Per varios casus, per tot discrimena rerum, tendimus in LATIUM sedes
ubi fata quietas ostendunt.
There is always and forever a haven we can win. In all the chances and
turmoils of this life, howeversomuch we are tossed upon the seas of
circumstance, somewhere, without doubt, there is peace.
For the intellect distracted and pierced through by every fresh morsel
of knowledge, for the brain tired out by the senses, for the body full
of the sickness, let us say, of a great town, somewhere the Fates have a
quiet resting place. There is peace waiting. Let Alecto, Megaera and
Tisiphone shriek and wail ever so loudly, they shall not break it.
Tendimus in Latium--we are all going towards Latium. For some of us it
is the blessed peace of the grave, and others are to find it in this
life. Somewhere there is peace!
Hyla felt an utter weariness of life and all its appeals as he fled
through the forest. The hot wan wine of revenge that had been his blood
was now cool and stagnant. That stern old devil-hearted man that he had
made into a filthy corpse had passed away out of knowledge as if he had
never been. The brain of the serf was all empty of sensation, save for
that great weariness. His body was full of the mere instinct of
self-preservation. The legs on which he ran, the arms which pushed aside
the forest branches, the furtive eyes which sought for foes, all acted
independently of his brain. Nature itself working in him bade him fly.
For himself, had he thought about it, he would hardly have cared, even
though he had been captured. But none the less was his fleeing swift and
sure.
He twisted his tortuous way through the thick hazel shoots, which struck
him in the face as he buffeted them, and his bare arms and legs were
scarred and pricked in a thousand places with thorns from the trailing
undergrowth.
When he had beat back to the other end of Monkshood, walking parallel to
the glade, he heard voices close to him and the noise of a company of
people entering the ride at the far end of the glade. By the three
sinister trees, he heard the keen notes of a horn blowing in eager
summons. Suddenly a new and terrible fear came to him. The dogs, which
were whining all round, would most surely smell him in a moment. He
could hear their excited movements on every side. He realised that he
should have made a much greater detour, and that he had, in fact,
stumbled into the very middle of his enemies.
He could see no way out of his perilous position, and felt that he was
certain of immediate discovery. But the Fates, which were providing a
short peace for him, willed that his capture was not yet to be. The
urgent note of Kenulph's horn, half a mile away, attracted the dogs, and
they gave tongue, and, dashing out of the cover, spread up the drive in
a long line. Fulke, who was within ten yards of the hidden murderer,
cheered them on.
"I can see figures," shouted a huntsman, "one, two horses. They must be
my lord and Kenulph, and Sir Boar is dead. Come along, Sir Fulke, we are
not very far behind after all!"
With that the whole company pressed out into the ride and thundered
away, and Hyla was left solitary. The narrowness of the escape
heartened him into fresh endeavour, and once more he began his swift
career through the wood. After another mile of hard going, he sat for a
moment. 'Twas then that he heard a low sibilant noise, like the hiss of
a snake. He started up, looking round him on every side. He heard the
sound again, and it seemed to come from the sky above.
He looked up into the depths of a beech tree above him, and presently
there appeared a lean brown leg among the leaves. A body followed, and
Cerdic dropped on to the turf.
"Well?" said Cerdic, "God be with you! What have you done?"
"Killed him," said Hyla with a curious pride, though he tried hard to
appear unconscious of his great merit. "He's dead, sure enough. I well
think he is in hell now--he and Pierce in the same fire."
"The Saints have watched thee with kind eyën that you did it, Hyla. In
hell is my lord, and there a will lie, for Saint Peter that hath the key
is not so scant of wit as to let him go. Let us thank Our Lady that did
strengthen your arm."
"Yes, let us thank her," said Hyla. "I gave him two arrows, 'one for
Elgifu,' I said, and 'this one for Frija,' I said. That was how I did
it. So that he might be sure for what he died, you wist. Yes, that was
just how I did it."
He had a curious shame which prevented a reference to the third shaft.
He was not sure if Cerdic would have understood that arrow of FREEDOM.
He hardly realised it himself.
"By Godis rood, you have done well, my friend. But pray, pray that you
may be clean, and that Our Lady may wesshe you of blood guilt."
