The Serf Part 25

In the afternoon they broiled some firm white fish and made another meal. "Come and see my field," said Lisole afterwards.

They got into the small punt and followed a narrow way through the reeds, going away from the wide stretch of water on the further sh.o.r.e of which they had first met. At a shelving turfy sh.o.r.e they disembarked.

Climbing up a bank they came suddenly upon three acres of ripening corn, a strange and pastoral sight in that wilderness. Small d.y.k.es covered with bright water-flowers ran through the field dividing it into small squares. It was thoroughly drained, and a rich crop.

"All my own work, Hyla," said the ex-jester, with no inconsiderable pride in his voice. "I delved the ditches and got all the water out of the land. Then I burnt dried reeds over it, and mixed the ashes with the soil for a manure. Then I sowed my wheat, and it is bread, white bread, all the year round for me. I flail and winnow, grind and bake, and no man helps me. The monks would lend me a thrall to help, but I said no. I am happier alone, La Guerisseur seems nearer then. I have other things to show you, but not here. Let us go back to home first. To-day is a holiday, and you also need rest."

When the moon rose and the big fishes were leaping out of the water with resonant echoing splashes in the dusk, they were still sitting on the deck of the boat in calm contemplation.

They spoke but little, revolving memories. Now and then the jester made some remark reminiscent of old dead days, and Hyla capped it with another.

About ten o'clock, or perhaps a little later, a long, low whistle came over the water to them, in waves of tremulous sound. Lisole jumped up and loosened the painter of the punt. "It's one of the monks," he said; "now and again they come to me at night time."

Hyla waited as the punt shot off into the alternation of silver light and velvet shadow. Before long he heard voices coming near, and the splash of the pole. It was a monk from Icomb, a ruddy, black-eyed, thick-set man. His coracle was towed behind the punt.

He greeted the serf with a "benedicite," and told him that Lisole had given him the outlines of his story.

"Anon, my son," said he, "you shall go back with me to peace. We thought, indeed, that you had left us with the thrall Cerdic, and we were not pleased. Your wife and daughter have been in a rare way, so they tell me."

For long hours, as Hyla fell asleep covered with a skin upon the deck, he heard the low voices of the monk and his host in the cabin. It was a soothing monotone in the night silence.

In the morning Lisole came to him and woke him. "The father and I have talked the night through," he said, "and soon I leave my home for Icomb.

'Twill be better so. We will start anon. It is hard parting, even with this small dwelling, but it is G.o.dys will, I do not doubt."

CHAPTER XV

"Though you be in a place of safety, do not, on that account, think yourself secure."--SAINT BERNARD.

Brother Felix, the monk who had come to them from Icomb, bade them rest another day before setting out over the lake.

"Ye have had a shrewd shog, Lisole, in the news that Hyla brought, and he also has gone hardly of late. Let us rest a day and eat well, and talk withal. There is a bottle of clary that the Prior sent. It is good to rest here."

His merry black eyes regarded them with an eminent satisfaction at his proposal. It was his holiday, this trip from the Priory, and he had no mind to curtail it.

There was yet a quaint strain of melancholy humour about the ex-fool.

The joy had gone, the wit lingered. His sojourn alone among the waters had mellowed it, added a new virtue to the essential sadness of the jester.

And Felix was no ordinary man. He had been an epicure in such things once. What the time could give of culture was his. He had been a writer of MS., a lay scriptor in the house of the Bishop at Rouen; he had illuminated missals in London, was a good Latinist, and, even in that time, had a little Greek. A day with Lisole was a most pleasant variant to a life which he lived with real endeavour, but which was sometimes at war with his mental needs.

So they sat out on deck, among all the medley of the jester's rough household goods, on deck in the suns.h.i.+ne, while the monk and the prospective novice ranged over their experiences.

Hyla had never heard such talk before. Indeed, it is not too much to say that through all the years of his life he had never, until this day, been present at a _conversation_. Nearly all the words the serf had heard, almost all the words he himself had spoken, were about things which people could touch and see.

