The House of Walderne Part 38

They changed their standing point, and, to meet the condemnation which both Pope and King of France had awarded to the "Provisions of Oxford," took their stand upon Magna Carta instead.

But here they fared no better. In March 1264 a parliament had been summoned to meet at Oxford by the king, that he might there undo what the barons had done in 1258. At this period the action of our tale recommences.

Drogo was still lord of the Castle of Walderne. No news had reached England of Hubert these three long years, and hence no one disputed the t.i.tle of Drogo to present possession. His steps had been taken with all the craft of a subtle fox. One by one he had removed all the old dwellers in the castle, and, so far as was possible, the outside tenantry also, and subst.i.tuted creatures of his own--men who would do his bidding, whatsoever it were, and who had no local interests or attachment to the former family.

And, little by little, his rule had been growing as hard and cruel as that of a medieval tyrant could be. The dungeons were reopened which had long been closed; the torture chamber, long disused, was refitted, as it had been in the dreadful days of King Stephen; the defences had been looked to, the weapons furbished, for, as a war horse sniffs battle afar off, so did Drogo.

Need I tell my readers which side Drogo took? He had never, since the day he was expelled from Kenilworth, ceased to hate Earl Simon, and now he declared boldly for the king, and prepared to fight like a wildcat for the royal cause.

But Waleran, Lord of Herstmonceux, the father of our Ralph, espoused the popular side warmly, as did all the English men of Saxon race--the "merrie men" of the woods, and the like.

But the great Earl de Warrenne of Lewes was a fierce royalist. So was the Lord of Pevensey.

Already the woods were full of strife. Whensoever a party met a party of opposite principles, there was instant bloodshed. The barons' men from Herstmonceux pillaged the lands of Walderne or Pevensey. The burghers of Hailsham declared for the earl, as did most burghers throughout the land; and Lewes, Pevensey, and Walderne threatened to unite, harry their lands, and burn their town. The monks of Battle preached for the king, as did those of Wilmington and Michelham. The Franciscans everywhere used all their powers for the barons, for was not Simon de Montfort one of them in heart in their reforms?

So all was strife and confusion--the first big drops of rain before the thunderstorm.

Drogo was at the height of his ambition. He had added Walderne to his patrimony of HarenG.o.d. He had humbled the neighbouring franklins, who refused to pay him blackmail. He had filled his castle with free lances, whose very presence forced him to a life of brigandage, for they must be paid, and work must be found them, or--he could not hold them in hand. The va.s.sals who cultivated the land around enjoyed security of life with more or less suffering from his tyranny; but the independent franklin, the headmen of the villages, the burgesses of the towns (outside their walls), the outlaws of the woods, when he could get at them all, these were his natural sport and prey.

He had a squire after his own heart, named Raoul of Blois, who had come to England in the train of one of the king's foreign favourites, and escaped the general sentence of expulsion pa.s.sed at Oxford in 1258.

One eventide--the work of the day was over, and Drogo and this squire were taking counsel in the chamber of the former; once the boudoir of Lady Sybil in better days.

"Raoul," said his master, "have you heard aught yet of the Lady Alicia of Possingworth?"

"Yes, my lord, but not good news."

"Tell them without more grimace."

"She has placed herself under the protection of the Earl of Leicester."

Drogo swore a deep oath.

"We were too weak, my lord, to interrupt the party, and we did not know in time what they were about. But one thing I heard the demoiselle said, which you should hear, although it may not be pleasant."

"Well!"

"Although my first love be dead, I will never marry a man who poisoned his aunt.'"

"They have to prove it--let them."

"My lord, the old hag who sold you the phial, as she says, yet lives, and I fear prates."

"She shall do so no longer. Get a party of half a dozen of your tenderest lambs ready for secret service. We will start two hours before dawn, when all the world is fast asleep. See that you are all ready and call me."

All lonely stood the hut--in the tangled brake--where dwelt a sinful but repentant woman. For one had broken in upon her life, and had awakened a conscience which seemed almost non-existent until he came--our Martin. And this night she tosses on her bed uneasily.

"Would that he might come again," she says. "I would fain hear more of Him who can save, as he said, even me."

She mutters no longer spells, but prayers. The stone seems removed from the door of that sepulchre, her heart. Towards morning sleep, long wooed in vain, comes over her--and she dozes.

It wants but an hour to dawn, but the night is at its darkest. The stars still drift over the western sky, but in the east it is cloudy, and no morning watch from his tower could spy the dawning day.

Eight men emerge from the deep shade of the tangled wood. In silence they approach the hut, and first they tie the door outside, so that the inmate cannot open it.

"Which way is the wind?" whispers the leader.

"In the east."

"Fire the house on that side."

They have with them a dark lantern, from which a torch is fired and applied to the roof of light reeds on the windward side. We draw a veil over the quarter of an hour which followed. It was what the French call un mauvais quart d'heure.

The sun had arisen for some hours when the solitude of the forest was broken by the tread of three strangers--travellers, who trod one of its most verdant glades. The one was a brother preacher of the order of Saint Francis. The second, a knight clad in hunting attire. The third, the mayor, the headman of the borough of Hamelsham.

"The cottage lies here away," said the first. "We shall see the roof when we turn the end of the avenue of beeches."

"Do you not smell an odour unusual to the forest?"

"The scent of something burnt or burning?"

"I have perceived it."

"Ah, here it is," and the three stopped short. They had just turned the corner to which they had alluded. A thin smoke still arose from the spot where the cottage had stood.

They all paused; then, without a word, hurried on ward by a common impulse. They only found the smoking embers of the dwelling they had come to seek.

"This is Drogo's doing," said Ralph of Herstmonceux.

"Could he have heard of our intentions?" said the mayor.

"No, but--he might have learned that poor Madge was a penitent, and then--" said Martin.

"Well, our work is done, and as the country is not over safe so near the lion's den--"

("Wolf's den, you mean," interrupted Ralph--)

"And we have come unattended, the sooner we retire the better."

"Too late!" said a stern voice: and Drogo stood before them.

"My Lord of Walderne, this is ill pleasantry," said Ralph.

"'Pleasantry,' you call it, well. So it is for those who win."

He whistled shrill, And quick was answered from the hill; That whistle garrisoned the glen, With twice a hundred armed men.

In short, the three travellers were surrounded on all sides. Their errand had been betrayed by one of Drogo's outlying scouts.