They knelt down, and became straightway enveloped in a mystery that was
not of this world. The dead man in the tree-cave could not stir Hyla as
this sudden invoking of God's mother, for he was certain that she was
close by in the wood, listening.
Cerdic made prayer, because he was a man of quick wit and glib of
tongue.
"O Lady of Heaven," said he, "we call upon you in our souls' need, and I
will plainly tell you why. And that is this: Hyla has killed our Lord
Geoffroi, for he did take his girls. And Lord Geoffroi has sorely
oppressed us and beaten us, and so, dead is he. And we pray you that we
be made clean of the killing in Godis sight. And if it may be so, we ask
that you will say to the heavenly gateward that he should ne'er let our
Lord Geoffroi therein. For Saint Peter knoweth not how bad a man he was.
And we would that you wilt say by word that he be cast down with Judas
and with all the devils into hell, Amen." And then in a quick aside to
Hyla, "'Amen' fool, I did not hear you say it."
With that Hyla said "Amen" very lustily, and they both rose from their
knees. "I am gride that I said no 'Amen,'" said Hyla, "but I was
listening to the prayer. It was a wonderful good prayer, Cerdic."
"Yes," said the other, "I can pray more than a little when it so comes
to me. Had I but some Latin to pray in I doubt nothing that I would get
my own bocland back before I die. But come, we are far from safety yet.
It gets late, we must go swiftly."
They met with no mishap, and saw no man till they were on the very
outskirts of the wood, and not more than a couple of hundred yards from
the stoke itself. They were about thirty yards from the main entrance to
the wood, a road which was beaten hard with the coming and going of men
and horses.
There they stopped for a consultation. Was it better, they asked each
other, to gather some kindling wood and go boldly through the village as
if upon the ordinary business of the day, or, on the other hand, to make
a wide half circle, and reach the river a mile away from the
landing-stage?
It was quite certain that as yet no news of the Baron's death had
reached the castle. There could be no doubt of that. They might walk
openly through the village with no suspicion. Yet, at the same time,
they might very probably be met by a man-at-arms or one of the minor
officials of the castle, and ordered to some work within its gates. It
was a difficult question to decide upon hurriedly, and yet it must be
settled soon. Every moment wasted in council meant--so they took it--a
chance less for freedom. As they discussed the issue in an agony of
indecision they both found that terror was flowing over them in waves.
Cerdic's throat contracted and was pulled back again into a dry
tightness. He cleared his throat at every sentence, as who should be
about the nervous effort of a public speech.
As for Hyla, his stomach became as though it were full of water, and his
bowels were full of an aching which was fearfully exciting and which at
the same time, strangely enough, had an acute physical pleasure in it.
Their indecision was stopped by an event which left only one method of
flight open to them.
As they tossed the chance back and forward to one another, debated upon
it and weighed it, they heard the noise of a horseman passing by _ventre
à terre_. As he passed he sounded his horn. They wormed their way to the
road as they heard him coming, and saw that it was the forester Kenulph.
His face was ashen grey and set rigid with excitement, and then both
simultaneously saw that he was bearing the news to the castle.
He passed them like rain blown by the wind, and turning the corner was
lost to their sight.
"This makes our way clear algates," said Cerdic. "Sith Kenulph rides to
castle hall, we must be bold. It will take while a man might tell
hundreds for them to take the news. He will hold all the castle in
thrall. They will be forslackt for half-an-hour. He is there by now, all
clad with loam and full of his news. Come out into the village and go
down to river bank. We go to clear the brook mouth. It's all mucky and
begins to kill the fish. Remember, that is what we go to do."
"I obey your heasts, Sir Cerdic," Hyla answered him with a smile. "Come,
come upon the way. I think it matters not much one way or the other, but
we may win our sanctuary by hardiment. Algates, we are ywrocken."[3]
"Yes, that are we, and revenge is sweet. No more will he ill-use our
girls, or burn us on the green. Surely he has a deep debt to pay."
