CHAPTER VI
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK
ADERHOLD saw no fairies, though sometimes of moonlight nights hepleased his fancy by bringing them in his mind’s eye in a ring aroundthe oak. Hours—days—weeks passed, and still he abode at the OakGrange.
Together he and Master Hardwick had gone over an ancient record. Therewas the Aderhold line, intertwining with the Hardwick. The blood-tiewas not close, but it was there. Back in the reign of the sixth Henrythey found a common ancestor in one Gilbertus Aderhold, slain onBosworth Field. The blood-warmth was between them. Moreover, the oldman had turned with a strong liking to this present Aderhold, andbesides all there was his fear of illness and death. How well to have aleech always at hand! At last it came to “Will you live here for yourroof and keep? I could not give you money—no, no! I have no money togive.”
Refuge—security—here in this silent place, behind the great screenof Hawthorn Wood.... Aderhold stayed and was glad to stay, and servedthe old man well for his keep. The region grew to know that here wasold Master Hardwick’s kinsman, brought with him when he came back fromLondon, to live with him and doubtless become his heir. He was aleech. Goodman Cole, living by the forest, fell ill of a racking coughand a burning fever, sent for the doctor at the Grange, was swiftlybetter, and sang the leech’s praises. As time wore on he began to besent for here and there, chiefly to poor people’s houses. Eventually hedoctored many of such people, now in the village, now in the countryroundabout. Few of the well-to-do employed him; they sent to the townfor a physician of name. He asked little money for his services; he didnot press the poor for payment, and often as not remitted the whole. Heearned enough to keep him clad, now and then to purchase him a book.
He soon came to the conclusion that whatever store of gold MasterHardwick might once have had, it was now a dwindling store. In whateversecret place in his gaunt, bare room the old man kept his wealth, hewas, Aderhold thought, nearing the bottom layer. There was a ruefultruth in the anxiety with which he regarded even the smallest pieceof either metal he must produce and part with. And if, at the OakGrange, there was little of outgo, there was still less of income. Theland which went with the Grange was poor and poorly tilled. There wasa cot or two with tenants, dulled labourers, dully labouring. Mostlythey paid their rent in kind. He heard it said that in his middle lifeMaster Hardwick had ventured with some voyage or other to the Indies,and had received in increase twenty times his venture. If so, hethought that his venture must have been but small.
Master Hardwick kept but the one man, Will the smith’s son, who didnot sleep at the Grange, but came each morning and cared for the horseand the cow and the garden. Within doors there was old Dorothy, whocooked and cleaned, and, now in and now out, there strayed a lank,shy, tousle-headed boy, her nephew. The old house was dim and still,as out of the world as a house may be. Master Hardwick rarely stirredabroad. There was in truth a lack of health. The physician thoughtthat the old man had not many years to live. Aderhold set himself witha steady kindness to doing what could be done, to giving sympathy andunderstanding, and when the old man wished it, companionship. Sittingin the dim house with him, facing him at table over their scant andsimple fare, listening to his brief talk, the physician came to find,beneath a hard and repellent exterior, something sound enough, anhonesty and plain-dealing. And Master Hardwick, with a hidden need bothto feel and receive affection, turned and clung to the younger man.
Visitors of any nature rarely came to the Oak Grange. The place wasas retired as though fernseed had been sprinkled about and the worldreally could not see it. Once, during this early summer, Harry Carthewcame, riding across the stream upon his great roan. But this dayAderhold was away, one of the tenants breaking a leg and a small childbeing sent wailing with the news to the Grange. And Master ThomasClement came, alike afresh to reason with the miser and to view thisnew parishioner.
Aderhold saw him cross the stream by the footbridge and come on beneaththe fairy oak. He knew who it was, and he had time to map his course.He had made up his mind—he was worn and weary and buffeted, he wasnow for peace and quiet living. He tied a millstone around the neck ofthe Gilbert Aderhold of Paris and sank him deep, deep! The ministerstayed no great while and directed most of his discourse toward MasterHardwick. When he turned to Aderhold, the latter said little, listenedmuch, answered circumspectly, and endued himself with an agreeinginclination of the head and an air of grave respect. When the ministerwas gone, he went and lay beneath the fairy oak, in the spanglytwilight, his head buried in his arms.
The next Sunday he went to church and sat with a still face, watchingthe sands run from the pulpit glass. There were facts about the regionwhich he had gathered. The town a few miles away with the earl’s seatabove it was prelatical and all for “superstitious usages.” The countrybetween town and village might be called debatable ground. But HawthornVillage and the region to the north of it might have been approved byCalvin or by Knox.
Sitting far back, in the bare, whitewashed church, he remarked men andwomen truly happy in their religion, men and women who showed zealif not happiness, men and women who wore zeal because it was thefashionable garment, men and women, born followers, who trooped behindzeal in others, and uttered war-cries in a language not their own. Inthe pulpit there was flaming zeal. The sermon dealt with miracles andprodigies, with the localities of heaven and hell, with Death and theJudgement—Death that entered the world five thousand and six hundredand odd years ago. “For before that time, my hearers, neither man noranimal nor flower nor herb died!”
