O the Castle of Heart's Delight!The winds of the sunrise know it,And the music adrift in its airy halls,To the end of the world they blow it—Music of glad hearts keeping timeTo bells that ring in a crystal chimeWith the cadence light of an ancient rime—Such music lives on the winds of nightThat blow from the Castle of Heart's Delight!O the Castle of Heart's DelightWhere you and I go faring—Heritage dear of love and toil,Guerdon of faith and daring.For all may win to the ancient gate,Though some are early and some are late,And each hath borne with his hidden Fate,—For never a man but hath his rightTo enter his Castle of Heart's Delight!
“What a beautiful place this is,” Lady Philippa said softly. She was standing with her husband near the great stone keep, looking out across a half-built wall at the hills and valleys of his wilderness domain. It was one of those mornings of early summer when the air is cool yet bright with sunshine, and the unfolding beauty of the world has something of heaven in it. Birds were singing everywhere, and the green of new leaves clothed the land in elvish loveliness. “Your England is very fair, Gualtier.”
“It is good that you find it so, love,” answered the knight. He had had misgivings a-plenty in bringing his gently-bred Provencal wife to this rough country. Often he had to be absent from dawn to moonrise, riding on some perilous expedition. He and his little force of men-at-arms and yeomen were doing police work on the Welsh border, and no one ever knew just when the turbulent chiefs of those mountains would attempt a raid.
Lady Philippa never complained. She ruled her household as he ruled his lands, wisely and well. She called her husband Gualtier instead of Walter, because he liked it, and sang to her lute the canzons and retronsas of her country, but she seemed to love his England as he did. She talked to the woodcutters' wives and the village women and farm people as if she had played in childhood about their doors. In fact the knight had a shrewd notion that if he had been a bachelor the taming of his half-British, half-Saxon peasantry would have been far less easy.
He had not wished to dominate and overawe the people, but to win them to true loyalty. He had known exactly what he wanted when he selected the place for his castle, and a man who knows his own mind can usually find men to do his work.
A castle in that place and time was a little town in itself, and it must be able to exist by itself when necessary, without markets or factories or outside help of any kind. Like most Normans the knight was a born builder, and had taken care to make his castle as proof against attack, and as scientifically built, as castle could be. Each landowner had to be his own architect. Certain general rules were followed, of course. The keep, the fosse, the inner and outer bailey, the general construction, were much the same in all fortresses of Normandy or Norman Britain. But no two sites were alike, and the work had to be planned not only according to the shape of the hill but with reference to the material to be had, the amount and quality of labor at hand, and the climate. This castle was on a hill not high originally, but made some fifty feet higher by heaping up earth and stone to bring the whole top somewhere near the level of the huge rock on which the keep was built. On that side the river flowed almost under the precipitous western face of the mount, so that a stone could be dropped from the battlements into the water. The young page, Roger, thought he could fish from his window if he could get a line long enough. The keep was still the living-place of the family, but the double line of stone wall encircling the mount was finished, and at exposed points small watch-towers were placed, known as the mill-tower, the armorer's tower, the smith's tower or the salt-tower, according to their use. If the castle should be attacked each one of these outworks would be the post of a small garrison and stubbornly defended, while the keep could be held almost indefinitely. The deep cellars would hold grain and salt meat enough for months, and there was a spring within the walls. Even the narrow windows were so shaped that an arrow aimed at one of them would almost certainly strike the cunningly-sloped side and rebound, instead of entering the building. The gate was of massive timbers held together by heavy iron hinges and studded with nails, and above it was a projecting stone gallery connecting the two gateway towers. This gallery was machicolated, or built with a series of openings in the floor, through which the defenders could shoot arrows upon the besiegers, or pour boiling pitch down upon them. This was a Saracen contrivance, and had been suggested and supervised by Sir Hugh l'Estrange, who had seen the like in Spain.
There was one place where all plans had gone wrong, and that was a part of the wall near the keep, almost under the windows of the well-chamber. It had been built three times, and always, before it was done, the stones would begin to slip and sink. Yesterday a section of wall had gone clean over into the river and carried a mason with it. Fortunately he could swim, and though nobody thought he would come out alive, he had scrambled up the bank very cold, somewhat bruised, and sputtering like a wet cat.