While they had been speaking they had been gathering great armfuls of
fallen twigs and branches, and soon they went slowly down the ride with
these. The frowning gates of the castle came into their view, but
Kenulph had already entered them, and the very guards had left the
gates. They passed by to the right, and came on to the green. One or two
women were busy washing linen at the doors of the houses, but save for
them no one was about.
They passed the long walls of the castle, skirting the moat, by which a
smooth path ran, till they came to the fields. There they were stopped
for a few minutes. One Selred, a serf who tended swine, came out of the
field where his charges dwelt. He was a half-witted creature, but little
removed from the swine themselves. He carried a spear head, broken off a
foot down the shaft, and this had been sharpened on a hone of hard wood
for a weapon with which to kill the swine. He pointed to the row of dead
animals which lay stark and unclean on one side of the field.
[3] Revenged.
"Nearly fifty," said he, "have I killed this day for siege vittaille, to
their very great dreriment. Holy Maid! never did you hear such
squealing."
They shook him off after a time, but with difficulty. He was infinitely
proud of his achievement. "I do love pig's flesh," he gibbered after
them as they fled down the hill.
From the castle there now came the shrill notes of a tucket, and then
the castle bell began to toll furiously, and a confused noise of
shouting floated down the hill. When they hurried to the landing-stage
they found that the boats had been duly scuttled. Here and there a
gunwale projected out of the water, and on the stones lay the windac of
a cross-bow with which holes had been made in the boats.
Hyla gave a long, low whistle, and waited for Gurth to glide out of the
reeds bordering the great fen. There was no reply, and the two fugitives
looked at each other in alarm. Then Cerdic whistled rather louder, but
still the welcome sight of the boat did not come to them.
"Something has happened to the mome," Cerdic said, "I am sure that he
would not forslowe us like this if a were safe."
"What shall we do?" asked Hyla.
"I do not know," said Cerdic, his courage oozing out of him every
moment. Their position was certainly sufficiently perilous. There was,
as yet, nothing to connect them with the crime, but half-an-hour might
alter everything. It was, moreover, quite certain that, in a search, one
party at least would be sent down to the river.
They stood there gazing at each other in great alarm.
"I have a great fear that we are lost," Hyla said.
"Indeed, I believe so," answered the other, with strained, terrified
eyes.
Both of them felt that they were hard in the very grip of unkind
circumstance. They shook like river-side willows when the wind blows.
Now as they stood together communing as to what they should do, and with
a great sinking of heart, it chanced that their faces were turned
towards the river, away from the castle. They looked most eagerly
towards the reeds upon the other side.
The river ran sluggishly like oil, and there was no breaking up of its
surface. Here and there some dancing water-flies made a tiny ripple, but
that was all.
Suddenly a great fish leapt out of the middle water high into the air. A
flash of silver, a glimpse of white belly, and with a loud report it was
gone. Sullen circles widened out and broadened towards them. Then they
saw at the very place where the bream had disappeared the still surface
of the water was violently agitated. They watched in amazement. A great
black object heaved slowly up into view, full six feet long. It was the
body of Pierce, the man-at-arms, all swollen by water. The face was
puffed into an enormous grotesque, and the open eyes seemed cognisant of
them.
The faces of the two serfs became ashen white, and they looked at each
other in terrible fear.
"Christ, what a visnomie!" said Cerdic.
"God shows us that we are to die. My lord will be ywrocken" said Hyla.
"See how it seems alive."
"Yes, that does it. I can see the hole in's neck. The fishes have been
at it."
"Oh, courage, courage! Our Lady never means us to die, whistle for Gurth
once more. Perchance he is nearer now, perchance he is nearer, and, not
knowing we are here, cometh not."
"I cannot sound a note, my breath is hot and my lips are very dry.
Whistle you for me."
Just then a noise of shouting behind their backs made them both wheel
round swiftly. Half-way down the hill a group of men-at-arms were
running towards them.
Cerdic gave a great wail of despair.
One of the soldiers dropped upon his knee, and a long arrow came past
them singing like a great wasp. It ricochetted over the water into the
reeds beyond. The soldiers were now a hundred and fifty yards away,
shouting fiercely as they came on.
Hyla turned a last hopeless glance to the river. Just as he did so a
long nose shot out of the reeds, and the punt they had waited for glided
swiftly towards them.