Aderhold walked that summer far and wide, learning the countryside. Nowhe wandered in deep woods, now he climbed the hills and looked upon thefair landscape shining away, now he entered leafy, hidden vales, ortraced some stream upward to its source, or downward to the murmur ofwider waters. Several times he walked to the town. Here was a bookshop,where, if he could not buy, he could yet stand awhile and read.... Heloved the view of this town with the winding river and the bridge,and above the climbing streets the old castle and the castle wood. Heliked to wander in its streets and to mark the mellow light upon itshouses. Now and then he went into the great church where the lightfell through stained glass and lay athwart old pillars. Once he foundhimself here, sitting in the shadow of a pillar, when people began toenter. Some especial service was to be held, he knew not wherefore. Theorgan rolled and he sat where he was, for he loved music. There was asermon, and it was directed against Puritan and Presbyterian, and moreespecially against that taint of Republicanism which clung to theirGeneva cloaks. No such imputation breathed against the surplice. _TheDivine Right of Kings._—_The duty of Passive Obedience._—_Authority!Authority! Authority!_ It rolled through the church, boomed forth withpassion.
Aderhold, coming out into the sunshine, walked through the town andfound himself upon the London road. It was high summer, the sun yetfar aloft, and when it sank the round pearl of the moon would rise. Hehad not before walked upon this road. An interest stirred within himto view the country toward the Rose Tavern, travelled through in thedarkness that night. He left the town behind him and walked southward.Between two and three miles out, he saw before him a little rise in theroad, and crowning it, a gibbet with some bones and shrivelled fleshswinging in the chains. It was nothing uncommon; he had seen in Francea weary number of such signposts, and on this great road, coming northfrom London, he had twice passed such a thing. It was so fair and softa summer’s day, the gauzy air filled with dancing sunbeams, the skya melting blue—the very upright and cross of the gibbet faded intoit and seemed robbed of horror. Indeed, long usage had to the eyes ofmost robbed it of frightfulness at any hour, unless it was in the deadof night when the chains creaked, creaked, and something sighed. Thetraffic of the road went talking and jesting by, with hardly a glanceaside at the arm across the sky.
Aderhold sat down upon the opposite bank, amid fern and foxglove, andwith his chin in his hand regarded the gibbet. Now and again man andbeast passed, but they paid no att
ention to the dusty, seated figure.For the greater while the road lay bare. He gazed, dreaming, andthrough the mists of time he seemed to see Judea....
At last he spoke. “Carpenter of Nazareth! Man as we are men, but aPrince in the house of Moral Genius! Born with thy heritage, also, ofan ancient, savage faith, in thine ears, still, old saws of doom, onthy lips at times hard sayings of that elder world, in thy mind, yetunresolved, more than one of the ancient riddles.... But thou thyself,through all the realm of thy being, rising into the clearer light,lifting where we all shall lift one day, transfiguring life!... Geniusand Golden Heart and Pure Courage and Immortal Love.... Condemnedby a Church, handed over by it to the secular arm, gone forth tothy martyr’s death—and still, Sage and Seer! misunderstood andpersecuted,—and still thou standest with the martyrs ... slain afreshby many, and not least by those who call themselves thine. Wisdom,freedom, love.... Love—Love—Love!”
The fox-gloves nodded around him. He drew toward him a long stem andsoftly touched, one by one, the purple bells. “Freedom—love!... Thouflower! When shall we see how thou flowest into me and I into thee?”
He let the purple stem swing back, and with his hands about his kneesagain regarded the gibbet; then, when some minutes had gone by, roseand pursued his way. Another half-hour and he came to a place wherethree roads met. A passing shepherd boy told him the name was Heron’sCross-Roads. It was a lonely place, wold and stunted wood, and in anangle, amid heath and briar, was set a blackened stake. Aderhold wentacross to it. In the wood was a rudely cut name, with a word or twobelow; the stake was set through the heart of a suicide. Nettles wereabout it, and some one passing had thrown an empty and broken jug ofearthenware. It lay in shards. Aderhold knelt, gathered them together,and rising, laid the heap beneath the hedge.
Back upon the highway, he turned his face again to the town. It wasa long way to the Oak Grange, and Master Hardwick was concerned ifthe house were not closed and fast at a most early hour. _Heron’sCross-Roads._ As Aderhold walked an association arose with the name.Heron—that was the name of the old man who owned the cottage on theedge of Hawthorn Forest. He was not there now; the cottage had beenshut up and tenantless since early summer. He and his daughter weregone, Will had told him, on a long visit to the old man’s brother, theearl’s huntsman who lived in the castle wood above the town. No oneknew when they would be back. Most of their furnishings and householdthings had been loaned here or there. The dairy woman had taken theircow, some one else the beehives. Heron! He had a moment’s driftingvision of the girl gathering faggots in the forest. It passed and thepresent day and landscape took its place. Soon he came again to therise of ground and the gibbet so stark against the blue. He hesitated,then paused, resting as he had rested before upon a stone sunk in thewayside growth.
