Thorne Guy
The Serf
CHAPTER X
"At the sight therefore, of this river, the Pilgrims were much stunned; but the men that went with them said, 'You must go through, or you cannot come at the gate.'"
Hyla slept ill after an hour or two. Tired nature gave him a physical oblivion for a time, but when his exhaustion was worked off, he began to toss uneasily and to dream. The events of the past days danced in a confused jumble in his brain, and the dominant sensation was one of gliding over water.
Water and the vast lonely fen lands were vividly before him in a hundred uneasy and fantastic ways. He awoke to find the hut hot and stifling beyond all bearing. The deep breathing of his women folk was all the immediate sound he heard, though an owl was sobbing intermittently in the wood by the lake.
How hot it was! The rich earthy smell, a fertile, luxuriant odour of life, was terribly oppressive. There was an earthen jar of lake water at the door of the hut, but when he groped a silent way to it, he found it warm and full of the taste of weeds and tree roots. There was no comfort in it.
He stood looking out into the night. There was no moon, but it was hardly dark. Now and then a ghostly sheet of summer lightning flickered over the sky. Late as it was the air was full of flying insects. The cockchafers boomed as they circled over the enclosure in their long, swift flight. Great moths, with huge fat bodies, hung on the roofs of the huts or flapped to the neighbouring trees. The heavy, lazy Goat Moths, three years old, and nearly four inches from wing to wing. The male Wood Leopard, more active than his great brother, the sombre-coloured Noctuas, the evil-looking, long-bodied Hawk Moths, all danced in the dusky air.
Out in the fields the crickets sang like a thousand little bells, and the atropus, a tiny insect from which bucolic superstition has evolved the "death watch," ticked as it ran over the door posts.
Glow-worms winked in pale gleams among the grass, and louder than any other noise was the deep hum of the great Stag-beetle as he flew by. A myriad night life pulsed round the waking man. The Goatsucker flew round the borders of the wood catching the insects in his flight, and his strange, jarring pipe thrilled all the heavy air; among the leaves and undergrowth the Hedgepig, rested with his long day's sleep, rustled in search of food, making his curious, low, gurgling sound, and rattling his spines.
In those far-off days wild life luxuriated and throve. Day and night were full of strange sounds heard but rarely now. As Hyla stood wearily by his hut, the Polecat was fishing for eels in the mud of the lake shore. Old dog-foxes slunk through the woods in search of prey, while their cubs frisked like kittens in the open spaces of the woods, playing hide-and-seek, and engaging in a mimic warfare. The air was full of Noctules and Natterers, great silent bats.
In some dim way, Hyla was influenced by all this vitality around him. Richard Espec in his place would have said, "In wisdom Thou hast made them all, the earth is full of Thy riches. Thou openest Thy hand and fillest all things living with plenteousness; they continue this day according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee. He spake the word and they were made, He commanded, and they were created!"
That would have been the logical expression of a good man who spent his life in reconciling the concrete with the unseen. Hyla's attitude was just the same, though he was not educated to elevate a thought into an expression of thought.
But, nevertheless, he felt the mystery of the night, and the live creatures at work in it.
The Spirit of God worked in him as it worked in wiser and more considerable men.
But it was rather lonely also. His great deed still had its influence of terror upon him. A man who violently disturbs the society in which he lives and moves, as Hyla had done, wants human companionship. It is ill to know one is absolutely alone.
He thought that he would seek Cerdic, if, perchance, he was in a mood for talk, and not too drowsy. He went towards his friend's hut. In the dim light, as he threaded his way across the stoke, he saw that many other serfs had found their shelters too noisesome and hot for comfort. They lay about in front of the huts in curious twisted attitudes, breathing heavily with weariness and sleep.
Cerdic had also chosen the air to lie in. He was stretched on a skin, lying on his back, and in his hand was a half-eaten piece of black bread, showing that sleep had caught him before he had finished his supper.
Hyla lent over him and whispered in his ear. It was interesting to see how quickly and yet how silently the man awoke. With no sound of astonishment or surprise, he sat up, with alert enquiring eyes, full awake and ready for anything that might be toward.
"Peace!" said Hyla, "there is nothing to trouble about. But I cannot sleep, and feel very lonely, and want speech with a man. The air is full of winged things, and the shaw yonder of beasts. I do not know why, I want a man's voice."
