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 interestingstory, 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 theVirgin. He was taken at the end, and sentenced with doom of hanging.While the executioner was fitting him with the cord, he made his usuallittle prayer. It proved effectual. The Virgin supported his feet "withher white hands," and thus kept him alive two days to the no smallsurprise of the executioner, who attempted to complete his work with ahatchet. But this was turned aside by the same invisible hand, and theexecutioner bowed to the miracle, and unstrung the robber. Withthat--very naturally--the rogue entered a monastery.
In another tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped fromthe convent where she was professed, and performs her duties for tenyears. At last, tired of a libertine life, the nun returned unsuspected.This signal service was performed in consideration of the nun's havingnever omitted to say an _Ave_ as she passed 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, thatGeoffroi de la Bourne had a resident chaplain in the castle, one DomAnselm, and that religious ceremonies were more or less regularlyobserved.
In the outer courtyard of the castle a doorway led into the chapel. Thiswas a long room, with a roof of vaulted stone lit by windows on thecourtyard side, full of some very presentable stained glass. The glass,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, andriding out to go hawking, with a falcon on his wrist.
Strips of cloth bandaged cross-wise from the ankle to the knee, andfastened over red stockings, were part of the saint's costume, and hewore 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 realisticmovement, in much the same way as the exhibitors in the modern Frenchsalon, and what superficial students of Twelfth-Century manners put downas unimaginative ignorance was really the outcome of a widely understoodartistic pose.
On a shrine by the chapel door stood an image of the Blessed Virgin, atrifle gaudy. The head was bound round with a linen veil, and a loosegown of the same material was laced over a tight-fitting bodice. Roundthe arms were wound gold snake bracelets, imitations, made by Lewin inthe forge, of some old Danish ornaments in the possession of the LadyAlice de la Bourne. The foldings of the robe were looped up here andthere with jewelled butterflies, differing not at all from a PalaisRoyal toy of to-day.
In front of the shrine hung two lamps, or "light vats" as they werecalled, of distinctly Roman type--luxuries which were rare then, and ofwhich Dom Anselm was exceedingly proud. They dated from the time of KingAlfred, that inventive monarch, who had adapted the idea of lamps fromold Roman relics found in excavations.
Except that the altar furniture was in exceedingly good taste, itdiffered hardly at all from anything that may be seen in twenty Londonchurches to-day.
There were no pews or seats in the chapel, save some heavy oak chairs bythe altar side, where a wooden perch, clamped to the table itself andwhite with guano, indicated that Geoffroi de la Bourne would sit withhis hawks.
The sun rose in full June majesty the next morning, and soon shone uponthe picturesque activity of a mediaeval fortress in prosperous being.
The serfs and workmen, who slept in lightly constructed huts of thin elmplanks under a raised wooden gallery which went round the courtyard,rose from the straw in which they lay with the dogs, and, shakingthemselves, set about work.
The windlass of the well creaked and groaned as the water for the horseswas drawn. The carpenters began their labour of cutting boards for somenew mead-benches which were wanted in the hall, and men began to stokeafresh the furnaces of the armoury and mint.
Paved ways ran from door to door of the various buildings, but all therest of the bailey was carpeted with grass, which had been sown there tofeed 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 thecorner of Outfangthef Tower, and came grumbling down the steps. Hecrossed the courtyard, taking no notice of the salutations of thelabourers, but looking as if he were half asleep, as indeed he was. Hislong 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 intoa 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 sunshine ofthe outside world, the chapel was chill and damp, and the air struckunpleasantly upon him.
He went up to the altar to find his missal. Sleeping always in a filthylittle cell with no ventilation, and generally seeking his bed in astate of intoxication, had afflicted the priest with a chronic catarrhof the nose and throat--as common a complaint among the priesthood thenas it is now in the country districts of Italy and southern France.Quite regardless of his environment, he expectorated horribly even as hebowed to the presence of Christ upon the altar.
It is necessary for an understanding of those times to make a point ofthings, which, in a tale of contemporary events, would be unseemly andinartistic. Dom Anselm saw nothing amiss with his manners, and the facthelps to explain Dom Anselm and his brethren to the reader.