That brought the matter to a crisis. There were uneasy whispers of a curse on the mount, a tradition that no castle built there would ever be finished, an old custom of sacrificing some human being to be buried under the foundation of a castle for the pacifying of the ancient gods. And all of this uncanny terror was somehow connected with a hill some distance away toward the forest-clad mountains, where a low brown-tiled cottage crouched like a toad, under a poplar whose leaves were ever twinkling in the sun.
“Gualtier,” queried Lady Philippa, her eye following his, “what is it about old Mother Izan? The maids have been telling all sorts of foolish tales about her enchantments. What has she been doing?”
The knight laughed, but not very mirthfully. “Nothing whatever, in my opinion. But I may as well tell you—they say that she has overlooked the mount so that we shall never be able to finish this corner of the wall. It is vexatious, because I meant that nook for your garden. It is the only place that is sheltered from the wind and at the same time has sunshine and a good outlook. But the wall has thrice been all but finished, and each time the stones have begun to sink and topple. This time Howel the mason was nearly killed. Of course, a feeble bent old woman who can hardly hobble ten rods cannot have undermined a wall at this distance. That is absurd. But the panic the men have got into is not. That wall will have to be finished—somehow.”
Lady Philippa looked at the tumbled masses of stone. “It would be a charming place for roses,” she mused, and looked again at the cottage, where beside the door a gleam of water caught the light. “That is the spring they call the Fairies' Well.”
“Yes; it is one of the oldest wells in this part of England. The water is pure as the sunlight, and never fails. Hugh thinks it may be one of the places the heathen priests held sacred. It is not so very long since the people worshiped pagan gods.”
The lady traced a pattern in the dust with the point of her slender shoe. “I think,” she said, “that I will take the children and ride over to see Mother Izan.”
The knight made no objection, for the country was quiet, and he could see the party from the castle mount as they set forth, Lady Philippa on her black Arabian jennet, Eleanor and Roger on their forest ponies.
The children had had their own discussion about that wall the day before, and returned to it as they rode along the trail that led to Mother Izan's cottage. It was a longer way than it seemed from the height, for a marsh full of tall reeds almost encircled the hill on which the Fairies' Well was, and the trail kept to the high moorland above.
“I do wonder what is the matter with the wall,” mused Eleanor. “Do you suppose it can be bewitched, Roger?”
“Maybe,” Roger admitted. “But if Mother Izan can't keep her cow out of the bog I don't see how she could pull down a stone wall. It's like the story of Dinas Emrys father told me,” he added with relish. “King Vortigern was building a castle on Snowdon, and every night whatever they had built in the daytime fell down. After awhile they sent for old Merlin to see what the matter was. And it was two great serpents in a pool away down under the foundation. One was white and one was red, and they fought all the time. First the white one had the best of it, but the red one beat him at last, and chased him out of the pool. Merlin told them that the red serpent meant the British and the white serpent the Saxons, and the British would drive the Saxons out. But they haven't done it yet.”
This was deliciously horrible. “You don't suppose there are snakes under our castle, do you, Roger?”
“Of course not,” said Roger, pulling in his lively pony. “That was nothing but a tale. I wish I could bore a hole into the cliff, and see.”
“Collet says Mother Izan is a witch,” said Eleanor, abandoning the subject of snakes. “She hated it, when mother used some of her herb drinks last year.”
“I like Mother Izan,” said Roger sturdily. “She cured my leg once, when a stone fell on it—long before you came, when I was a little fellow.” Roger was not quite ten. “She knows more about plants and animals than anybody. Ruric let her doctor his dog, the big one he calls Cuchullin.”
“Collet doesn't like Ruric either,” said Eleanor.
“She doesn't like anybody here really, except mother and me. I never mind very much about what she says. There's Mother Izan in the doorway,—and oh, what has she got hanging up in the big tree?”
The old woman was a queer bent creature with greenish eyes like a cat's, and white unruly hair that would not stay under her coif. In fact she looked not unlike a gaunt, grim old puss who had all her life fought what crossed her path, from snakes to staghounds. She was so old that the village people could not remember when she had been young, and her grandsons were elderly men.
A wicker basket hung from the lowest branch of the poplar tree. In it, cradled in close fine-woven osiers with a lining of rabbitskin, lay a solemn black-eyed baby, looking almost as old as the old woman herself.
