a day had gone down there, they had
but little time to torture him, and after half an hour of unbearable
agony he was left alone in silence. No one but an enormously strong man
could have lived for half as long.
Still in his brain there was no thought of martyrdom, and none of the
exaltation that it might have given. Although he prayed, and believed
indeed, that God heard him, his imaginative faculties were not now acute
enough to help him to any ghostly comfort. Continually he whimpered for
Gruach, until at length he sank into a last stupor.
At last, at the end of the afternoon, his two torturers came and unbound
the maimed thing they had made.
"It is the end now, Hyla," said one of them, "very soon and it will be
over. They are all a-waiting, and my Lord Roger Bigot of Norwich has
given us an hour's truce, while we kill you, you dog!"
They untied the thongs, and lifted him from the cruel stones. One of
them gave him a horn of wine, so that he might have a little strength.
It revived him somewhat, and they half led, half carried him up the
stairs. Up and on they went, on that last terrible journey, until the
lantern, which was carried by a soldier in front of them, began to pale
before rich lights of sunset, which poured in at the loop-holes in the
stairway wall.
They were climbing up Outfangthef.
The fresh airs of evening played about them. After the stench of the
_oubliette_, it was like heaven to Hyla.
They passed up and up, among the chirping birds, until a little
ill-fitting wooden door, through the chinks of which the light poured
like water, showed their labour was at an end. The serf's spirits rose
enormously. At last! At last! Death was at hand. At this moment of
supreme excitement, he nerved himself to be a man. The occasion altered
his whole demeanour. Almost by a miracle his submissive attitude dropped
from him. His dull eyes flashed, his broken body became almost straight.
The heavy, vacuous expression fled from his face never to return, and
his nostrils curved in disdain, and with pride at this thing he had
done.
It was better to be hanged on a tower like this than on the tree at the
castle gate, he thought as the little door opened.
They came out upon the platform in the full blaze of the setting sun.
Far, far below, the smiling woods lay happily, and the rooks called to
each other round the tree-tops. The river wound its way into the fen
like a silver ribbon. Peace and sweetness lay over all the land.
Hyla turned his weary head and took one last look at this beautiful
sunset England.
A great cheering came from below as the execution party came out on the
battlements, a fierce roar of execration.
While they were fitting his neck with the rope, Hyla looked down. The
castle was spread below him like a map, very vivid in the bright light.
Hundreds of tiny white faces were turned towards him. Outside the walls
he saw a great camp with tents and huts, among which fires were just
being lit to cook the evening meal.
At last, on the edge of the coping they let him kneel down for prayer.
Lord Fulke had not yet sounded the signal, down in the court-yard, when
they should swing him out.
He did not pray, but looked out over the lovely countryside with keen
brave eyes. Freedom was very, very near. FREEDOM at last! The soldiers
could not understand his rapt face, it frightened them. As he gazed, his
eye fell on a round tower at the far end of the defences. Down the side
of the tower a man was descending by means of a rope. Although at this
distance he appeared quite small, something in the dress or perhaps in
the colour of the hair proclaimed it to be Lewin. The executioners saw
him also.
"God!" said one of them. "There goes our minter to Roger. The black
hound!"
He bent over the edge of the abyss and shouted frantically to the crowd
below, but he could convey no meaning to them. The little moving figure
on the wall had disappeared by now, but a group of men standing at the
moat-side showed that he was expected.
Hyla saw all this with little interest. He was perfectly calm, and all
his pain had left him. Already he was at peace.
A keen blast from a trumpet sounded in the courtyard below, and came
snarling up to them.
There was a sudden movement, and then the two hosts of the besiegers and
besieged saw a black swinging figure sharply outlined against the ruddy
evening sky.
Justice had been done. But may we not suppose that the death notes of
that earthly horn swelled and grew in the poor serf's ears, pulsing
louder and more gloriously triumphant, until he knew them for the silver
trumpets of the Heralds of Heaven coming to welcome him?
Deo Gratias.
THE END
* * * * *
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The Assertion of the I
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* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: The oe ligature has been expanded. The
punctuation and spelling is as was printed, with the exception
of histor which is now history, one case of where which is now
were, gentleman is now gentlemen, be is now he, someting is now
something, climbling is now climbing, and seemes is now seems.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Serf" ***
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