He and his friends, Cerdic notably, had touched on the unseen things of religion--"princ.i.p.alities and powers" who dominated the future--in their own uncouth way. But conversation about the abstract things of this earthly life he had rarely heard before.

For the first hour the novelty of it almost stunned him. He listened without thought, drinking it all in with an eagerness which defied consideration. It was his first and last social experience!

"Wilt not be so lonely in the cloister, friend," said Felix.

"Say you so?" answered the jester. "Yet to be alone is a powerful good thing. I have but hardly felt lack of humans this many a year. Many sorry poor ghosts of friends, gone to death back-along, come to me at night-time."

"And she, that saint that was thy wife, comes she to thee, Lisole?"

"Betimes she comes, and ever with healing to my brain; but it is not the wife who slept by my side."

"More Saint and less Woman! Is that truth?"

Lisole nodded sadly. The big monk stretched himself out at length so that the hot sun rays should fall on every part of him.

"I have no more to do with women," he said; "but in those other days I liked a woman to be a very woman, and not too good. Else, look you, wherein lieth the pleasure? It is because of the difference. Never cared I for a silent woman. If you would make a pair of good shoon, take the tongue of a woman for the sole thereof. It will not wear away. Full many a worthless girl has enslaved me--me whom no enemy ever did. Yet knowing all and seeing all, yet loved I all of them. And now--quantum mutatus ab illo!"

He sighed, a reminiscent sigh. "They took from me all I had," he continued, "and being poor and in distress I turned my thoughts G.o.dwards."

"Women, priests, and pullets have never enough," said Lisole with a sudden and quaint return of his professional manner. "They are past all understanding, save only the saints. Truly I have found a woman to be both apple and serpent in one. A woman, she is like to a fair table spread with goodly meats that one sees with different eyes before and after the feast."

"But hast feasted, brother, natheless? Forget not that."

"Art right, and it was well said. One should take bitter and sweet together. Yet, friend, I do not doubt but that when the Lord Jesus fed the concourse out of His charity and miracle, there were some at that feast who told one another the bread was stale and the fish too long out o' water! Men are so made. It is so in this life."

"Aye, and thou doest well in leaving this world for the Church's peace.

Now thy enemy is dead and thy hate with him thou shalt find peace, even as I have done. For in what a pa.s.s is England! Peace being altogether overthrown love is cooled; all the land is moist with weeping, and all friends.h.i.+p and quietness is disappeared. All seek consolation and quiet.

Almost all the n.o.bles spend their time in contriving evil; the mad esquires delight in malice. These cruel butchers despise doctrine, and the holy preachers have no effect. These men will not be amended by force of sermons, nor do they take any account of the lives of men. They all plunder together like robbers."

His voice rose in indignation, and both Hyla and the jester raised their heads in bitter acquiescence.

It was so true of that dark time. Each one there was a waif of life, a somewhat piteous jetsam from the dark tides which had almost overwhelmed them. The Anglo-Norman song was very true--

"_Boidie ad seignurie, pes est mise suz pe._"

("The fraud of the rulers prevails, peace is trodden underfoot.")

Lisole began to sing the air under his breath. The monk stopped him.

"Not so," he said. "I was wrong to speak of these things to-day. They have pa.s.sed us by. And this is my holiday, and I would not have it a sad one withal. We have no cause for sadness, we three. Let us eat, for our better enjoyment. Sun hath clomb half-way upon his journey, and I am hungry."

He bustled about, helping them to prepare the meal.

"Wine, fish, and eke wheaten-cakes," he cried merrily. "Do not we read in the Gospels that it was Christ His fare?"

Hyla noticed that a curious change had taken place in his host's face.

The strained, brooding look in his eyes had disappeared. Already it was calmer, happier.

The monk, full of meat and once more basking in the heat, began to chat on all trivial subjects. He made little, aimless, lazy jests; contentment was exhaled from him.

The sun seemed to draw out the latent humour on the jester's countenance. He capped one remark by another; on the eve of taking the Vows, the clown flickered up in him, as though to rattle the bells once more in a last farewell.