The Serf

As Hyla sat in the sun he saw Cerdic coming towards him, followed by a little frisking crowd of puppies. The lawer of dogs sat him down beside his 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 in you to strike a blow for us all; but it's a fool's part to fumble with Satan his tail. Are you firm?"

He took one of the little dogs between his knees, a pretty, frisking little creature, thinking nothing of its imminent pain, and, holding one of its fore-paws in his hand, picked up the knife. The puppy whined piteously 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 eyes were glazed and far away, only the impassive, hairless face remained, with little or no soul to brighten it. And yet a great struggle was surging over this poor man's heart, and such as he had never known before. To his rough and animal life an emotional crisis was new and startling. Something seemed to have suddenly given way in his brain – some membrane which hitherto had separated him from real things.

While the little dog struggled and yelped as its bleeding paw was thrust in measurement through the metal ring, a new man was being born. Hyla's sub-conscious brain told him that nothing that had happened before mattered a shred of straw. He had never understood what life might mean for a man till now.

An Ideal was suddenly revealed to him. But to accept that ideal? that was hard indeed. It meant almost certain death and torture for himself.

The promptings of self-interest, which spring from our lower nature, and which are pictorially personified into a grim personality, began to flutter and whisper.

"Supposing," they said, "that you did this, that you killed Geoffroi for his sins, and to show that the down-trodden and the poor are yet men, and can exact a penalty. How much better would your companions be? Fulke would be lord then, and he is even as his father. Let it go, hold Gruach in your arms – you have that joy, you know. And work is not so bad. They have not beaten you yet; there are sometimes good things to eat and drink, are there not? Mind when you took home a whole mess of goose and garlic from the hall door? Often you snare a rabbit, and the minter is not ill-disposed to you. You are the best of his men; to you it is given to drive the die and hammer the coin, to beat the die into the silver and to burnish it. It is possible – stranger things have happened – that you might even gain freedom, and become a villein. Lewin might speak for you – who knows? These things have happened before. Is it indeed worth while to do this thing?"

While these thoughts were racing through Hyla's brain, and he was considering them, a strange thing happened. To the struggling brain of the serf, all unused to any subtle emotion, Nature made a direct æsthetic appeal.

In the middle sky a lark began to trill a song so loud and tuneful, so instinct with Freedom, that it seemed a direct message to him. He stared up at the tiny speck from which these heavenly notes were falling down to 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's thoughts very slowly. Even as his resolve was taken, he heard Cerdic muttering 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 what further to say.

Cerdic pulled from his tunic a little cross of wood, and held it out to him. The passer-by would have seen two serfs, ill-clothed, unwashed, uncouth, eating bread and cheese under a wall. He would never have put a thought to them. Yet the conference of the two was fraught with tremendous meaning to those times. For a hundred years Hyla was remembered, and a star in the darkness to the weary; and after his name was forgotten, the influence of his deeds made life sweeter for many generations of the poor.

Hyla took the little cross, so that he might swear faith. With a lingering memory of the form in which men swore oath of fealty to their lords, 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 and faithful, and bear to you faith, Cerdic, for the aid I claim to hold of you."

He did this in seriousness, beyond all opinion; but the importance of the occasion, and the drama of it, pleased him not a little. The new toy of words was pleasant.

Cerdic kissed him, entering into the spirit of the oath, for it was the custom to kiss a man sworn to service.

"And I also am with you to the end," said Cerdic, "and may all false ribalds 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; a ballad 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. Thus they rob the poor man, who is of little value: he must waste away in sweat and labour."

Doggerel, but how bitter! A sign of the times which Geoffroi could not hear – ominous, threatening.

"A right good song, Cerdic," said Hyla. "But it will not be ever so. I know not if we shall see it, but all things change and change shall come from us. A tree stands not for ever."

The two men gazed steadfastly into each other's eyes, and then went about their work in silence.

The drama of this history may now be said to have begun. The lamps are trimmed, the scene set, and you shall hear the stirring story of Hyla the Serf.