"Hallo, hallo!" Cerdic yelled in an agony of excitement. "Quick, quick,
else we die!"
There was a sudden jar as the prow of the punt collided with the
masonry. The two serfs leapt into it. Gurth took the long pole and
plunged it deep into the water. The muscles grew rigid on his bare back
and stood out upon his arms as he bent for one mighty stroke. The
soldiers were only twenty yards away. With an incredible slowness, so it
seemed to the fugitives, the arms of the punter began to lengthen as the
boat moved. In another second the propelling impulse gathered force and
speed, and just as the first man arrived upon the landing-stage it
glided rapidly over the water. There was a thud as it struck the
floating body, and a horrid liquid bubbling, and then in another second
they entered the passage and the reeds hid them from view. Gurth sank
down, deadly sick, upon the floor of the punt, and the pole, held by one
hand only, dragged among the rushes with a sound like a sickle in corn.
The three men crouched in the bottom of the boat, listening to the angry
clamour on the opposite shore. An arrow or two passed over their heads,
and one fell from a height into the very prow of the boat, but none of
them were touched. There was not an ounce of courage among them. They
had no strength to go on.
The castle bell away on the hill-top still rang loudly, and the shrill
metallic notes of the tuckets called and answered to each other all
round.
As they lay in the reeds not thirty yards from their pursuers, these
noises of alarm filled them with fear. A voice rang out from the excited
babble across the river and flung an echoing and malignant threat at
them.
Although they could see nothing, the whole scene was painted for them
with noise. They heard the voices sink into a quick murmur of
conversation, and then hurried footsteps sped up the hill with messages
for the castle.
Still they stayed trembling in the punt and made no effort to escape.
All the weight of the terrible traditions that overhung their class was
upon them. The great effort they had made, their incredible boldness,
now left them with little more spirit, in spite of their good fortune,
than whipped dogs. The moment was enough, for the moment they were safe
from capture, and the voices of the soldiers--how terribly near!--did
not stir them to action.
It was only when their peril became imminent that they were roused from
their apathy. Sounds of activity floated over to them. A voice was
giving directions, and then there was a shout of "Now," followed by a
harsh, grating noise. The serfs realised that the soldiers had been able
to drag one of the sunken punts on to the landing-stage. Almost
immediately a noise of hammering was heard. They were repairing the
boat.
At that shrill, ominous sound Cerdic rose from the bottom of the punt
trembling with excitement. "Men," he said in a deep startled voice, "we
have been here too long, and death is like to come our way. Oh, faint
hearts that we have been, and the Saints with us so long, and the Holy
Maid helping us! Come, silent now! take poles and let us get away. I
know the fens better than those divells."
So confident was his voice and so burning with excitement, that in one
moment it lashed their cowardice away. Hyla sprung towards the stern
pole and Gurth lifted the other, then, with hardly a movement save a few
tiny splashes, the boat glided slowly away into the heart of the fen.
The voices of the soldiers became fainter and more faint till they could
hear them no more.
The ringing blows of the hammer pursued them a little further, until in
a few minutes those also died away, and they were alone in the fen.
All round them the great reeds rose and whispered, enormous bulrushes
with furry heads like young water-rats nodded towards them as they raced
for their life down those dark mysterious waterways. Deeper and deeper
into the heart of the great fen sped the boat. Gurth and Hyla worked
with the precision of machines. There was a wonderfully stimulating
effect in the rhythm of the action. The water became a deep shining
black, showing incalculable depths below. In order to propel the boat at
all they had to skirt the very fringe of the morass, for there only
could the poles find bottom. At each heave and lift, under which the
punt kicked forward like some living thing, the poles came up clotted
and smeared with stinking black mud, undisturbed before for hundreds of
years. Sometimes, at a deeper push, the mud was a greyish white and
studded with tiny shells, tokens which the great grey sea had left
behind to tell that once it had dominion there.