“It's like a changeling,” thought Eleanor, looking with fascinated eyes at the weird little being. Lady Philippa smiled, and laid her hand softly on the furry black head. “This is an unusual sight in your cottage,” she said. “Whence came it, Goody?”
“Tis none of mine,” old Izan grumbled, “'tis the brat of a scatter-brained woman—Kate, wife to Howel the mason. She came screeching at me saying the babe was a changeling I had left in place of her child of two years, and I should care for it. I have no mind for the tending of babes at my time of life, but I could not let the creature starve. Natheless 'tis but ill fed, for my cow was lost in the marsh, and none will let me have milk for it. Kate she's dead of a fever, and Howel will have naught of the young one, so I have made shift as I could, with bread soaked in herb drink.”
Lady Philippa was twisting a vine-garland into a leafy canopy to keep the sun from the baby's eyes. “'Tis a pretty baby,” she said, “though so small. The cow that was lost in the marsh—how did that happen?”
The old woman's eyes blazed with hatred. “My lady, the lads of the village drove her there, and the poor hunted beast floundered into a quagmire. I cursed them well for it, but that does not bring back the good cow. And Howel will do nothing for me because the child is so weazened and so small.”
The lady frowned. “It is all wrong,” she said, “the lads' cruelty and the cursing of them and the blame of the woman who thought you had witched her child. Sir Walter shall send you a goat that you can tether within sight of the cottage. In my country the folk often feed their babes on goat's milk, and I would like well to taste goat's milk cheese again. Is Howel at work now?”
“He was, my lady, but since he fell into the water he swears that he will work no more on the wall.”
Lady Philippa spoke but with winsome frankness,—“The men say, good mother, that the wall is witch-ridden because it has fallen thrice. They are afraid, that is why they do not reason. Surely in God's world we should be safe from such evil, if we serve Him. Perhaps if the baby grows fat and merry, Howel will be kinder. Has it been christened yet?”
“Nay—what have we to do with such gear? But my lady—heard ye never the old rhyme—
“'Overlook the Fairies' Well—None did that since Adam fell;Overlook the Fairies' Hill—Then Old Nick shall have his fill.'”
“That has naught to do with our castle,” said the lady wonderingly. “Look—the keep is no higher than your roof-tree. My lord chose not the site for its loftiness but for the sure foundation.”
“Aye,” chuckled the old woman, “you say well, 'tis a good foundation. All but that corner. Tell your lord to raise no towers on that corner.”
“I am sorry the wall has given so much trouble,” Lady Philippa said regretfully, “for that is the only place for my garden—my roses and violets and herbs. My lord will try once more to finish it. If I might have but that piece of garden it would be like a bit of my old home, and that is a dear treasure, Mother Izan, in a foreign land.”
Her voice trembled as she spoke, and Eleanor pressed close to her mother's side and held her hand. She had never heard a word before about her mother's longing for Provence.
As the three rode away old Izan stood for a long time, shading her eyes and gazing after them. Next morning a village boy in charge of Roger came up the path to her door, leading two bleating bewildered goats, which were securely fastened to a stake to graze at will.
“I came myself,” said Roger loftily, “because I meant to make sure that it was all right. I haven't forgotten the time you cured my leg, Mother Izan, and neither has father. Have those blue-tit eggs hatched yet?”
The old woman's brown withered face crinkled in a smile. “Trust you, Master Roger!” she muttered. “Come still.”
She hobbled around to the rear of the cottage and paused to draw aside a branch. Roger cautiously peered through the leaves, and a hiss like that of an angry snake sounded within.
“If I didn't know it was a bird I should think there was a snake or a cross cat in there,” said Roger, after he had had a look at the small but spirited bird-mother. “What ever makes her do that, Mother Izan?”
Old Izan put out a gnarled hand to feed the titmouse a few live insects. “Same as an old woman don't mind folk saying she's a witch so they let her alone, mayhap,” she said. “You'd not reach your hand in there if 'twas an adder's nest, I reckon.”
“I'm teaching Eleanor all the birds' names,” went on Roger, quite at his ease, munching a bit of flag-root. “They don't have the same names here that they do in Normandy, you know. Old Jehan—the gardener that used to know Eleanor's grandfather—taught me all their names when I was there. The nuthatch is Pic Macon, and the mum-ruffin is Pendolin, and the robin is Marie-Godrie. I'm going to show Eleanor the nest next time we come, if you don't mind.”
