The Serf Part 2

Fastened to his girdle was the ring through which the feet of the "lawed" dogs were pa.s.sed, and he carried his operating knife in a sheath at his side.

"My woman is in your hut, Cerdic," said Hyla, "and why is she with?"

"She is with," said Cerdic, "because she is in sore trouble, and walks in fear of worse. Go you to her, Hyla, and hear her words, and then come you here again to me."

A deep sigh burst from all of them as Cerdic spoke, and one woman fell crying.

Hyla turned, and strode hastily to Cerdic's hut. He heard a low moaning coming from it, which rose and fell unceasingly, and was broken in upon by a woman's voice cooing kind words of comfort.

He pushed into the hut. It was quite dark and full of foetid smoke and a most evil odour.

"Gruach," he said, "Gruach! why are you not home? What hurts you?"

The moaning stopped, and there was a sound of some one rising.

Then a voice, which Hyla recognised as belonging to Cerdic's wife, said, "Here is your man, Gruach! Rise and tell him what bitter things have been afoot."

Gruach rose, a tall woman of middle age, and came out of the hut into the twilight.

"Hyla!" she said, "Saints help you and me, for they have taken Elgifu and Frija to the castle."

The man quivered all over as if he would have fallen on the ground. Then he gripped his wife's arm. "Tell me," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "To the castle?

to the castle? Frija and Elgifu?"

"Aye, your maids and mine, and maids no longer. I had gone to Adelais to seek food for this night, and found you sent a-fis.h.i.+ng. Frija and Elgifu were carrying the dung to the fields. Pierce was in the field speaking to our girls. Then came Huber and John from the castle with their pikes, and they took away our daughters, saying Lord Geoffroi and Lord Fulke had sent for them. Huber struck me in the face at my crying. 'Take care!' cwaeth he, 'old women are easily flogged; there is little value in you.' And I saw them holding my girls, and they took them in the great gate of the castle laughing, and I did not see them again."

Hyla said nothing for a minute, but remained still and motionless. The blow struck him too hard for speech.

"Get you home," he said at length, "if perchance you may fall asleep. I am going to talk with Cerdic. Take her home, wife, and G.o.d rest you for your comfort!"

He walked quickly across the open s.p.a.ce back to the fire. The circle was broken up, and only Cerdic and Harl sat there waiting Hyla's return.

Stuck into the ground was a cow's horn full of ale, and as Hyla came into the circle of dim red light, Harl handed it to him.

He drank deep, and drank again till the comfort of the liquor filled his craving stomach, and his brain grew clearer.

"Sit here, friend," said Cerdic. "This is a foul thing that has been done."

CHAPTER II

"Coelum coeli Domino terram autem dedit filiis hominum."

In the fifth volume of an instructive work by Le Grand d'Aussy, who was, in his way, a kind of inferior Dean Swift, there is an interesting story, one of a collection of "Fabliaux."

There was once a genial ruffian who lived by highway robbery, but who, on setting about his occupation, was careful to address a prayer to the Virgin. He was taken at the end, and sentenced with doom of hanging.

While the executioner was fitting him with the cord, he made his usual little prayer. It proved effectual. The Virgin supported his feet "with her white hands," and thus kept him alive two days to the no small surprise of the executioner, who attempted to complete his work with a hatchet. But this was turned aside by the same invisible hand, and the executioner bowed to the miracle, and unstrung the robber. With that--very naturally--the rogue entered a monastery.

In another tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from the convent where she was professed, and performs her duties for ten years. At last, tired of a libertine life, the nun returned unsuspected.

This signal service was performed in consideration of the nun's having never omitted to say an _Ave_ as she pa.s.sed the Virgin's image.[1]

[1] _These stories are perfectly fair examples of monastic teachings in the Twelfth Century. Roughly speaking, any one might do anything if he or she said an occasional_ Ave. _Indeed, Dom Mathew Paris, the most pious and trustworthy monkish historian, and in his way a scourge to the laxity of his own order, has more than one story of this kind in which he evidently believes._

It may be therefore said, without exciting any undue surprise, that Geoffroi de la Bourne had a resident chaplain in the castle, one Dom Anselm, and that religious ceremonies were more or less regularly observed.