CHAPTER III

The last night of Geoffroi de la Bourne

While Cerdic and Hyla sat in the field weaving their design to completion, Lord Geoffroi, Lord Fulke, Lady Alice, and Brian de Burgh, the squire, set out after forest game. They were attended by a great hunting train. Very few people of any importance were left in the castle, save Lewin and Dom Anselm.

The sun, though still very hot, had begun to decline towards his western bower, and the quiet of the afternoon already seemed to foreshadow the ultimate peace of evening.

Very little was doing in the castle. Some of the grooms lay about sleeping in the sun, waiting the long return of the hunters in idleness. From the armoury now and again the musical tinkering of a chisel upon steel sounded intermittent. Soon this also stopped, and a weapon-smith, who had been engraving foliates upon a blade, came out of his forge yawning. The Pantler, a little stomachy man, descended from the great hall, and, passing through the court, went out of the great gate into the village. Time seemed all standing still, in the silence and the heat.

Dom Anselm came into the courtyard, and sat him down upon a bench by the draw-well, just in the fringe of the long violet shadow thrown over the yard by Outfangthef. There was a bucket of water, full of cool green lights, standing by the well. After a little consideration, the priest kicked off his sandals and thrust his feet into its translucence. Then, comfortably propped up against the post, he fell to reading his Latin-book. In half-an-hour the book had slipped from his hand, and he was fast asleep.

While he slept, a door opened in the tower. From it came Pierce, and after him two girls, tall, comely Saxon lasses, bronzed by sun and wind. One of them, the eldest of the two, held her hands clenched, and her face was set in sullen silence. Her eyes alone blazed, and were dilated with anger. The younger girl seemed more at ease. Her eyes were timid, but a half smile lingered on her pretty, rather foolish lips. She fingered a massive bracelet of silver which encircled her arm. Pierce was giving Frija and Elgifu their freedom.

They came down the steps, and he pointed across the courtyard towards the gateway passage. "There! girls," said he, "there lies your way, to take or leave, just as suits your mind. For me, were I you, I'd never go back to the stoke. Hard fare, and dogs lying beyond all opinion! My Lords bid me say that you can take your choice."

Frija swung round at him, shaking with passion.

"Vitaille and bower," she shrilled at him, "and the prys shame! A lord for a leofman, indeed! Before I would fill my belly with lemman's food to your lord's pleasure, I would throw myself from Outfangthef."

Pierce smiled calmly at her.

"You talk of shame! – it is my lord's, if shame there is! Off with you to the fold, little serf lamb!"

She flushed a deep crimson, and seemed to cower at his words. "Come, Elgifu," she said, "mother will be glad to see us come, even coming as we do."

"Pretty Elgifu!" said the man. "No, you are not going! My Lord Fulke's a fine young man. Did he not give you that bracelet? Stay here with us all, good comrades, and you shall be our little friend. We will treat you well. Is it not so?"

The girl hesitated. She was a pretty, brainless little thing, and had not protested. They had been kind enough to her. The stoke seemed very horrible and noisome after the glories of the castle. Her sister's burning flow of Saxon seemed unnecessary. Frija looked at her in surprise at her hesitation.

"Say nothing to the divell," she cried impatiently; "come you home to mother."

Her imperious elder sister's tone irritated the little fool. "No, then," she said. "I will stay here. I will not go with you. You may talk of 'shame,' but if shame it is to live in this tower, then I have shame for my choys. Life is short; it is better here."

With that frank confession, she turned to the man-at-arms for approval.

He stepped in front of her, and, scowling at Frija, bid her be off. With a great cry of sorrow, the elder girl bowed her head and swiftly walked away. They saw her disappear through the gateway, and heard the challenge and laughter of the guards, pursuing her with jests as she went by.

"Oh, you are wise, pretty one!" said Pierce, putting his arm round her waist. "See, now, I will take you to the topmost part of the tower, to that balcony. We shall see all the country-side from there!"

They turned and entered Outfangthef, and the clanging of the door as it closed behind them roused Anselm from his slumber.

