The Serf Part 16

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 white and 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 a sudden 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, cl.u.s.tering 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 no enjoyment--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 s.p.a.ce 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.l, 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. Realism can 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 G.o.d themselves--had ever heard of a pocket handkerchief. The world was malodorous! A dog-kennel would hardly have suffered any one of our 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 ma.s.s of doc.u.ments. "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, Richard Espec'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 h.e.l.l in mortal dress. Mind you what Robert Belesme did? His G.o.dchild 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 G.o.d, the world will never forget it."

"The king has got to him all the worst rogues from over the seas.

William of Ypres, Herve of Leon, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 s.e.x. "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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed, 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 Ma.s.s at the wayside altar of Saint Alban, the protomartyr whom G.o.d loves. Sir John doth ever say a wayside Ma.s.s in the early mornings, and calls down a blessing upon the Norwich road thereby. Now the boy Louis Seez was helping Sir John to serve the Ma.s.s, 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."