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 monksmet in the day-time 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 thechapel, 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 ashrewd, 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 kindlyrègime, 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.
"And after that, the Abbot with his couentHan sped hem for to burien him ful faste."
"And after that, the Abbot with his couentHan sped hem for to burien him ful faste."
"And after that, the Abbot with his couentHan sped hem for to burien him ful faste."
"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 littlechapel 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 forbarter 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 letthere 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. Aman-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 whiteand 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 asudden 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 noenjoyment—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. Realismcan 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 ofour 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, RichardEspec'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 hostageto 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, Hervè of Lèon, 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. Butthe 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 forles 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 beenconsiderably 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 goodfriend, 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 Seèz 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 theHaec 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 greatexcitement. 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 anAveand 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, theAgnus Deiis 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 Bigotwith 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 loudvoice 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, thevicar 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.
"Justorum Animae in Manu dei sunt, et non Tanget Illos Tormentum Malitiae: Visi sunt Oculis Insipientium Mori, Illi Autem sunt in Pace."
"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 andseated themselves upon the stone bench. Two of thefratres conversistood 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, nodoubt, 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 youdevoutly 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 HisHoliness, 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 merefactof 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 theymentioned 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 ofFACT. 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 passageof 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 overwith 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 sawthat 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 cageof 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 themonks 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 deedof 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 andbeautiful 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 theother, 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 makingan 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 thebeginning 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!
"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.'"
"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 andfillest 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 wistwell 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 mindingHisface," said Hyla suddenly.
"Then you are a fool, Hyla. But I wist that is only because 'tis night-time. 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 youwith 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 knownbefore. 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 onlyfeltthis. 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 treesencompassed 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 kindmasters. 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 allround 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.