"You made your bede to-night?" said Cerdic.
"Yes, I prayed, Cerdic, and you with me. But I feel ill at ease, and sweating with the heat."
"Yes, yes," said Cerdic, as one who was used to these fleeting sicknesses of the brain, and as one who could prescribe a cure. "I wist well how you feel, Hyla. 'Tis the night and the loneliness of it. Onnethe can a man be alone at night unless he is busy upon something. Come sit you down and talk."
They reclined side by side upon the grass, but neither had much to say. Hyla found something comforting in the companionship of Cerdic.
"I keep minding His face," said Hyla suddenly.
"Then you are a fool, Hyla. But I wist that is only because 'tis 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 you with me to lake-side; there will be air upon the water, perchance. I cannot breathe here."
"I have slept enough and will go with you, but these sick fancies are not in your fashion. You have never been y-wone to them; and for my part, Hyla, I put my trust in my lords the angels, and think that evil thoughts come from devils of Belsabubbis line."
Hyla crossed himself in silence. "Rest a moment," he said. "I will see if Gruach wakes, and if she does, tell her I am going to the lake-side for coolness, and that I cannot sleep."
But when he got to the hut it was as silent as when he had left it, and he heard the untroubled breathing of the women he loved.
With a curious expression of tenderness for so outwardly unemotional a man he made the sign of salvation in the gloom of the door, and with a heart full of foreboding turned towards Cerdic.
The lawer-of-dogs was not anxious to leave his sleep and wander through the night. Far rather would he have lain sleeping till the sun and birds of morning called him to work in a happy security he had never known before. But there was a great loyalty in him, and a love for his friend that was as sincere as it was unspoken.
Moreover, he began to see of late new traits in Hyla. He found him changed and less easily understood. Mental influences seemed at work in him which raised him, or removed him, from the ordinary men Cerdic knew. Cerdic only felt this. He did not think it. Yet his unconscious realisation of the fact made him defer to Hyla's moods and fall in with his suggestion.
He was a shrewd, gentle, fine-natured man. I should like to have clasped his hand.
He put a lean, brown paw on Hyla's broad shoulder, and together they threw the plank over the evil-smelling ditch, malodorous and poisoning the night, and strode out into the wood.
They flitted noiselessly among the dark trees, silent amid the noble aisles and avenues which sloped down to the lake.
The air was certainly cooler as they left the stoke behind.
They had gone some distance upon their way when they sat for a moment to rest upon the bole of a fallen oak tree in a little open glade some ten yards square. The clearing was fairly light, but a black wall of trees encompassed it. There, such was the influence of the place and hour, they fell talking of abstractions with as much right and probably as luminous a point of view as their betters.
"What think you, lad, Geoffroi be doing now?" said Hyla.
"Burning in hellis fire," said Cerdic in a tone of absolute conviction.
"Think you for ever?" said Hyla musingly.
"Aye, Hyla, I pray Our Lady. The Saints would not have him in heaven, and I wist St. Jesu also."
"We might go to him," said Hyla.
Cerdic gazed at him through the dark with genuine astonishment.
"By Godis ore!" he said, "never shall we two roast for long. Prior hath prayed with us and we are shriven. We have done no man harm. I am certain, Hyla, that the Saints and Our Lady will take us in. An it only be to carry water or dung fields, we shall be taken in."
The absolute assurance in his tone told upon the other and comforted him.
"Art not accoyed to die?" he asked.
"No wit. Natheless, I would live a little longer now we have won kind masters. Yet would I die this night withouten fear. I would well like to see the Blessed Lady and all her train. It will be a wonderful fine sight, Hyla."
As they sat thus, talking simply of that other life, which was so real to them in their childlike, undisturbed faith, they did not hear the moving of many feet through the underwood or the low whispers of a body of men who were approaching the glade in which they sat.
One loud word, a chance oath, would have startled them away and saved them. Indeed, had they not been so intent upon high matters they must have heard footsteps. Trained foresters as they were, creatures of the fields, the woods, and the open heavens, no men were more quick to hear the advance of any living thing or more prompt to avoid hostile comers.