To the surprise of everybody old Izan rode up the castle mount one day on a borrowed donkey. “Howel he loaned it to me,” she explained dryly. “Seems like he has less fear of witches since little Gwillym began to fat up. I have secret things to speak of to my lord, Master Roger. Will 'ee take him word?”
In private, with only Sir Walter and Lady Philippa to hear, the old woman told her secret.
“'Tis the Fairies' Well that drags down your wall,” said she. “My grandfather told me the tale, and he had it from his father. The outlet is a hidden stream that runs underground to the river, and not the stream in the marsh as folk think. The underground channel goes under a corner of your mount. When the snows melt and the waters are strong in mountain and in valley, then rises the water in this channel, deep under the mount, and heaves at the rocks above it and throws down your wall. That is all the witchcraft of it. So long as 'twas your stones and battlements that fell I cared no whit, but when my lady told me that she would have her garden there I could not bear to think of the peril for her and the younkets. I am no witch, my lord, unless it be Satan that gives us to know more than others. But I have hated the Normans who came here to steal our land, and have helped my people to harass them in years gone by. All but you and Sir Hugh l'Estrange, they have despoiled and plagued the folk. But build no wall above the stream, for 'twill fall—'twill fall—'twill fall. The waters will pull it down.”
The knight sat thinking, his hands on the arms of his tall carved chair. “I am not so sure,” he said. “Maybe we can lift the curse on the mount and make the wall secure. You shall dwell in peace by your well so long as you may live, and your children after you, if you will show me where this channel goes and keep the secret. Tis in my mind that it is best to keep it secret still.”
The old woman looked up with bright inquiring eyes.
“See you,” the knight went on, “if we dig a channel to let the waters run to the river by a shorter swifter way there will be no more trouble. I think that we will make an excuse of draining the marsh. Then if we can, when the underground way is no more the channel of the stream, we will wall it in to make a secret passage from the castle in time of need. You have kept the secret so long that I may trust it with you—and there will be no more talk of the powers of evil taking toll of my people.”
Sir Walter rose and went his way, and in due time consulted with his head mason about the canal to the river. But Lady Philippa came and took both old Izan's work-hard hands in hers, and thanked her, with tears in her eyes. Thereafter no more masonry fell above the hidden waters, and the cottage by the Fairies' Well was left in peace.
LULLABY OF THE PICT MOTHER
Hush thee, my baby O! never thee cry,Cradled in wicker, safe nested so high.Never gray wolf nor green dragon come near,—Tree-folk in summer have nothing to fear.Hee-o, wee-o, hear the wild bees hummin',See the blackcock by the burnie drummin',—Wattle-weaving sit we snug and couthie,—Hee-o, wee-o, birdling in our boothie!Hush thee, my baby O! dark is the night—Cuddle by kiln-ring where fire burns bright.Trampling our turf-roof wild cattle we hear—Cave-folk in winter have nothing to fear.Kling-klang, ding-dong, hear the hammers clinking—Stone pots, iron kettles, copper cups for drinkin'!Elf-shots for bowmen plough a mighty furrow—Hee-o, wee-o, foxling in our burrow!Hush thee, my baby! The Beltane's aglow,Making the deasil the wiseacres go.Brewing our heather-wine, dancing in round—Earth-folk are we, by her spells are we bound.Hee-o, wee-o, hear the pipes a-croonin',Like the dragon's beetle-wings a-droonin',Dyeea guard us from the Sword-man's quellin',—Hee-o, wee-o, bairnie in our dwellin'!Hush thee, my baby O! hear the dogs bark,Herdin' the lammies home out o' the dark.Cradled and christened frae goblin's despite,House-folk we hear the kirk bells through the night.Hee-o, wee-o! hear the cricket chirrin',Hear auld Bawthrens by the ingle purrin',—Christ us keep while daddie's gone a-huntin'!Hee-o, wee-o, bonnie Babie Buntin'!The winds and the waters our Father shall praise,The birds, beasts and fishes shall tell o' His ways.By seashore and mountain, by forest and ling,O come all ye people, and praise ye our King!
Philosophers generally incline to the opinion that the werewolf has no tail. Therefore, this being the sign—”
“Nennius positively states that in certain Irish families, the power to change at will into a wolf—”
“And who knows how numerous may be these abominable wizards?”
