Thorne Guy
The Serf

"We can survive that," said the sub-prior.

"Yes, yes; I am not accoyed at that, brother, but the letters and tidings from the outside world oppress me. The various and manifold illegalities and imposts which never cease or fail on the wretched people, and the burnings and murders lie heavy on my heart. Oh, our Lord has some wise purpose, I do not doubt, but it is all very dark to mortal eyes."

"I have read," said the sub-prior, "somewhat of history in my time. But never in Latin times, nor can I hear of it of the Greeks, was there such a spirit of devilish wickedness abroad over a land."

"The lords of this country seem to me to be the daemons of hell in mortal dress. Mind you what Robert Belesme did? His godchild was hostage to him for its father, and the father did in some trifling way offend him. Robert tore out the poor little creature's eyes with his nails. William of Malmesbury hath writ it in his book, and, please God, the world will never forget it."

"The king has got to him all the worst rogues from over the seas. William of Ypres, 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. But the man must not get proud. He is a serf, and a serf he will be always. It is in his blood, and it is right that it should be so. I am no upholder of any destruction of order. It is our duty to treat our slaves well, and that we do; but they remain our slaves. Tell the brother who directs the serfs that this Hyla should be well looked to, that he lie in his true place."

The prior concluded with considerable vehemence. No one was more theoretically conservative than he, and although, in this time of anarchy, he approved of Hyla's deed, yet it certainly shocked his instinctive respect for les convenances. It would have been difficult to find a better creature than the fat prior of Icomb, a man more truly charitable, or of a more pious life. But, had the course of this story been different, and had Hyla lived his life at the monastery, he could never have risen in the social scale. If the prior had discovered the force of the man, his potentialities as a social force, he would have sternly repressed them. Hyla's duty was to work, and be fed for his work. The Catholic Church, with its vast hierarchy, its huge social machinery, crushed all progress in the direction of freedom. No doubt, Richard Espec, worthy gentleman though he was, would have been considerably surprised if he had been told that he would be as Hyla, and no more, in heaven. We hear too much about the humility of the priesthood in the early Middle Ages. Of course, the great political churchmen, such as Henry of Winchester or Thurston of York, were petty kings, with ceremonial courts and armies. People knelt as they passed, because they were princes as well as priests. But there is a delusion that the ordinary monk or priest was, in effect, a perfect radical, holding doctrines of equality, at any rate, as far as he himself was concerned. Nothing of the sort was possible in the face of the one crushing social fact of serfdom. Richard Espec would have washed Hyla's feet with pleasure – there was precedent, and it was a formal act of humiliation. At the same time, he would not have made his bed in Hyla's hut or sat with him at meat.

The sub-prior received his superior's remarks with due reverence, and the talk glided into other channels. While they sat there came footsteps running down the cloister, and then a beating at the door. A young monk entered, breathless, and knelt before the prior.

"News, father," said he, and craved permission to tell it. "Father," said the young man, and tears streamed down his cheeks, "our good friend, Sir John Leyntwarden, is dead, and among the martyrs. Sir John was saying Mass at the wayside altar of Saint Alban, the protomartyr whom God loves. Sir John doth ever say a wayside Mass in the early mornings, and calls down a blessing upon the Norwich road thereby. Now the boy Louis 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 the Haec commixtio. Suddenly they heard a loud laugh, and so harsh was it in the holy stillness that verily Satan might have had just such a laugh. Father, thinking that it was indeed some daemon come out of the wood, Sir John started and turned round. There he saw five gentlemen on horseback and in armour. They had ridden up very quietly over the turf. Down the road, a mile away, Sir John saw a great company moving. He saw spears, and the sun on armour and waggons. He knew then that this was some great lord's war train, and that the gentlemen who were watching him had ridden on before."

The young monk stopped a moment for lack of breath and labouring under great agitation. The other two gazed intently at him in great excitement. Sir John Leyntwarden, the priest of Hawle, was their very good friend, and a holy man. The news was horrible.

"Calm, brother," said the prior, "say an Ave and pray a moment, peace will come to you then."

The curious remedy served its turn wonderfully well – wherefore let no man smile at Richard Espec – and the young monk resumed his narrative.