He sat up, stupidly gazing round him. His book was fallen, and a dog was nosing in its pages. He kicked the cur away, and picked up the breviary. By the shadow of the tower, which stood at the corner of the keep, he saw the afternoon was getting on. He looked round him impatiently, and, even as he did so, saw the man he was expectant of approaching.

"I am late," said Lewin, as he came up; "but I have been hearing news, and have much to tell you. We had better go at once."

"Whiles I fetch my staff," said the other, and soon they were walking through the village, down the road which led to the fen. They came to the fields, where a herd of swine was feeding among the sewage.

"They are unclean things," said Lewin, regarding them with dislike. "Though I am no Jew in practice, yet I confess that I do not like them. Pig! the very name is an outrage to one's ear."

"So not I," said Dom Anselm. "When the brute lives in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but she becomes a Norman, and is called 'pork,' when she is carried to castle-hall to feast among us. I want no better dish."

"Each to his taste. But here we are. By the Mass, but the place stinks!"

They had come to the landing-stage in the river, and, indeed, the odour was almost unbearable. For twenty yards round, the water was thick with foulness. They got into a flat-bottomed boat and pushed off across the stream. The water was too deep to pole in the centre, but one or two vigorous strokes sent them gliding towards the further rushes. Lewin punted skilfully, skirting the reeds, which rose far above his head, until he came to a narrow opening.

"This will do as well as another," he said, and turned the boat down it.

The water-way was little more than two yards wide, and the reeds grew thick and high, so that they could only see a little way in front. At last, after many turns and twists, they came to a still, green pool, a hundred yards across. In this stagnant evil-looking place they rested, floating motionless in the centre.

"Geoffroi himself, were he in the reeds, could not hear us now," said the priest.

"True, but drop a line to give a reason for being here."

The priest took from his girdle a line, wound upon a wooden spool. Baiting the hook with a piece of meat, he dropped it overboard, and settled himself comfortably in the bottom of the boat.

"Now, Lewin," said he, "you may go into the matter."

"I will tell you all I have heard," said the minter, "and we will settle all we purpose to do. You have heard that Roger Bigot has taken Norwich, and assumed the earldom of the county in rebellion to the king. Hamo de Copton, the moneyer, is a correspondent of mine, from London, and we have been interested together in more than one mercantile venture. From him letters are to hand upon the disposal of four chests of silver triens in London. You know our money is but token money, and not worth the face value of the stamp. We are making trial to circulate our money through Hamo, and in return he sends Lord Geoffroi bars of silver uncoined. Now, the letter bears a post scriptum to this end. 'The king is sick, and indeed was taken so before Whitsuntide.' The talk is all that his cause is losing, and that wise men will be nimble to seize opportunity. Hamo urges me to consider well if I should seek some other master than Geoffroi, who is the king's friend."

He stopped suddenly, alarmed by a great disturbance in the water. A pike had swallowed Anselm's bait and was beating about the pool five or six yards away, leaping out of the water in its agony. They hauled the line in slowly, until the great, evil-looking creature was snapping and writhing at the boatside. Then, with a joint heave, it lay at the bottom of the boat, and was soon despatched by the minter's dagger.

"Go on," said Dom Anselm.

"Yestreen," resumed Lewin, "John Heyrown was privy with me for near two hours. He comes peddling spice from Dentown, hard by Norwich town. I have known him privily these six months. From him I hear that Roger Bigot is in the article of setting forth to come upon us here to take the castle. Geoffroi has great store of fine armour of war, eke fine metals and jewels of silver and gold. Hilgay would extend Roger's arm far south, and make a fort for him on the eastern road to London. He is pressing to London with a great force and inventions of war. Now, listen, John Heyrown is neither more nor less than in his pay, and he comes here to see if he can find friends within our walls. Roger knows of me and my value, and offereth me a high place, and also for my friends, do I but help him. What do you say?"

Dom Anselm's thin face wrinkled up in thought, weighing the chances.