Padraig, the scribe, sat listening intently while the company around the guest-house fire discoursed in monk-Latin of werewolves in Ireland. “In saecula saeculorum”—“ab incunabilis horrendum”—“quocunque nomine notandum”—“coram diabolo”—the sonorous many-syllabled phrases clattered like the noise of rooks in treetops. It was January, the “wolf-month” of old English shepherds. Meadows ran floods of icy half-melted snow; mountain winds were screaming about the cloisters, and for two days travelers had been weather-bound at the Abbey.
Some time before, there had been rumors of wolves infesting the hills and displaying in their forays an all but human boldness and cunning. Then other tales began to be whispered. The peasantry huddled early about their turf-fires, and the shepherds of the Abbey sought counsel from their superior. They got small comfort from the Abbot, who curtly ordered them to attend to their duty and avoid vain babblings.
All the same, among the manuscript volumes in the nest-egg of a library the monks possessed, there were chronicles that mentioned the werewolf. Marie de France in her “Lays” included the Breton romance of Bisclaveret, the loup-garou. The nerves of the weaker ones began to play them tricks. It was less and less easy to keep unbroken the orderly round of monastic life.
This little religious community, toiling earnestly and faithfully under wise direction, might in time bring some comfort and prosperity into a desolate land. Ireland had once been known as the Isle of Saints. Now, despoiled by warring kings, pagan Danes and finally the Norman adventurers under Strongbow, the people were in some districts hardly more than heathen. This Abbey, set by Henry Plantagenet in a remote valley, was like a fort on the frontier of Christendom. The people were sullen, suspicious, ignorant, and piteously poor. To deal with them demanded all that a man had of courage, faith and wisdom. And now came these rumors of men-wolves.
When the floods had gone down and the guests departed, Brother Basil in the scriptorium found Padraig diligently at work on a new design for the border of the manuscript he was illuminating. The central figure was that of a wolf crouching under a thorn-bush to slip out of the shaggy skin which disguised his human form. Under his feet lay a child unconscious. At a distance could be seen the distracted mother, and other wolves pursued terrified people flying to shelter. Once, before he came to the Abbey, Padraig had been chased by wolves, and had spent the night in a tree. He drew his wolf with a lifelike accuracy, inspired by the memory of those long, cold hours under a winter moon.
Instead of pausing with a word of criticism or suggestion, as usual, Brother Basil took up the drawing and put it in his scrip. All that he said was, “Find another design, Padraig, my son.”
To others Padraig might seem an unruly spirit, neither to command nor to coax, but the word of Brother Basil was his law and his gospel. He began to draw new figures on fresh parchment, but he could not quite put out of his mind the unlooked-for fate of his wolf. Current gossip often gave hints for the work of the illuminators, and he knew the work had been good.
It was plain enough that Brother Basil was in one of his absent-minded fits. There was no beguiling him into talk at such times. If any of those under his direction presumed upon his mood to do careless or ill-judged work, they found his eye as keen and his word as ready as usual. But his mind—his real self—was not there. Padraig wondered whether this could have any connection with the unlucky picture.
Next day there was deeper concern in the scriptorium. Brother Basil was not present at all. The work went on under Brother Mark, the librarian, but the heart of it was not the same. The untiring patience, brilliant imagination and high ideals of the man who was not only their master but their friend, had made him the soul of the little group of artists. He could not be away for a morning without every one feeling the difference. At times he had gone afield for a day or even longer, searching for balsams, pigments, minerals and other things needed for the work, but he had nearly always taken Padraig with him. This time he had gone alone.
Padraig was as curious as a squirrel and as determined as a mink, and he wished very much to know what this meant. He did not exactly believe the werewolf story, although it had so impressed him that he could not help making the picture; but he did not like to think of it in connection with the mysterious absence of Brother Basil. A priest of the Church might be able to defy a loup-garou, but if the wolves were real ones they might not know him from any ordinary man.
There is no land so full of fairy-lore and half-forgotten legends as Ireland. Princes in their painted halls and slaves in their mud cabins listened to the shanachies or wandering story-tellers, with wonder, terror and delight. Cluricaunes, banshees, giants, witches, monsters, pookas and the little red-capped people of the fairy rings, were known to the dwellers in many a wattled hut where Padraig had slept. Old people who spoke no language but their own luminous Irish winged his young imagination with tales far more marvelous than those of Nennius, the monk of Bangor.