With a small key the priest opened a strong box banded with bronze, anddrew from it the vessels.
Among the contents of the box were some delicate napkins which LadyAlice had worked--some of those beautiful pieces of embroidery whichwere known all over Europe as "English work."
When the silver vessels were placed upon the altar, and everything wasready for the service, the thirst of the morning got firm hold upon DomAnselm's throat.
He left the chapel, and summoned a theow who was passing the door with agreat bundle of cabbages in his arm.
"Set those down," he said, "and ring the bell for Mass;" and while theman obeyed, and the bell beat out its summons to prayer--very musical inthe morning air--he strode across the courtyard to the mint.
By this time, in the long, low buildings, the fires were banked up, thetools lay ready upon the benches, and the men were greasing the mouldswith bacon fat.
The priest went through the room with two raised fingers, turningquickly and mechanically towards the toil-worn figures who knelt orbowed low for his blessing. He walked towards an inner room, the door ofwhich was hung with a curtain of moth-eaten cat-skin--the cheapestdrapery of the time. Pushing this curtain aside, he entered with acheery "Good-day!" to find, as he expected, Lewin, the mint-master.
The Jew was a slim man of middle size, clean-shaven, and with dark-redhair. His face was handsome and commanding, and yet animal. The wolf andpig struggled for mastery in it. He was engaged in opening thebrass-bound door of a recess or cupboard in the wall, where the dies forstamping coin were kept in strict ward.
The mint-master straightway called to one of the men in the outer room,who thereon brought in a great horn of ale in the manner of use. Everymorning the priest would call upon the Jew, so that they might taketheir drink together. Each day the two friends conveniently forgot--orat any rate disregarded--the rule which bids men fast before the Mass.Lewin attended Church with great devotion, and, like many m
odernIsraelites, was most anxious that the fact of his ancient and honourabledescent should be forgotten.
Though he himself was a professing Christian, and secure in hisposition, yet his brethren, who nearly always remained staunch to theirancient faith, were in very sad case in the Twelfth Century. Vaissette,in his history of Languedoc, dwells upon a pleasing custom whichobtained at Toulouse, to give a blow on the face to a Jew every Easter.In some districts of England, from Palm Sunday to Easter was regarded asa licensed time for the baiting of Jews, and the populace was regularlyinstigated by the priests to attack Jewish houses with stones. Yet, atthe same time, it was possible for a Jew to obtain a respectableposition if he avoided the practice of usury, and Lewin the minter wasan example of the fact.
"This is the best beer of the day," said the priest, "eke the beer atnoon meat. My belly is so hot in the morning, and all the pipes of mybody burn."
Lewin poured out some ale from the horn into a Saxon drinking-glass witha rounded bottom like a modern soda-water bottle--the invariablepattern--and handed the horn back to Dom Anselm. They dranksimultaneously with certain words of pledge, and clinked the vesselstogether.
"It's time for service," said the clergyman, when the horn was empty."Lady Alice will be upon arriving and in a devilish temper, keep I herwaiting."
"Lord Geoffroi," said Lewin, "will he be at Mass?"
The priest grinned with an evil smile. "What do you think, minter?" hechuckled. "Geoffroi never comes to Mass when he sins a mortal sin o'ernight; no, nor young Fulke either."
Lewin looked enquiringly at him.
"Two of the men-at-arms brought the daughters of one Hyla into thecastle last night before curfew."
"He works for me here," said the minter.
"I am sorry for him," said the priest, "and I do not like this force,for the girls were screaming as they took them to Outfangthef. LordChrist forbid that I should ever take from a maiden what she would notgive. It will mean candles of real wax for me from Geoffroi, this will."
"The master is a stern man," said Lewin as they entered the chapel door.
Lady Alice was already in the chapel, kneeling on the altar steps, andbehind her were two or three maids also kneeling.
On the eyelids of one of these girls the tears still stood glistening,and a red mark upon her cheek showed that Lady Alice had not risen inthe best of tempers. The chatelaine frowned at Anselm when she heard hisfoot-steps, and, turning, saw him robing by the door.