"I think," he said at last, very slowly, "I think, that we must throw our lot in with Roger Bigot, and be his men."

"I also," said Lewin. "And I have already been preparing a token of our choice."

He pulled a piece of vellum from his tunic.

"Here is a map of the castle, clear drawn. There you see marked the weak spot by the orchard wall; Geoffroi has been long a-mending of it since we noticed the sinking, but nothing has been done. To enter the castle need not be difficult. The donjon will be harder; but I have marked a plan for that also. At the foot of Outfangthef lie les oubliettes, and many deep cellars, raised on arches. It is there keep we our coined silver and the silver in bars. With his engines, knowing the spot, Roger could mine deep, and Outfangthef would fall, leaving a great breach."

Anselm took the plan with admiration.

"It's finely writ," he said; "should'st have been in a scriptorium."

"My two hands are good thralls to me," said Lewin, pleased at the compliment to his work. "Then you and I stand committed to this thing?"

"Since it seems the wisest course, for Lord Roger is a great lord and strong, I give you my hand."

"Let it be so, friend Anselm. I will give John the plan this night."

"Then it is a thing done. But what is your immediate end? – for I conceive you have some near purpose in view."

"Some time I will tell you, but not yet."

"It's a woman, you dog!" said the priest with a grin.

"We must homewards," answered the other. "Hark! I hear the horns, they have returned from the chase."

As he spoke, clear and sweet the tantivy came floating down the hill and over the water.

"We shall be late for supper," said Lewin, "make haste; take the other pole."

"God forbid we should be late for supper," said Anselm, and they began to push back.

"Will Geoffroi know that Roger is about to attack Hilgay?" Anselm asked Lewin.

"Certainly he will, in a day or two. You may be sure that he has friends in Norwich, and an expedition does not start without a clatter and talk all along the country-side. I would wager you a wager, Sir Anselm, that Geoffroi will hear of it by to-morrow morn."

"And then?"

"Why then to making ready, to get provision and vitaille for the siege."

"Well, I wait it in patience: I never moil and fret. He who waiteth, all things reach at the last."

"Beware of too much patience, Sir Anselm. Mind you the fable of Chiche Vache, the monstrous cow, who fed entirely on patient men and women, and, the tale went, was sorely lean on that fare?

"'Gardez vous de la shicheface,El vous mordra s'el vous encontre.'"

The Jew gave out the song with a fine trill in his voice, which was as tuneful as a bell.

The priest, as he watched him and marked his handsome, intelligent face, was filled with wonder of him. There was nothing he could not do well, so ran his thoughts, and an air of accomplishment and ease was attendant upon all his movements. As he threw back his head, drinking in the evening air, and humming his catch – "el vous mordra s'el vous encontre" – Anselm was suddenly filled with fear of him. He seemed not quite to fit into life. He was a Jew, too, and his forefathers had scourged God Incarnate. Strange things were said about the Jews – art magic helped them in their work. The priest clutched the cross by his side, and there was a wonderful comfort in the mere physical contact with it.

"No," said he, "I have never heard of Chiche Vache that I can call to mind. I do not care much for fables and fairy tales. There is merry reading in the lives of Saints, and good for the soul withal."

"The loss is yours, priest. I love the stories and tales of the common folk, eke the songs they sing to the children. I can learn much from them. Chiche Vache is as common to the English as to French folk. 'Lest Chichewache yow swelwe in hir entraille,'" he drawled in a capital imitation of the uncouth Saxon speech.

By that time they had got to the castle and turned in at its gates.

The courtyard was full with a press of people, and busy as a hive. Outside the stable doors the horses were being rubbed down by the serfs. As they splashed the cool water over the quivering fetlocks and hot legs, all scratched by thorns and forest growth, they crooned a little song in unison. The "ballad of my lord going hawking" was a melancholy cadence, which seemed, in its slow minors, instinct with the sadness of a conquered race. The first verse ran —

"Lord his wyfe upstood and kyssed,Faucon peregryn on wryst;Faucon she of fremde londe,With hir beek Sir Heyrown fonde."