"Then said Sir John to the gentlemen, 'Sirs, the Agnus Dei is not yet, and there is time for you to kneel and take our Lord's Body with us. Vere dignum et justum est aequum et salutare. Then the leader of the party, a powerful, great man, laughed again. Louis says it was verily like a devil mocking, for it was very bitter, mirthless, and cold. This lord said, 'We take no Mass, but, by hell, we will have these thy vessels. They are too good for a hedge priest.' Then he did turn to a lady who sat by upon a white horse, very dark, and with white teeth which laughed. 'What Kateryn?' said he. 'They will make thee a drinking-cup and a plate until I can give thee better from the cellars of Hilgay.' Then Louis knew who it was. That was my Lord Roger Bigot with Kateryn Larose, his concubine, and the war train was on its way to Hilgay Tower to overthrow Fulke de la Bourne.

"Sir John held up the cross at his girdle and dared them that they should come nearer to the Body of Christ. The harlot in the saddle kissed her fingers to him, and the whole company laughed. Then, with no more ado, they took him and bound him. In the melley little Louis slipped away, and the grievous things which happened he saw from a tree hard by. They emptied the chalice and pyx upon the ground. 'Look,' said Lord Roger, 'there is your God, Sir Priest, and thus I treat Him.' With that a-stamped upon the Host, and all the company laughed at that awful crime."

Richard Espec and John Croxton burst into loud cries of pity and horror at this point. Tears rained down the prior's face as he heard how these evil men had entreated the Body and Blood.

"Louis thought to see heaven open and Abdiel drop from the morning sky, like fire, to kill them. But God made no sign.

"Then Sir John, lying bound upon the ground, began to pray in a loud voice that God would terribly punish these men. He called upon them the curse of all the Saints, and he said to Roger Bigot that for this deed he should lie for ever in hell. There was something strange about his voice, or perhaps they were frightened at the curses. Roger ground his mailed heel into Sir John's face till it was no face and he was silent. Then for near half-an-hour they did torture him with terrible tortures, and with one unspeakable. You know, father, in what manner the saints have suffered that have fallen into the hands of Robert, or Roger, or Geoffroi. Sir John could not abear it, and he screamed loudly till his voice rang through all the wood. So died dear Sir John in the fresh morning."

Richard Espec made the sign of the cross, and said solemnly, "Posuisti, Domine, super caput ejus, coronam de lapide pretioso. Alleluia." Then he said, "Go and summon all the brethren to the chapter-house, for I have somewhat to say to them." And being left alone he fell upon his knees in prayer.

The great bell in the centralone began to toll loudly.

This dreadful news touched the prior very nearly. Dom Leyntwarden, the vicar of Hawle-in-the-wood, a tiny hamlet now deserted, was an intimate and close friend of his. The murdered priest was a shrewd adviser upon business affairs, and would often come over to the monastery and be its guest for a few days, to help in any worldly business that might be afoot. He was endeared to the whole Priory. It was a terrible instance of the times in which they lived. The good priest saying Mass at the little wayside altar by the wood in the fresh morning air. The sneering, relentless fiends in mail, and the smiling girl upon her palfrey. In one short hour their friend had passed from them in agony, from the real presence of God into the real presence of God made manifest to his eyes.

The prior was resolved to address the assembled brethren in the chapter-house, not one being absent.

We are enabled to see how all this bore upon the fortunes of Hyla.

Sir John Leyntwarden was martyred by Roger Bigot on his way to attack Hilgay.

Sir John was a friend of the monks with whom Hyla had taken refuge. On the occasion of the news the prior summoned a chapter of the brethren, and all the men living in the monastery village on the hill who were not serfs.

The village was practically empty and free to the hands of a long boat of armed men, which, under cover of the dark, was now moving swiftly over the lake.

CHAPTER IX

"Justorum Animae in Manu dei sunt, et non Tanget Illos Tormentum Malitiae: Visi sunt Oculis Insipientium Mori, Illi Autem sunt in Pace."

The chapter-house at Icomb was a low, vaulted chamber divided into three compartments by rows of pillars bearing arches. A stone seat ran all round it for the monks, and the prior's seat was opposite the entrance. Two arches on each side of the doorway – there was no actual door – allowed the deliberations to be heard outside in the cloister. This was according to the invariable Cistercian plan. No one, save the monks themselves, could actually sit in the chapter-house, but others – in this case, the head men of the village – could stand in the cloister, and so become fully cognisant of the proceedings within.