Many of the workmen and men-at-arms crowded into the chapel, alldegrees mingling together. Some of the villein farmers had come in fromthe village, sturdy, open-featured men, prosperously dressed in woollentunics reaching to the knees, fastened with a brooch of bone. The serfsknelt at the back, and as the deep pattering Latin rolled down thechurch every head was bent low in reverence.
Although among nearly all of them there was such a contrast betweenconduct and belief, yet, at the daily mystery and miracle of the Mass,every evil brain was filled with reverence and awe. When the Host wasraised--the very body of Christ--to them all, you may judge how it movedevery human heart.
The system which held them all was a very easy and pleasant system.Unconditional submission to the Church, and belief in her mysteries,ensured the redemption of sins and the joys of heaven hereafter. To thepopular mind, my Lords the Saints and the Blessed Virgin were great,good-humoured people, always approachable by an _Ave_ and a littleprivate understanding with the priest. It was, indeed, the pleasantestand easiest of all religious systems.
This, then, was the ordinary attitude of men and women towards theunseen, and it helps to explain the wickedness of the time. Yet it mustnot be thought that in this dark tapestry there were no lighter threads.The saints of God were still to be found on earth. Bright lines of goldand white and silver ran through the warp and woof, and we shall meetwith more than one fine and Christian character in this story of Hyla.
The stately monotone went on. Huber and John, the two men-at-arms whohad hurried the poor serf girls into the castle the night before, kneltin reverence, and beat their breasts.
"The Lord is debonair," Huber muttered to himself. Alice de la Bourneforgot her ill temper and petty dislike of pretty Gundruda, her maid,and fervently made the sign of the cross. Lewin alone, of all thatkneeling throng, was uninfluenced by the ceremony and full of earthlythoughts.
After Mass was over, Anselm remained kneeling, repeating prayers, whilethe congregation filed out into the sunlight. A little significantincident happened on the very threshold. A poor serf had becomepossessed of a rosary made from the shells of a pretty little pink andgreen snail which was found--not too frequently--in the marshes below.This possession of his he valued, and, as he said his prayers day byday, it became invested with a mystical importance. He looked on it as avery holy thing.
Coming out of church, among the last of the crowd, he let it fall uponthe step of the door. He was stooping to pick it up, when he came in theway of Huber, the soldier, who sent him flying into the courtyard with ahearty kick.
The soldier stepped upon the rosary, breaking most of the shells, andthen picked it up in some curiosity. He had it in his hand, and wasshowing it to his companions, when the serf, who had risen from theground, leapt upon him in anger.
There was an instant scuffle, and a loud explosion of oaths. In a secondor two three or four men held the unhappy serf by the arms, and hadfastened him up to the post of the well in the centre of the yard. Theytied him up with two or three turns of the well rope, which theyunhooked from the bucket.
Huber took his leather belt and flogged him lustily, after his tunic ofcat-skin had been pulled down to the waist. The wretch screamed formercy, and attracted all the workmen round, who stood watching--theserfs in timid silence, and the men-at-arms with mirth and laughter. Itmay sound incredible, but Lady Alice herself, standing on the top stepof the stairway leading to the tower door, watched with every sign ofamusement. It was, in fact, no uncommon thing in those cruel times forgreat Norman and Saxon ladies to order their slaves to be horriblytortured on the slightest provocation. Cruelty seemed an integral partof their characters. There is, for example, a well-attested story ofEthelred's mother, who struck him so heavily with a bunch of candleswhich lay to her hand, that he fell senseless for near an hour.
Dom Anselm came out of chapel after a while, and sought the cause of theuproar.
"There, my men," he said, "let the theow go. Whatever he has done, hehas paid toll now. And look to it, Henry, that you say an _Ave_ to ourBlessed Lady that you harbour no wrath towards your just lords."