The first intimation that came to them was the sudden clank of a steel-headed pike as it fell and rattled against a tree stump. They leapt to their feet, but it was too late. The wood seemed peopled with armed men. Their alarm came upon them so quickly that each tree all round was transformed into a man-at-arms. Before they could turn to fly the leaders of the band were up with them, and strong mailed arms grasped them.
Black-bearded faces peered into theirs, striving to see who they were in that dim light.
"Are ye prior's men?" said Huber, in a low, eager voice.
Then with a sick fear the two serfs knew into whose hands they had fallen. With an icy chill of despair, they realised that these were Fulke's men, and that his vengeance was long-armed, and had come upon them stealthily in the night.
Then in that moment of anguish, they tasted all the bitterness of death. The new, fair life that was opening before them so brightly vanished in a flash. The old cruel voices of their masters were like heavy chains; a black curtain fell desolately and finally over their lives.
Suddenly one of the men who had been scrutinising them closely gave a loud and joyous cry. "God's rood!" he shouted. "These be the two men themselves a-coming to meet with us in t' wood! Mordieu, these be the murderers!"
The men-at-arms crowded round the captives with cries of savage joy. "The Saints have done this," cried one man. Then, being above all things soldiers, and alive to all the fortunes and chances which await men in a hostile neighbourhood, they bound the serfs with thongs, and hurried them swiftly down the hill to the boat.
CHAPTER XI
"Roweth on fast! who that is faint
In evil water may he be dreynt!"
They rowed hard and sung thereto
With hevelow and rumbeloo.
The boat glided through the reeds and hissed among the stalks as it floated off into deep water.
The man-at-arms who had been pushing it scrambled over the flat stern drenched to his waist.
Hyla and Cerdic lay bound where they had been flung at the bottom of the boat as roughly and carelessly as sacks of meal.
They moved slowly over the deep black waters. "The priests'll wake to find the pies flown," said Huber, emphasising his remark with a lusty kick upon the prostrate Cerdic.
"What will they think?" asked some one.
"I neither know eke care. Perchance it will be thought the divill has took them to his own place."
"Whence they will shortly go."
"Not before they have tasted of hell in Hilgay," and the speaker went on to enumerate with much spirit and vividness the several tortures to which the captives would be subjected before Death was merciful.
That these were no idle boasts to frighten them Cerdic and Hyla were very well aware. They had seen with their own eyes how men were punished for a far less offence than theirs. Nameless atrocities were committed upon the serfs, and the mocking words of the soldier had a terrible significance for them. The boat moved but very slowly. It was heavy, and the men were all tired out. Moreover, the night was oppressively hot even out upon the water.
Most of the rowers stripped to the waist and flung their garments down into the bottom of the boat. Hyla and Cerdic were covered with heavy, evil-smelling garments, and almost suffocated.
"I cannot breathe," whispered Hyla to Cerdic.
"Hist, listen! Get thy head down lower. Yes, so. Feel you my hands and the thong. There now; bite till I am free and can get at my dog-knife. God be praised, they did not see it!"
With a sudden leaping of his heart, forgetting the awful heat, Hyla cautiously lowered his head and began to nibble at the thong with strong, sharp teeth.
He could hear the muffled notes of an old Norman-French ballad telling of the nimbleness of Taillefer, as they sang to help the oars along.
"L'un dit á l'altre ki co veit
Ke co esteit enchantement,
Ke cil fesait devant la gent,"
and so forth, the doggerel sounding very melodious as the blended voices sent it out over the water.
The singing was an aid to their work, for it took away the attention of their guards. The greasy strap for a time resisted all his efforts. His teeth slid over the slippery surface and could not pierce it. Once there was a sharp crack, a twinge of pain, and a tooth broke in two. He was dismayed for a moment, but soon found the accident helped him.
The jagged edge of the broken bone soon made an incision in the leather, and with considerable pain he severed it at last.
The relief to Cerdic was extreme. They had tied his wrists so tightly that the thongs had cut deep into the flesh. For a moment or two his hands were quite lifeless and he could not move them. Then as the blood came flowing back into the stiffened fingers, pricking as though it were full of powdered glass, his mind also began to recover from its torpor and fear. He became alert, and his thoughts moved rapidly. He reached down cautiously for his knife and, inch by inch, withdrew it from the sheath. The jerkins which covered him were so thickly spread that more vigorous movements could hardly have been seen, but he trusted nothing to chance.