The brothers filed through the dark cloisters towards the red doorways which showed that the chapter-house was lit within. The big bell in the centralone kept tolling unceasingly. One by one the brothers entered and seated themselves upon the stone bench. Two of the fratres conversi stood by the prior's throne with torches. A sudden murmur of talk hummed through the place. The night was exceedingly hot.

A glance round at the seated figures would hardly have prepossessed the modern spectator. One and all, young and old, were as frowsy and unsavoury a lot as ever poisoned the air of a warm summer's night. The white, emaciated faces smeared with dirt, the matted beards, and glowing, excited eyes, all combined to produce a singularly unpleasant picture.

Yet as the torchlight revealed one distressing detail after another it also played upon a congregation of as holy men as could have been found anywhere in that century. Not for them the licence and luxury of some of the great monasteries, where the monks pursued the deer or set their falcons at feathered game with no less ardour than they followed a petticoat through a wood. Not for them chased cups of pimentum and morat while the tables groaned under fish, flesh and fowl. It is a pity, no doubt, that they were not nice according to our ideas, but we can well forget that if we remember that they were indeed very holy men.

Presently the prior came in and took his seat upon the stone throne after he had said a short Latin prayer. The farmers and other villagers pressed to the archways of the opening, and, rising to his feet, Richard Espec spake in this wise:

"Brethren, this is a perilous time; and such a scourge was never heard since Christ's passion. You hear how good men suffer the death. Brethren, this is undoubted for the offences of England. Ye read, as long as the children of Israel kept the commandments of God, so long their enemies had no power over them, but God took vengeance of their enemies. We have erred, I wist, in our own lives, and God has sent this upon us. For when the Jews broke God's commandments then they were subdued by their enemies, and so be we. Therefore let us be sorry for our offences. Undoubted He will take vengeance of our enemies; I mean those blood-stained lords that causeth so many good men to suffer thus. Alas! it is a piteous case that so much Christian blood should be shed. Therefore, good brethren, for the reverence of God, every one of you devoutly pray, and say this psalm, 'O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled, and made Jerusalem a heap of stones. The dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat to the fowls of the air, and the flesh of Thy saints unto the beasts of the field. Their blood have they shed like water on every side of Jerusalem, and there was no man to bury them. We are become an open scorn to our enemies, a very scorn and derision to them that are round about us. Oh, remember not our old sins, but have mercy upon us, and that soon, for we are come to great misery. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name. Oh, be merciful unto our sins for Thy name's sake. Wherefore do the heathen say, Where is now their God?' Ye shall say this psalm," continued the prior, "every Friday, after the Litany, prostrate, when ye lie upon the high altar, and undoubtedly God will cease this extreme scourge."

Then he went on to tell them of the martyrdom of Dom John, and what a good and holy man he was. "Even now, my dear brethren," said he, "I know him to be a saint in heaven. He has seen God, and talked with His Holiness, Saint Peter. Our Lady has smiled upon him. In the golden streets he has walked with gladness. I think that perhaps he is here with us now, our dear brother, that he sees us, and is full of love towards us all."

As his voice dropped towards the close, full of emotion, there was loud applause. As in very early Christian times, the brethren saluted the oration with a beating of hands.

And with that noise we must leave the hooded figures sitting among the shadows.

The curtain of this short chronicle must fall upon them for ever, in a red light, with black shadows, with the noise of a clapping of hands.

Their lives were framed in stone, and swords were about them. They were very ignorant, very prejudiced, superstitious and dirty – a big indictment! Nevertheless, it is certain that their influence upon the time was good and pure. It is the fashion to rail at monasteries of all periods. Many blockheads can never get over the mere fact of the Dissolution! In a spirit of curiosity I examined half-a-dozen histories of the baser type – the sort of histories that are still given to fourth-form boys and quite grown-up girls. One and all, if they mentioned the monasteries in the reign of King Stephen at any length, either openly condemned them or damned them with faint praise. I take this opportunity of correcting messires, the historians, upon a point of FACT. It is odd that the hopelessly incompetent clergyman-schoolmaster should so invariably turn historian to-day. His monumental and appalling ignorance of the times and peoples he treats of – ignorance unillumined with a single ray of insight – is displayed on every line of his lucubrations. Nothing, apparently, would lead him to read and dig and sift for himself so that he might know just a little of what he writes about. Let me, at any rate, assure him, that while, as is natural, there were plenty of bad monks in the reign of Stephen, as a whole, the monasteries were very praiseworthy institutions, and had a beneficent influence upon the country. In short, my little priory at Icomb, is a perfectly fair and typical example of its class.