A horse and rider emerged with suddenness from a sunken lane upon hisleft, and stood still in the middle of the road—a fine horse, and afine, richly dressed rider, a man of thirty-five with a hawk upon hisgauntleted fist. Turning in the saddle he looked about him, and espyingAderhold where he sat, called to him.
“Hey, friend! Have the earl and his train passed this way?”
“I have not seen them, sir.”
The other glanced around again, then beckoned with an easy command.Aderhold rose and went to him, to find that he was wanted to hold thehooded falcon while the horseman waited for the hawking party fromwhich some accident had separated him. Aderhold took the peregrinefrom the other’s wrist and stood stroking softly with one finger theblue-black plumage. The rider rose in his stirrups, swept the horizonwith his eye, and settled back. “Dust in the distance.” His voice wentwith his looks—he seemed a rich and various person, who could showboth caprice and steadfastness. Now he glanced downward at Aderhold.“Ha, I had not observed you before!—A travelling scholar?”
“A travelling physician, an it please you,” said Aderhold, smoothingthe bird with his finger, “biding at present at the Oak Grange, beyondHawthorn Village.”
“You take,” said the horseman with a glance at the gibbet, “a merrysignpost to rest beneath!”
“It is neither merry nor dismal,” said Aderhold, “but a subject forthought. That which swung there swings there now—though shrunken anddark and answering to no lust of the eye. But that which never swungthere swings there now neither. I trouble it not. It is away from here.”
The other swung himself from his saddle. “I had rather philosophizethan eat, drink, or go hawking—and philosophers are most rare in thisregion!” He took his seat upon a heap of stones, while his horse besidehim fell to grazing. “Come, sit and talk, travelling scholar!—Thatfellow on the gibbet—that small, cognized part of him that was hanged,as you would say. Being hungry, he slew a deer for his own use, thenviolently resisted and wounded those sent to his hut to take him, andfinally, in court he miserably defamed and maligned the laws of theland and the judge in his chair. So there he swings for an exampleto stealers of deer and resisters of constables, to say naught ofblasphemers of procedure and churls to magistrates!... What is youropinion, travelling scholar, of Authority?”
“Nay,” said Aderhold, “what is yours?”
The other laughed. “Mine, Sir Prudence?—Well, at times I have thoughtthis and at times that. Once or twice a head like Roger Bacon’s hasspoken. ‘The swollen stream forgets its source, and the overweening sonturns and with his knotted and sinewy hands chokes his mother that borehim.’”
“It is a good parable,” said Aderhold. “I trust that your worship,being obviously of those in authority, will often listen to that brazenhead!”
“Ah!” answered the other. “I am of that camp and not of it. My brazenhead will yet get me into trouble!” He sat regarding the moundopposite, the tall upright and arm, the creaking chain, and theshapeless thing, now small, for most of the bones had fallen, whichswung and dangled. “And, friend, what do you think of this matter ofthe Golden Age, man’s perfection, Paradise, the friendship of angelsand all wisdom and happiness lying, in the history of this orb,_behind_ us?”
“If it were so,” said Aderhold, “then were it well to walk backwards.”
“So saith my brazen head!—Hark!”
It was a horn winding at no great distance. There came a sound ofapproaching horsemen, of voices and laughter. The waiting cavalierrose to his feet, caught his horse by the bridle and mounted. Aderholdgave him back the falcon. The earl and his train, a dozen in all,gentlemen, falconers, and grooms, coming across the fields, leaped thehedge and crowded into the road, gathering into their number the riderwith the hawk. Aderhold heard him named as “Sir Richard.” He wavedhis hand to the physician—all rode away with a flash of colour and ablare of sound. A few moments, and there was only the bare highway, thelittle rise of ground, and the gibbet with its outstretched arm againstthe blue and serene sky.
Aderhold, keeping on to the town, passed along its bustling highstreet, and down the steep slope, beneath the shadow of the greatchurch and the castle in its woods above, to the river and itsmany-arched, ancient bridge. Before him lay the fair country betweenthe town and Hawthorn village. He travelled through it in the late,golden light, and at sunset came into Hawthorn. Children were playingand calling in the one street and several lanes, on the green, by thepond, and the village stocks. The ale-house had its custom, but, as hepresently saw, most of the inhabitants of Hawthorn were gathered in abuzzing cluster before the church. A post, riding from London north,had passed through the village and left behind a dole of news. Amonghis items, principal to Hawthorn was this: The King, they say, willpresently of his good pleasure, lighten the pains and penalties nowimposed upon Papists.
Aderhold, touching the fringe of the crowd, caught a glimpse of MasterClement, standing upon the church steps, haranguing. He caught thewords, “The Scarlet Woman ... Babylon ... Lighten? Rather double andtreble and quadruple—” Near the minister he saw Harry Carthew. He didnot pause; he went by like a moth in the dusk. As the moon rose he cameto the stream before the Grange, cr
ossed it by the footbridge, and wenton beneath the fairy oak to the house where one candle shone from asingle window. In the middle of the night he was wakened by some onecalling and throwing pebbles against his casement. The miller, a miledown the stream, was ill and groaning for the leech.