All wild nature fled before their racing approach. A hundred yards
ahead, even in those tortuous ways, fat unclean birds of the fen rose
heavily and clanged away over the marshes. As the throb of the poles
came near them, the fish shouldered each other in flight. Every now and
again they rushed over a still, wicked pool teeming with fish, and the
rush of their passage made white-bellied fish leap out of the water in
terror. Once they saw a great black vole, as large as a rabbit, swimming
in the middle of the water. He heard them coming, and turned a wet
smooth head to look; then with a twinkle of his eyes he dived and
disappeared.
Gradually the speed of the boat slackened as the two men grew tired. The
excitement of the day began to tell on them, and they felt in their arms
how weary they were. Cerdic, who perhaps by virtue of his years or
personal magnetism seemed to be indubitably their leader, saw it in
their faces. He saw that not only were they physically worn out, but
that energy was going from their brains also.
"Stop you," said this shrewd person. "We are far from them now. It is
time for rest and belly food." Nothing loth, they put down the punt
poles, and pushed the nose of the boat into a little bay of reeds, out
of the main water.
"Food?" said Hyla, "with all my heart, I did not know you had any. Where
is it pight?"
Cerdic gave a little superior grin. He took up a skin wallet which lay
by his side and produced the materials for a feast. Six great green
eggs, stolen from a sitting duck which had belonged to the ill-fated
Pierce, were the staple food. Boiled hard and eaten with black bread and
some scraps of cold meat, they were a banquet to the fugitives. For
drink they had nothing but marsh water, which they sucked up through a
hollow reed. It was blackish and rather stagnant, but it refreshed them
mightily.
"And how far have you got now, do you think?" said Gurth.
"Near half way," answered Cerdic, "but it has been easy going, and we
shall not get such free water now. It is a back way to Icomb that we
have come by up till now. Whybeare there was a broad passage, a great
stretch of water, but that was in King William's time, when boats
brought corn from Edmundsbury. Now the monks have corn-land of their
own, and corn comes from Norwich also. The passage is all grown with
weed and reeds, and no man may go up it in any vessel."
"Where must we go, then?" Hyla asked him.
"Nor'wards for some miles, taking any way we can that is open. Then we
shall come to the lake of Wilfrith, and beyond that is the Abbey."
"What is Wilfrith lake, and who was he?" said Hyla. "I have been upon
its water, but I do not know why it is called that. Also, it has a bad
name, and they say spirits are seen upon it."
Cerdic crossed himself at that.
"Wilfrith was once Prior of Icomb," he said, "a good priest, and much
loved by God. Upon a day he was walking by the lake side, when he was
seized by lawless men and robbed of his gold cross, and left bound to a
tree in the forest, near the monastery. It was evening, and he could see
the robbers getting into their boats to cross the lake. So he prayed to
God. 'Lord,' he cried, 'I have not loved Thee enough. Deliver me from my
need, and with Thy help I will so correct and frame my life that
henceforth I may serve Thee better.' As he prayed, and when the thieves
were about half way over the lake, there came a great black hand up out
of the water and seized the boat and dragged it into the depths. At the
same time his bonds fell from him, and he became free."
"A black hand," said Hyla uneasily, "that would be a fearful thing to
meet with."
"We shall not do so," said Cerdic, "for I believe that the Great Ones
are helping us to-day. Who knows that they are not with us now? We have
killed Lord Geoffroi for his cruelty and sins, for all he was a lord. Do
you think Lord Christ would have let him be killed if he had not wished
it? Not he. He's no fool. I tell you," he said, cracking the shell of
his second egg, and with great sincerity in his voice, "I tell you that
like as not Sir Gabriel or Lord Abdiel, or one of the angels is flying
over the boat with his sword in's hand and his tucket on his shoulder."
They all looked up to see if the angel was there, but only a little wind
rustled the tops of the rushes, though the sky above was beginning to be
painted with evening.
They prattled there a little longer, willing that their rest should be
complete.
Now, at eventide, all the fishes began to rise at the flies, and the
waters became like stained-glass, and peace was over all that wild
scene.
The voices of the serfs insensibly dropped, and made low murmurs, no
louder than the sounds of the cockchafers and long-mailed water-flies
that now boomed and danced over the fen.
The moon was slowly rising when they put out again on the last stage of
their journey, punting with less haste, but making good going,
nevertheless. They were in excellent spirits.