In the outer courtyard of the castle a doorway led into the chapel. This was a long room, with a roof of vaulted stone lit by windows on the courtyard side, full of some very presentable stained gla.s.s. The gla.s.s, which had far more lead in it than ours, was in fact a kind of mosaic, and the continual lattice work of metal much obscured the pattern.

What could be seen of it, however, represented Saint Peter armed, and riding out to go hawking, with a falcon on his wrist.

Strips of cloth bandaged cross-wise from the ankle to the knee, and fastened over red stockings, were part of the saint's costume, and he wore black-pointed shoes split along the instep almost to the toes, fastened with two thongs.

In fact, the artists of that day were under the influence of a realistic movement, in much the same way as the exhibitors in the modern French salon, and what superficial students of Twelfth-Century manners put down as unimaginative ignorance was really the outcome of a widely understood artistic pose.

On a shrine by the chapel door stood an image of the Blessed Virgin, a trifle gaudy. The head was bound round with a linen veil, and a loose gown of the same material was laced over a tight-fitting bodice. Round the arms were wound gold snake bracelets, imitations, made by Lewin in the forge, of some old Danish ornaments in the possession of the Lady Alice de la Bourne. The foldings of the robe were looped up here and there with jewelled b.u.t.terflies, differing not at all from a Palais Royal toy of to-day.

In front of the shrine hung two lamps, or "light vats" as they were called, of distinctly Roman type--luxuries which were rare then, and of which Dom Anselm was exceedingly proud. They dated from the time of King Alfred, that inventive monarch, who had adapted the idea of lamps from old Roman relics found in excavations.

Except that the altar furniture was in exceedingly good taste, it differed hardly at all from anything that may be seen in twenty London churches to-day.

There were no pews or seats in the chapel, save some heavy oak chairs by the altar side, where a wooden perch, clamped to the table itself and white with guano, indicated that Geoffroi de la Bourne would sit with his hawks.

The sun rose in full June majesty the next morning, and soon shone upon the picturesque activity of a mediaeval fortress in prosperous being.

The serfs and workmen, who slept in lightly constructed huts of thin elm planks under a raised wooden gallery which went round the courtyard, rose from the straw in which they lay with the dogs, and, shaking themselves, set about work.

The windla.s.s of the well creaked and groaned as the water for the horses was drawn. The carpenters began their labour of cutting boards for some new mead-benches which were wanted in the hall, and men began to stoke afresh the furnaces of the armoury and mint.

Paved ways ran from door to door of the various buildings, but all the rest of the bailey was carpeted with gra.s.s, which had been sown there to feed the cattle who would be herded within the walls in dangerous times.

About half-past eight Dom Anselm let himself out of a little gate in the corner of Outfangthef Tower, and came grumbling down the steps. He crossed the courtyard, taking no notice of the salutations of the labourers, but looking as if he were half asleep, as indeed he was. His long beard was matted and thick with wine-stains from the night before, and his thin face was an unhealthy yellow colour.

He unlocked the chapel door, and mechanically pushed a dirty thumb into a holy water stoup. Then he bowed low to the monstrance on the altar, and lower still to the figure of the Virgin. After the hot suns.h.i.+ne of the outside world, the chapel was chill and damp, and the air struck unpleasantly upon him.

He went up to the altar to find his missal. Sleeping always in a filthy little cell with no ventilation, and generally seeking his bed in a state of intoxication, had afflicted the priest with a chronic catarrh of the nose and throat--as common a complaint among the priesthood then as it is now in the country districts of Italy and southern France.

Quite regardless of his environment, he expectorated horribly even as he bowed to the presence of Christ upon the altar.

It is necessary for an understanding of those times to make a point of things, which, in a tale of contemporary events, would be unseemly and inartistic. Dom Anselm saw nothing amiss with his manners, and the fact helps to explain Dom Anselm and his brethren to the reader.

With a small key the priest opened a strong box banded with bronze, and drew from it the vessels.

Among the contents of the box were some delicate napkins which Lady Alice had worked--some of those beautiful pieces of embroidery which were known all over Europe as "English work."

When the silver vessels were placed upon the altar, and everything was ready for the service, the thirst of the morning got firm hold upon Dom Anselm's throat.

He left the chapel, and summoned a theow who was pa.s.sing the door with a great bundle of cabbages in his arm.