Soon Hyla's hands were free, and the thongs binding his ankles severed. They began to whisper a plan of escape.
Hyla was a good swimmer, and Cerdic a poor one, but death in the lake or the deep fen pools was far better than death with all the hideousness that would attend it at Hilgay Castle. The plan was this: When the men rested for a morning meal, which, they calculated would be at sunrise, they would make a sudden dash for freedom. By that time the lake would have been traversed, and the boat slowly threading the mazy water-ways of the fen. It would go hard with them if they could not get away from the heavily clad men-at-arms, all unused as they were to the country.
Meanwhile the rowers had got three parts of the way over the water. The sky was quite light now, with that cold grey-green which lasts for a few minutes before the actual sunrise.
"Sun will soon rise," said Heraud; "it's colder now, I will put on my jerkin."
"And I also," said several others, and the pile of clothes began to be lifted from the serfs.
It was a terribly anxious moment for them. If it was seen that bonds were cut, then they must risk everything, and jump into the lake, for they knew the boat could not have won the fen as yet.
Once in the lake their chance was small, unless it might happen that they were near the reeds which bordered it, and could swim to them and be lost in the fen. The boat could go far more swiftly than they could swim. In all probability there were cross-bows in it; they would be hunted through the water like drowning puppies.
One by one the rowers, chilled by their exertions, lifted the heavy leather garments from the two men. Cerdic continued to push his knife under him, and both men lay upon their stomachs, with their hands placed in the position they would have occupied had the thongs remained uncut.
Fortune was kind to them. When they at length lay bare to view, and the cold air came gratefully to their sweating bodies, the soldiers saw nothing. Heraud was the last man to take his coat, and he smote the back of Hyla's head heavily with his clenched fist.
The sudden pain and the foul words which accompanied the blow made the prostrate man quiver with rage. For a moment an impulse to fly at the throat of the man-at-arms, and risk everything in one wild exultation of combat, shook him through and through. He quivered with hatred and desire. But a low sibilant warning from Cerdic kept him fast, and with a mighty effort he restrained his passion.
Somewhat to the dismay of the serfs, the boat was stopped, and the soldiers produced food and beer from a basket and began to make a meal. Although they did not dare raise their heads to see, Cerdic and Hyla could hear from the talk of the men above them that they were yet a good half mile or more from the fen. The air began to grow a little warmer, and the sky to be painted in long crimson and golden streaks towards the East. Above their heads the heavy beating of great wings told them that the huge wild fowl of the fen were clanging out over the marshes for food.
Suddenly one of the soldiers, who was in the article of raising an apple to his mouth, began to snigger with amusement. The others followed the direction of his extended finger with their glance. He was pointing at Heraud. "Well, Joculator," snarled that worthy, "what be you a-mouthing at me for?"
"It's your face, Heraud," spluttered Huber. "By St Simoun, but I never thought of it till now. Should'st have washed it off!"
"Pardieu!" said Heraud "it be the minter's paint which I had forgot. A mis-begotten wretch I must look and no lesing! I will to the water and wash me like a Christian."
The man presented a curious and laughable appearance. Lewin had disguised him well, so that he might spy out where Hyla lay, but the exertion of rowing had induced perspiration, and the dusky colouring and painted eyebrows trickled down his hot, tired face in streaks. A black stubble of newly sprouting beard and moustache added to the comic effect.
"Ne'er did I see such a figure of fun as thou art, comrade!" said Huber in an ecstasy of mirth.
"Then, by Godis rood, I will make me clean," said Heraud good-humouredly. With that he got him to the boatside, and leaning over the gunwale began to lave himself vigorously in the fresh water.
In an earlier part of this book occurs a passage which is at some little trouble to explain that these men-at-arms were little more than ferocious unthinking children. The kneeling man presented a mark not only for quips of tongue but for a rougher and more physical wit. With a meaning wink at the others, John Pikeman withdrew a tholepin, about a foot long, from its socket, and with that stick did give Heraud a most sounding thwack upon the most exposed part of him.
With a sudden yell the unlucky wretch, as might have been foreseen, threw up his legs, and, with a loud gurgle, disappeared into the water. Now to these men, water was a thing somewhat out of experience. Not one in a hundred of them could swim; they were seldom put in the way of it, and a lake or river presented far more terrors to them than any walled town or field of battle.