While the monks were in the chapter-house, and afterwards attending a special service in the chapel, a long boat glided rapidly over the lake. It was a dark, thunderous night, and nothing betrayed the quiet passage of the craft, save the dusky glitter of the water as the oars rose and sank. Now and again some low orders in Norman-French regulated the pace or altered the direction of the boat.

When the voyagers were about half-way across the mere, as near as they could judge, they heard the sudden tolling of the great bell of the Priory. The sullen, angry notes came across the water, out of the dark, in waves of booming sound. There was a muttered order, and the oars stopped in their swing. The boat rushed on for thirty yards or so, gradually losing its momentum, until at length it became stationary.

"What does that betoken, Huber?" asked a voice.

"I do not know," replied the man-at-arms. "Pardieu, I cannot tell."

"Do you think they know that we are near?"

"Not unless they have found out that Heraud has come with a certain purpose. Perchance Hyla saw him and recognised him."

"Not he. Heraud shaved his face and cropped his hair, and the minter drew lines upon his face, and painted the poor divell's visage all over with some hell brew. I seed them at it. His own mother would never have thought him made of her blood."

"Then, by Godis teeth! what does the bell mean?"

"Oh, the old women are making prayers or saying Mass."

"Pagan! Mass is not at this hour, nor would they ring the great bell in that way."

"Then the prior has given up his vows, and is about to wed the Lady Abbess of Denton, and the monks are ringing for joy that one of them should at length prove himself a man." A chuckle went through the boat at this none too excellent a joke.

"Like enough," Huber said, "but whatever it may mean we must keep our tryst with Heraud. It was to be a church's length from the main landing where the monks keep their boats. A church's length to the left."

"It will not be easy to find, the night is very thick. We must go very slow."

"Yes," said Huber "we must go with great care. Come forward! Are you ready? Allery!"

The boat glided slowly on again towards the direction of the island. Presently a deeper blackness loomed up in front of them, and they saw that they were close to land. The smell of land, of herbage and flowers, came to them, and hot as it had been upon the lake, it seemed hotter now that they were come to shore.

As the nose of the boat brushed the outgrowing reeds, hissing at the contact, the bell on the hill above stopped suddenly. A great silence enveloped them as they waited.

Huber gave a long, low whistle, but there was no answer. He repeated it at intervals of about a minute.

They were getting restive, wondering what might have happened, when Huber changed his tactics. He began to whistle very softly and sweetly – the scamp had a pipe like any bird – the lilt of a love-song. It was a plaintive air which rose and fell delicately in the night. Most of them knew it, for it was a popular song among the soldiers of that day, and had been made by a strolling minstrel one evening in the Picard camp at Gournay, and thence spread all over Northern Europe by the mercenaries.

The men-at-arms began to nod to its rhythm and beat quiet time to it. Then one fellow began to whistle a bass under his breath, and another and another took up the air very quietly, till the boat was like a cage of fairy singing birds. They were so amused by their occupation, and, indeed, they were producing a very pretty concert, that they quite forgot their purpose for the moment, and abandoned themselves one and all to the music. It recalled many merry memories of Tilliers and Falaise, of Mortain and Arques, and of the orchards of their Norman home.

They were beginning the whole thing all over again – so much did it please them – when they became aware of another and more distant augmentation to their concert. They stopped, and the silvery whistle from the bank still shivered out a note or two before it stopped. In a moment more they heard splashing, and a dark figure pushed aside the reeds and waded out to them.

"It is all safe," said the new-comer. "The murderer is here sure enough. He does not know who I am, and I am in a hut close to his."

"Bon," said Huber, "I am glad to see you. Lord Fulke will be very pleased. We feared something was wrong when we heard the bell."

"Depardieux! and well you might. I did not think of that. But natheless, that bell means good fortune for our little plan, my friends. All the monks and all the villeins from the village have gone inside to service in the chapel. Only the theows are alone, and it will be an easy matter to take the man without interference if we are quick."

"How far is it from here?"

"As a bird flies, about two furlongs. But it will be longer for us, for we must make a detour to keep away from the walls. We shall come on the village from behind. There is a big midden ditch, but I have a plank to cross it."

"We'll give Sir Hyla a dip in it as we pass."