With that they let him go, and, bleeding and sobbing, the poor fellowslunk away into the stables. Sitting in the straw, he cried as if hisheart would break, until he felt hot breath on his cheek, and lookingup saw large mild eyes, like still woodland pools, regarding him withlove. Above him towered the vast form of "Duke Robert," Geoffroi's greatwar charger, as large and ponderous as a small elephant, his one dearfriend. So he forgot his troubles a little while.
It was now about nine o'clock, and breakfast was served. The Baron andhis son, and also the Lady Alice, never appeared in the great hall untilthe "noon meat" at three. They ate the first meal of the day in the"bowers" or sleeping chambers.
While the Lady Alice and her women superintended the more importanthousehold business, or sat in the orchard outside the south wall of thecastle with their needlework, the Baron was throned in the gateway ofthe castle conducting the business of his estate, and presiding over akind of local court.
The Justices in Eyre were hardly yet sufficiently established oncircuit, and, moreover, the country was in so disturbed a state that theadministration of law was merely in most cases, certainly at Hilgay, aquestion of local tyranny.
The whole business of the day was well afoot with all its multifariousactivity when Hyla rested from his work, and sitting under the shadowof a stone wall, ate a hunk of bread which he had brought with him. Hehad sat late with Cerdic the night before, and, as he had
half expected,had been bidden in the morning to work in Pierce's fields, and not to goto the castle. All the morning, since early dawn, he had been manuringfields with marl, in the old British fashion. The work was very hard, asthe fields were only in the first stage of being reclaimed from wildcommon land, and required infinite preparation.
The supply of dung had given out, and the marl was hard to carry and badto breathe.
The awful blow dealt to his whole life had dazed his brain for hours,but the long talk with Cerdic and Harl had condensed his pain withinhim, and turned it to strong purpose.
He thought over his life as he remembered it, his dull life of slavery,and saw with bitter clearness how the clouds were gathering round himand his kind. The present and the future alike were black as night, andthe years pressed more and more heavily as they dragged onwards.
During the last years the serfs at Hilgay had been more ill-used anddown-trodden than ever before. The Saxon gentlemen, who had held theforefathers of Hyla in thrall, were stern and hard, but life had beenpossible with them. Life was more light-hearted. Githa would sometimesdance upon the green when the day's work was done, and spend a fewlong-hoarded triens in an ivory comb or a string of coloured beads.
The Gesith or Thanes, the lesser nobility, had not been unkind to theirslaves, and there was sometimes a draught of "pigment" for them--a sweetliquor, made of honey, wine, and spice--at times of festival.
Now everything was changed, and among the serfs a passionate spirit ofhatred and revolt was springing up. The less intelligent of them sankinto the condition of mere beasts of burden, without soul or brain. Onthe other hand, adversity had sharpened the powers of others, and inmany of them was being born the first glimmerings of a consciousnessthat even they had rights.
Hyla himself was one of the most advanced among his brethren. He felthis manhood and "individuality" more than most of them. "I am I" hisbrain sometimes whispered to him. The cruel oppressions to which he wassubject roused him more poignantly day by day.
Some nine months before a peculiarly atrocious deed had consolidated thenebulous and unexpressed sense of revolt among the serfs of Hilgay intoa regular and definite subject of conversation.
The Forest Laws, which Knut had fenced round with a number of ferociousedicts, placing the deer and swine far above the serfs themselves, weremade even more vigorous and harsh by the Normans. A theow named Gurth,who had been seen by a forester picking wood for fires, was suspected ofkilling a young boar, which had been found not long after with its bellyripped open by a sharp stake. Parts of the animal had been cut away,obviously by a knife, and were missing. Although the serf was absolutelyinnocent of the beast's slaughter, which was purely accidental--he hadcome upon it dead in the forest, and taken a forequarter to hishome--Geoffroi de la Bourne burnt him in the centre of the village, andflogged mercilessly all the serfs, women included, who were thought tohave partaken of the dish.
Since that time the men-at-arms and inferior followers of the castle hadtaken license to ill-use the serfs in every possible way. The virtue ofno comely girl or married woman was safe, floggings were of dailyoccurrence, and, as there were plenty of theows to work, nothing wassaid if one or two were occasionally killed or maimed for life in adrunken brawl.