Still, Padraig had never himself seen any of these extraordinary beings. He also suspected that Brother Basil would not vouch for the truth of everything in the Latin books he taught his pupils how to read.
Days passed, and Brother Basil had not returned. The uneasiness among the monks was growing. It was said that the Abbot himself was as much in the dark as they were. Padraig had just made up his mind that he could endure it no longer, when the Abbot sent for him.
It had been decided, Padraig learned, that he, as Brother Basil's wonted companion on such excursions, would have the best chance of finding him now. All that any one knew was that he had gone out of the great gate one morning early, and no one had seen him since.
“Nobody would,” said Padraig, “if he went straight north into the hills. No one lives near the old road through the forest.”
It was in that direction that all the wolf-tracks had led from the sheep-fold, and the country was a wilderness of marsh and mountain. The Abbot looked at the boy keenly, kindly.
“Are you willing to go alone?” he asked.
“It is the best way,” Padraig replied quickly. “One can get on faster,—and there are not many here who can climb like him. I think he must have met with an accident far from any dwelling.”
“He is well beloved by the people. If any one had found him we should have heard. And you have no fear?”
Padraig hesitated. “There are many frightful things in the world,” he said slowly. “Long ago I knew that if I let myself fear, fear would be my master all the days of my life. But I am not like the others. I am his dog. I will find him if I live.”
“Go, my son, and God be with you,” said the Abbot solemnly. And Padraig went.
He took three days' provision in a leathern bag, and a pike such as the countrymen used, and headed straight toward the hills. He knew that copper was to be found in some parts of the range, but why Brother Basil should go there alone, particularly just at this time, Padraig could not see.
He trotted over the slopes of tilled land near the Abbey, forded the river, circled a pond, and crossed a bog by froglike leaps from hassock to hassock. In time he came to the base of a steep rocky height, almost a precipice. On the left was a black mud-hole; to the right were craggy masses of rock. A long slanting break in the cliff led upward to the left. He thrust his staff in this and began to climb.
Thus far there was no choice, for this was the only direction Brother Basil could have taken without some one having seen him on the way. From the height it might be possible to make observations.
Only a gossoon of the hills could have gone up the face of the rock as Padraig did, and he presently found himself on a ledge about twenty feet up, above the quagmire. It was less than a foot wide at first, but widened toward the left, and seedling trees had formed a growth which appeared to merge into the densely wooded hill beyond. He pushed his way along this insecure foothold until the trees began to thin as if there were an open space beyond. Then directly in front of him sounded the unmistakable snarl of a wolf.
There was no time to think. He braced himself against the cliff, and grasping his pike, awaited the assault of the beast. Either he or the wolf, or both together, would be tumbled into the slough. But there followed only a guttural word of command in Irish. Then a voice that he knew called, “Padraig, my son, is that you?”
Nothing in heaven or earth could have stopped Padraig then. He broke through the thicket into the clearing, and halted, breathless and amazed.
Brother Basil, unharmed and serene, sat upon a rude wooden bench at the entrance of a cave, and around him were gathered wolves and wolf-like human beings clad in wolf-pelts. One, who seemed the leader, stood erect, broad-shouldered and muscular, in a mantle made of the hide of a giant wolf, the head shaped into a helmet to be drawn mask-like down over the face. A fire smoldered in the cave's black throat, and meat—mutton-bones—roasted on a sharpened stake thrust into a crevice of the rock. An old woman, wasted and wrinkled, wrapped in a yellow-gray wolfskin lined with lamb's wool, lay on a pile of leaves near the fire, and savage heads emerging from the undergrowth might have been those of wolves, or of men in the guise of wolves.
In the craziest legends of the chronicles there was no such scene as this. For one whirling moment Padraig believed everything he had heard or read of werewolf or of loup-garou. In the name of Saint Kevin, what could this be but the very lair of the beast? Yet Brother Basil showed neither fear nor aversion. Padraig knelt to kiss the outheld hand.
“Father,” he faltered, “they sent me to find you.”