"'Twould be a fitting mitra."

Then with no more words, led by Heraud, they left the boat and stole silently up the hill in the dark.

An archer remained in the boat to guard it and to help them to find it again.

Hyla retired into his hut about half-past eight. He had been working all day, cleaning out pig-styes and carting the manure to the ditch which ran north of the village, and which served as a slight defence, and also as a storing place for fertilizing material to spread upon the fields. A strange occupation, perhaps, for a man who had but lately done a deed of such moment, and who was more than half a hero! But he had been set to this work purposely by the monks, who knew human nature, and thought it best for the man. The monks were the only psychologists in the twelfth century.

With some men this would have been wise, no doubt, but to Hyla's credit it should be said that he thought very little about himself. His rather heavy, sullen manner may easily have conveyed a false impression as to his own estimate of himself, but he was humble enough in reality.

In fact, Hyla was too humble, and more so than befitted his strong nature. He cleaned the filth from the styes with never a thought that he might be better or more profitably employed. And in this fact we have another vivid expression of the psychology of serfdom.

The only certain way in which it is possible to get at the inner meaning of a period in history, is by the comparison of the attitude of an individual brain towards his time, and the attitude of a general type of brain. The individual with the point of view must, of course, be a known quantity.

Historians, I am certain, have not yet entirely realised this simple and beautiful method. Properly understood, it is as mathematically exact as any comparative method can possibly be. It is the way in which history will be written in the future when the modern Headmaster-Historian will no longer be allowed to write an "epoch" and dispose of the two first editions entirely among the boys of his own school.

Of its extreme fascination as a pursuit the cultured cannot speak too highly. It combines the pleasures of the laboratory with the pleasures of psychology, and never was Science so happily wedded to Art.

Here is a trifling case in point. Friend Hyla – whose temperament we know something of – felt no degradation in cleaning out the pig-stye, although he had just done a great and noble thing. We know Hyla as a man very far from perfect. We know him subject to the ordinary failings of mankind. Why, then, was Hyla content? The answer supplies us with a luminous exposition of serfdom as a social state, how stern a thing it was, how bitter. Pages of rhetoric could give no better explanation of that hard fact.

So Hyla had been quite content, and as the sun was setting he sat down outside his hut with his wife on one side and his daughter on the other, as happy as a man could be. Bread and meat lay upon the ground by his side. A cow's horn full of Welsh ale was stuck into the turf by him. He was now working for kind masters who would not beat him or ill-treat his womankind. His hut was weather-proof, his food was excellent, and the peace of the holy life near by was stealing over him, and he was at last at rest. The peace of it all was like a cup of cold water to a poor man dying of thirst.

He stroked his wife's hard gnarled hand, very glad to be so close to her. He looked with unconscious admiration at the frank beauty of Frija as she lay gracefully by his side. Only one grief assailed him now, and that was the thought of Elgifu. He put it from him with a shudder. Yet, he thought, they would hardly hurt her. He was a man of bitter experience, and felt that she would be fairly safe in that wicked time.

Before the little family retired to rest, Cerdic came to them to pray. The ex-lawer of dogs had, it must be confessed, most of the instincts of the street-corner preacher. He was never so happy as when he was making an extempore prayer, and in his heart of hearts he felt sure that he should have been a priest. Hyla regarded this accomplishment of his friend's with unfeigned admiration. Cerdic's praying was his one great pleasure. Both men were perfectly sincere about it. Cerdic and Hyla were both quite certain that the Saints heard and remarked upon every word. At the same time, in an age when music was a monopoly, literature a thing for the fortunate few, and the theatre was not, these poor fellows found their æsthetic excitement in family prayers. Indeed, if we come to think of it, the Puritan classes in England to-day are much the same. Indeed, as long as the saving grace of Sincerity is present, the plan seems excellent. It will not fill the pockets of the theatrical manager, but it will keep a good many fools out of mischief.

So, with full bellies and in great peace of mind, Hyla and Cerdic prayed to God, and fell upon sleep.

Another hour of peaceful sleep remains for you, poor Hyla. Another little hour, and then good-bye to sleep. Good-bye to wife and child and comfort for ever and a day. A few short hours and you go to the beginning of your great martyrdom. Your works shall live after you.

But hush! the time is nearly gone, the sands are running very rapid in the glass. Sleep has still a gift for you, lie undisturbed!