The fact induces a reflection. Courage is purely relative. All of us can be brave in dangers we know, few of us but are not cowed in perils which are new. Poor Heraud was a striking example of the sententious truth. He rose choking, and his face was so white with fear, his eyes so pleading, his strong arms beat the water in such agony, that every rough heart in that boat was filled with anguish.
With one accord they rushed to the side of the boat, and immediately the inevitable happened.
The gunwale sank lower and lower, the cruel lip of black water rose hungrily to meet it, there was a sound like a man swallowing oil, a swirl, a rush of black water creamed into foam at its edge, and with a loud shout of dismay and terror the whole crew were struggling furiously in the water.
In a second the overturned boat had drifted yards away, and only the slimy green bottom projected above the flood.
Hyla and Cerdic, not being at the side of the boat, were not flung some distance out by the force of its turning, but sank together directly beneath it.
They rose almost at once, and both received smart knocks on the head from the timber. With little difficulty they dived and came up by the boat side. Each put a hand upon the slippery curved timbers, only obtaining a rest for the tips of the fingers, and, treading water, looked towards the drowning crowd a few yards away. The water was lashed into foam, as if some huge fish were disporting itself upon the surface. Heads kept bobbing up like corks, and sinking with a gurgling noise. Now and then a hand rose clutching the air in a death convulsion.
Amid all the confusion and tumult the wicker basket, which had held food, floated serenely, and the oars clustered round about it.
Every second, with a long groan, some sturdy fellow would catch at an oar end, the water pouring from his mouth and dripping from his cap. The thin pole would tip up with a jerk, and he would sink gurgling and coughing to his death. Meanwhile the sun came up the sky with one red stride, and illumined all the waters. The day broke cool and glorious, while these were dying. The day broke as it had done a thousand years before, and will a thousand years after you and I have sunk from one life and risen in another. Calm, glorious, unheeding, the sun rose over the waters, smiling inscrutably on those who were to know its secret so very soon.
In a few moments it was nearly over. Three heads remained above the water, as the serfs watched in fear. Huber swam round and round the other two, shouting directions and advice. One was Heraud, the other Jame, a cut-throat dog of no value. Both had but a few strokes, and their strength was failing fast.
The two heads sank lower and lower, the chins were submerged, the red line of the lips for a moment rested in line with the water, and then, with no sign or cry, they sank gently out of sight. Bubbles came up to the surface from a ten-yard circle, burst, and disappeared, the last sign that ten good fighting men were sinking asleep, deep down in the mud below.
As he saw his last two comrades go to their death, Huber gave a loud despairing cry, wrung from his very heart. Then he started slowly and laboriously, for his strength was fast failing, to swim to the boat.
By this time Hyla and Cerdic were in a safer position. The long-armed little man had made a great leap out of the water from Cerdic's shoulders. He pushed his friend far down beneath the surface with the force of his spring, but the slight resistance of Cerdic's body had given him the necessary impetus, and his strong arms clutched the keel. He was very soon astride it, and when Cerdic came spluttering up again he too was easily assisted into comparative safety.
Suddenly Huber saw the two seated there, and his white face became drawn and furrowed with despair as he saw his last hope gone.
"Hyla! Cerdic!" he called quaveringly, "ye two have beaten twelve brave men, and me among 'em. Ye have Godis grace with you, curse you! and I am done and over. Give you good-day."
"You fool, Huber!" said Hyla in concern, "think you we are foes in this pass? Wait, man, keep heart a little while!" He lifted his leg from the other side of the keel and dived into the water, sending the boat rocking away for yards as he did so. He made the exhausted archer place two hands upon his shoulders, and in ten exhausting minutes the three were perched upon the boat keel, the sole survivors of that ill-fated crew. The sun began to be hot, and they saw they were near land by now.
"I will just make a prayer," said Cerdic, with some apology. "It will do no harm, and perhaps please Our Lady, who, I wist, has done this for Hyla and me and Huber."
With that he fell fervently to uncouth thanksgivings, while the sun came rushing up and dried them all.
Hyla and Huber glanced at each other in mute admiration of his eloquence.
