The Serf Part 19

"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 gra.s.s, but neither had much to say.

Hyla found something comforting in the companions.h.i.+p of Cerdic.

"I keep minding _His_ face," said Hyla suddenly.

"Then you are a fool, Hyla. But I wist that is only because 'tis nighttime. 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 s.p.a.ce?"

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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 n.o.ble 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 encompa.s.sed 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 h.e.l.lis 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 G.o.dis 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 a.s.surance 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. "G.o.d'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.