The serfs in the castle itself had no thoughts but of submission; butthose who lived in the stoke, mingling freely with each other, and withthe poor freedom of their own huts and wives, began to meet night bynight round the central fire to discuss their wrongs.
The Normans never went into the stoke, or at least very rarely. Thetheows could not escape, and so that they did the tasks set them, theirproceedings at night mattered not at all.
Hyla sat munching his manchet, and drinking from a horn of sour Welshale, a thin brew staple to the common people. The thought of Frija andElgifu was almost more than he could bear.
It is interesting to note that Hyla's passionate anger was directedentirely against his masters. He had never known a spiritual revolt. Itnever entered his head to imagine that the God to whom he prayed hadmuch to do with the state of the world. He never supplicated for bodilyrelief in his prayers, but only for pardon for his sins and for hope ofheaven. The principalities and powers of the other world were too awfuland mysterious, he thought, to have any actual bearing upon life.
The dominant idea of his brain was a lust for revenge, and yet it was byno means a _personal_ revenge. He was full of pity for his friends, forall the serfs, and his own miseries were only as a drop in the cup ofhis wrath.
Night by night the serfs had begun to sit in the stoke holding conclave.It was an ominous gathering for those in high places! Hyla was generallythe speaker of these poor parliaments. "HE went after the herons thisnoon, with Lady Alice and the squires," one man would say, provokingdiscussion.
"Yes," Hyla might answer, "and his falcon had t' head in a broideredhood eke a peal of silver bells. Never a bonnet of fine cloth for you,Harl; you are no bird."
"HE rode over Oswald's field of ripening corn, and had noon meat withall his train at the farm."
"That is the law for a lord. Or--"
"I was at the hall door, supper time, among the lecheurs. Lord Fulke hedid call me, and bade me fetch the board for chess and the images,having in his mind to game with Brian de Burgh. He broke the board on myhead when I knelt with it, for he said I had the ugliest face he eversaw."
"Lord Christ made your face," would come from Cerdic or Hyla, and theill-favoured one would finger his scars with more resentment than ever.
This man Cerdic was a born agitator. Without the dogged sincerity ofHyla, he had a readier tongue and a more commanding presence. His owninjuries were the mainspring of his actions, for he had once been a fullceorl, with boc-land of his own. From yeoman to serf was a terrible dropin the social scale. As a ceorl, Cerdic had a freeman's right of bearingarms, and could have reasonably hoped to climb up, by years of industryand fortunate speculation, into the ranks of the Gesith or Thanes.Speculation, indeed, proved his ruin, and debt was the last occasion ofhis downfall. He was nearly sixty now, and a slave who could own noproperty, take no oath, complete no document.
As Hyla sat in the sun he saw Cerdic coming towards him, followed by alittle frisking crowd of puppies. The lawer of dogs sat him down besidehis friend, and, taking out his knife, began to whet it upon a hone.
"It's a sure thing, then?" he said to Hyla. "You are certain in purpose,Hyla? You will do it indeed? Remember, eftsoons you said that it was inyou to strike a blow for us all; but it's a fool's part to fumble withSatan his tail. Are you firm?"
He took one of the little dogs between his knees, a pretty, friskinglittle creature, thinking nothing of its imminent pain, and, holding oneof its fore-paws in his hand, picked up the knife. The puppy whinedpiteously as the swift scalpel divided the living gristle of its foot,but its brethren frisked about all unheeding.
Hyla saw nothing for a time. He seemed thinking. His intelligent eyeswere glazed and far away, only the impassive, hairless face remained,with little or no soul to brighten it. And yet a great struggle wassurging over this poor man's heart, and such as he had never knownbefore. To his rough and animal life an emotional crisis was new andstartling. Something seemed to have suddenly given way in hisbrain--some membrane which hitherto had separated him from real things.
While the little dog struggled and yelped as its bleeding paw was thrustin measurement through the metal ring, a new man was being born. Hyla'ssub-conscious brain told him that nothing that had happened beforemattered a shred of straw. He had never understood what life might meanfor a man till now.