“It is well that you have come,” the monk answered with his untroubled smile, “you and no one else. I stumbled upon this place,—really stumbled, for a stone rolled under my foot,—and here I had to stay until this troublesome lame knee would permit me to walk.”
“That is not the whole of it,” growled the leader of the wolf-people. “Our dogs winded him, and had he been like any other monk who ever told beads he would have been pulled down. But he spoke to them in our own tongue, and my mother, hearing his voice, would have him come to her, for she had seen no priest for many years. When he heard our story he said that he would be our friend. And so he would, I believe, had we been what the foolish have thought us.”
“Then,” stammered Padraig, “it is not true that—that—”
“That the loup-garou is abroad in the land?” finished Brother Basil with delicate scorn. “No. Wolves are wolves, and men are men,—and some men are thieves.”
“He means,” snapped the wolf-man, “that one of your own stewards opened the gates to us, using our tracks to hide his own.”
Padraig grinned knowingly. “Simon,” he said. “Simon.”
“Even so,” said Brother Basil.
“He was very zealous about those wolves,” said Padraig, reflectively, “especially about using spiritual weapons and not slings and spears against them. But how—”
“It was the thieving of young lambs of the choicest breed that set the shepherds to thinking there must be more than wolves abroad,” the wolf-leader went on. “But for your Simon, with his long tongue, they might have driven us away, for Abbot Cuthbert is no coward, nor has he patience with cowards. But Simon came upon us one night, when we had broken into the sheep-fold and were making off, and he was not too frightened to choose for himself out of what was left. Then when we came again he gave us the meat we came for, taking certain fine fleeces and lambskins for himself. We stole as the wild creatures do, for food; we have no use for parchments or carded wool. We killed as they kill, to fend off our enemies. The Danish sea-wolves and the armored wild beasts of Strongbow and de Lacy hunted us as if we were wolves indeed. What could we do but hunt as the wolves hunt, snatch our meat where we could, hide like foxes in the holes of the mountain, make ourselves dreaded that we might live, and not die? The Normans brought to Dermot MacMurragh two hundred heads of the men of Ossory for his delight. All my mother's children were killed by them save only myself. Well for you that you are no Norman, young clerk with the red head, or not the word of a hundred priests had saved you.”
“And sooner or later the Norman cross-bows would find you, even as they search out hart or heron,” interposed Brother Basil sternly. “I have warned you, Ruric, that this harrying and plundering must cease. Turn from your wickedness and bear yourselves hereafter as Christian men, and your souls shall live. And because ye were sorely tried, with God's help a way may be opened for you to escape your enemies.
“Padraig, you see here a remnant of the men of Ossory, whom the Normans drove into the inhospitable haunts of the forest. The quarry of that evil hunting ran wild like the dogs who followed their masters. As the country grew more settled, these half-bred wolf-hounds found out the sheepfolds, and led their masters to the spoil.”
“Even a Norman gives the road to the werewolf,” said the Ossorian with a harsh laugh. “The mercy they deny to man or wolf, they granted us when they thought us neither man nor wolf. Aye, we chased them roaring to the very gates of their castles. Had our own people known the truth some of them might have betrayed us, being very poor. Therefore, we made it easiest for them to keep within doors after nightfall, and in this the priests and monks were of great help. Until you, Father, came to seek us out, believing that God had thought even for a man who had lost his human birthright, none hunted or hindered us. We were the masters, being without hope and without fear of God or man.”
“Peace, my son,” said Brother Basil gently. “Padraig, you will go to the Abbot and tell him what you have seen, and ask him of his charity to reveal nothing until I return. I would send him a letter, had I not lost my scrip with my tablets in my encounter with the dogs. Things being as they were, it would not have been safe to send any of Ruric's folk with a message.”
“No,—not with Simon watching the gate,” agreed Padraig, cheerfully. “I wonder does he know how many lies he has told in this matter?”
“He will have enough to do in accounting to the Abbot for those that are known,” said Brother Basil with a certain edge to his voice that Padraig knew well. “I think, however, that he really believes he has had dealings with the werewolf. There are men who would run, shaking with terror, to pledge their souls to the foul fiend if they saw their profit in it. If he knew the truth he could sell his knowledge easily, and I am not disposed to undeceive him now. Since Ruric gave me his promise to end this evil I have thought much of the matter, and I believe that the Abbot will approve my plan. Let him send men with a hurdle to the foot of the cliff to-morrow. No one need be told more than that I am lame through an accident.”