Lewin and Anselm passed by them and stood watching a moment.

"Hear you that song of the grooms?" Lewin said.

"I have heard it a hundred times, but never listened till now," said Anselm. "But what say they of Faucon peregryn? what means fremde londe?"

"It stands for foreign land in their speech," said the Jew. "Hast much to learn of thy flock, Anselm?"

"Not I. My belly moves at the crooning. It is like the wind in the forest of a winter's night. Come you to supper."

"That I will, when I have washed my hands; they are all foul with pike's blood."

Dom Anselm gave a superior smile, and turned towards the hall.

The great keep lifted its huge angular block of masonry high into the ruddy evening air, Outfangthef frowned over the bailey below. The door which opened on the hall steps stood wide, and the servants were hurrying in and out with dishes of food, while the men-at-arms stood lingering round it till supper should be ready.

Cookery was an art upon the upward path, and Geoffroi's chef was no mean professor of it. The hungry crowd saw bowls of stew made from goose and garlic borne up the stairs. Pork and venison in great quarters followed, and after them came two kitchen serfs carrying wooden trays of pastry, and round cakes piously marked with a cross.

Soon came the summons to supper. A page boy came down the steps and cried that my lord was seated, and every one pressed up the stairs with much jangling of metal and grinding of feet upon the stones. To our modern ideas the great hall would present an extraordinary sight. This rich nobleman fed with less outward-seeming comfort than a pauper in a clean-scrubbed, whitewashed workhouse of to-day. And yet, though many a lazy casual would grumble at a dinner served as was Geoffroi de la Bourne's, there was something enormously impressive in the scene. We are fortunate in many old chronicles and tales which enable us to reconstruct it in all its picturesqueness.

Imagine, then, that you are standing on the threshold of the hall just as supper has been begun.

The hall was a great room of bare stone, with a roof of oaken beams, in which more than one bird had its nest. There was an enormous stone chimney, now all empty of fire, and the place was lit with narrow chinks, unglazed, pierced in the ten-foot wall. The day of splendid oriels was yet to come in fortress architecture, which was, like the time, grim and stern. It was dusk now in the outside world, and the hall was lit with horn lanterns, and also with tall spiked sticks, into which were fixed rough candles of tallow. The table went right up the hall, and was a heavy board supported on trestles. Benches were the only seats.

On a daïs at the far end of the building was the high table, where Geoffroi and his son and daughter sat. The two squires, Brian de Burgh and Richard Ferville, also sat at the high table, and Dom Anselm had a place on the baron's right hand.

Lewin was seated at the head of the lower table, and the baron could lean over and speak to him if he had a mind to do so.

Geoffroi and his son sat in chairs which were covered with rugs, and at their side stood great goblets of silver. The dim light threw fantastic shadows upon the colours of the dresses and the weapons hung on pegs driven into the wall, blending them into a harmonious whole.

It was a picture of warm reds and browns, of mellow, comfortable colours, with here and there a sudden twinkle of rich, vivid madder or old gold.

When every one was seated, Geoffroi nodded to Dom Anselm, who thereupon pattered out a grace, an act of devotion which was rather marred by the behaviour of Lord Fulke, who was audibly relating some merry tale to his friend, Brian de Burgh.

Then every one fell to with a great appetite. The serfs, kneeling, brought barons of beef and quarters of hot pork on iron dishes. Each man cut what he fancied with his dagger or hunting-knife, and laid it on his trencher. Such as chose stew or ragout, ate it from a wooden bowl, scooping up the mess in their bare hands. Lady Alice held a bone in her white fingers, and gnawed it like any kitchen wench; and so did they all, and were, indeed, none the worse for that.

Geoffroi de la Bourne, the central figure of that company, was a tall, thin man of some five-and-fifty years. His face was lined and seamed with deep furrows. Heavy brows hung over cold green eyes, and a beaked eagle nose dominated a small grey moustache, which did not hide a pair of firm, thin lips. His grey hair fell almost to his shoulders.