An IDEAL was suddenly revealed to him. But to accept that ideal? thatwas hard indeed. It meant almost certain death and torture for himself.
The promptings of self-interest, which spring from our lower nature, andwhich are pictorially personified into a grim personality, began toflutter and whisper.
"Supposing," they said, "that you did this, that you killed Geoffroi forhis sins, and to show th
at the down-trodden and the poor are yet men,and can exact a penalty. How much better would your companions be? Fulkewould be lord then, and he is even as his father. Let it go, hold Gruachin your arms--you have that joy, you know. And work is not so bad. Theyhave not beaten you yet; there are sometimes good things to eat anddrink, are there not? Mind when you took home a whole mess of goose andgarlic from the hall door? Often you snare a rabbit, and the minter isnot ill-disposed to you. You are the best of his men; to you it is givento drive the die and hammer the coin, to beat the die into the silverand to burnish it. It is possible--stranger things have happened--thatyou might even gain freedom, and become a villein. Lewin might speak foryou--who knows? These things have happened before. Is it indeed worthwhile to do this thing?"
While these thoughts were racing through Hyla's brain, and he wasconsidering them, a strange thing happened. To the struggling brain ofthe serf, all unused to any subtle emotion, Nature made a directaesthetic appeal.
In the middle sky a lark began to trill a song so loud and tuneful, soinstinct with Freedom, that it seemed a direct message to him. He staredup at the tiny speck from which these heavenly notes were falling downto earth, and his doubts rolled up like a curtain.
He saw that it was his duty to kill Geoffroi for the sake of the others,and, come what might, he said to himself that he would do this thing.
The clumsy medium of the printed page has allowed us to follow Hyla'sthoughts very slowly. Even as his resolve was taken, he heard Cerdicmuttering that it was "ill to fumble with Satan's tail."
"I'll do it," he said, "and it's not the Divell that will be glad,Cerdic. No, it's not the Divell," he repeated, a little at a loss whatfurther to say.
Cerdic pulled from his tunic a little cross of wood, and held it out tohim. The passer-by would have seen two serfs, ill-clothed, unwashed,uncouth, eating bread and cheese under a wall. He would never have put athought to them. Yet the conference of the two was fraught withtremendous meaning to those times. For a hundred years Hyla wasremembered, and a star in the darkness to the weary; and after his namewas forgotten, the influence of his deeds made life sweeter for manygenerations of the poor.
Hyla took the little cross, so that he might swear faith. With alingering memory of the form in which men swore oath of fealty to theirlords, he said, "I become true man to this deed from this day forward,of life and limb and earthly service, and unto it shall be true andfaithful, and bear to you faith, Cerdic, for the aid I claim to hold ofyou."
He did this in seriousness, beyond all opinion; but the importance ofthe occasion, and the drama of it, pleased him not a little. The new toyof words was pleasant.
Cerdic kissed him, entering into the spirit of the oath, for it was thecustom to kiss a man sworn to service.
"And I also am with you to the end," said Cerdic, "and may all falseribalds die who use poor men so."
In a high voice which shook with hate he quavered out a verse of the"Song of the Husbandman," a popular political song of those days; aballad which the common people sang under their breath:
"Ne mai us nyse no rest rycheis ne ro. Thus me pileth the pore that is of lute pris: Nede in swot and in swynk swynde mot swo."
It was the poor fellow's Marseillaise!
"_There may not arise to us, or remain with us, riches or rest. Thusthey rob the poor man, who is of little value: he must waste away insweat and labour._"
Doggerel, but how bitter! A sign of the times which Geoffroi could nothear--ominous, threatening.
"A right good song, Cerdic," said Hyla. "But it will not be ever so. Iknow not if we shall see it, but all things change and change shallcome from us. A tree stands not for ever."
The two men gazed steadfastly into each other's eyes, and then wentabout their work in silence.
* * * * *
The drama of this history may now be said to have begun. The lamps aretrimmed, the scene set, and you shall hear the stirring story of Hylathe Serf.