“Some of them will look foolish when they hear that,” Padraig observed with satisfaction. “I grieve for your lameness, Father, and yet I could leap and sing all the way home for joy that it is not as we feared.”
“There would be naught to laugh at if any other man had found us out, I warrant you,” Ruric said gruffly. “The Father won my promise from me by his gentle and comforting words to my old mother in her distress, for she feared to die, knowing how we had lived. I had not thought there could be such fearless faith and kindness in any man. Say to your Abbot moreover that if he, or you, or any of your folk play us false they will find that a werewolf can hunt down anything that runs.”
“If I deceived ye,” Padraig answered gravely, “I would throw myself straightway into the river to cheat your vengeance.” As he tightened the straps of his sandals he looked once more at the strange and savage assembly. There were some thirty men and women and several half-grown youngsters, garbed in wolfskins so shaped as to leave them free to run or climb. Shoes were skilfully fashioned like a great wolf-paw; skins were joined so cunningly that when the wearer loped along a hillside in the chill pale gold of the winter sunset, or skulked among the shadows of summer woods, any one would swear that what he saw was a lurking wolf. The wolf-mask with its long muzzle and furry ears concealed the face, the unshorn beards and hair mingled with the shaggy shoulder-fur of the tunics. A shepherd looking for missing lambs would find only wolf-tracks to guide him. Traps had been sprung or smashed, storehouses rifled, watchdogs killed. Even the hard-headed and harder-hearted Norman huntsmen turned back one day, when they discovered their hounds baying at the foot of a tree.
Padraig knew all about the slaughter done by Dermot MacMurragh and his Norman allies, up and down Ossory. Fierce in their despair, vengeful in their cunning, these refugees had run wild like their dogs. The huge untamed brutes were stronger than collies and wiser than wolves, and nothing could have kept them from raiding any sheepfold that they scented.
The Abbot heard Padraig's story through without comment, his eyes blazing under their shaggy brows. If any one but Brother Basil had asked him to stay his hand, he would not have given two thoughts to it, but it was Brother Basil, and the matter must be considered.
“These men,” he said grimly, “are outlaws, red-handed robbers. They have broken the law of God and man. They deserve justice, not mercy.”
“If they can be caught,” ventured Padraig.
“You think they cannot be taken?”
Padraig shook his head. “I stood as near them as I am to you, and I did not see them until they wished to be seen. They run like foxes and climb like cats. They will be killed or kill themselves, every man and woman of them, rather than be taken. Were it not better they should live like christened souls than be hunted like beasts?”
The Abbot rose and began to pace the floor. “Go, my son,” he said not unkindly, “and send Simon, the steward, to me.”
But Simon was not to be found. Brother Mark, the librarian, being of a distrustful disposition, had been asking many questions of late regarding the parchments prepared for the scriptorium. Simon had perhaps taken fright. He had not returned, in any case, from the nearest market-town, whither he had gone that morning. When it was found that everything upon which he could lay his hands had gone with him, some of the brethren were inclined to think the whole werewolf panic an invention of the steward's to hide his thieving. Padraig went to the foot of the cliff, accompanied by two men with a hurdle, and found Brother Basil safe and in good spirits, but neither wolf, wolfling nor wolf-man was to be seen. Not so much as the sound of a wolf's howling was heard about the sheep-folds, and shepherds and sheep-dogs tended the lambs that spring undisturbed. There were those who said that the werewolves had been driven away by the prayers of Brother Basil when he visited the forest. After awhile a legend grew up and was told to the Welsh clerk Giraldus, about a werewolf who met a priest in the forest and begged him to give Christian aid and comfort to his dying mate. The story goes that the priest remained all night conversing with the unfortunate man, who behaved rather as a man than as a wolf.
When spring stirred the travel on the Irish roads a party of forest folk appeared one day at the Abbey and asked for baptism. Their children had, it appeared, grown up in the wilderness without knowledge of religion. Such things were not unheard of in those days, and after baptism the party went down to the seaport and took ship for England, where they lived for some years in the service of a Norman knight, Hugh l'Estrange. When finally a sort of peace was patched up in Ireland between the Normans and the Irish chiefs, Ruric and his folk returned. But no more was heard of the wolves of Ossory.