"At the sight therefore, of this river, the Pilgrims were much
stunned; but the men that went with them said, 'You must go
through, or you cannot come at the gate.'"
Hyla slept ill after an hour or two. Tired nature gave him a physical
oblivion for a time, but when his exhaustion was worked off, he began to
toss uneasily and to dream. The events of the past days danced in a
confused jumble in his brain, and the dominant sensation was one of
gliding over water.
Water and the vast lonely fen lands were vividly before him in a hundred
uneasy and fantastic ways. He awoke to find the hut hot and stifling
beyond all bearing. The deep breathing of his women folk was all the
immediate sound he heard, though an owl was sobbing intermittently in
the wood by the lake.
How hot it was! The rich earthy smell, a fertile, luxuriant odour of
life, was terribly oppressive. There was an earthen jar of lake water at
the door of the hut, but when he groped a silent way to it, he found it
warm and full of the taste of weeds and tree roots. There was no comfort
in it.
He stood looking out into the night. There was no moon, but it was
hardly dark. Now and then a ghostly sheet of summer lightning flickered
over the sky. Late as it was the air was full of flying insects. The
cockchafers boomed as they circled over the enclosure in their long,
swift flight. Great moths, with huge fat bodies, hung on the roofs of
the huts or flapped to the neighbouring trees. The heavy, lazy Goat
Moths, three years old, and nearly four inches from wing to wing. The
male Wood Leopard, more active than his great brother, the
sombre-coloured Noctuas, the evil-looking, long-bodied Hawk Moths, all
danced in the dusky air.
Out in the fields the crickets sang like a thousand little bells, and
the atropus, a tiny insect from which bucolic superstition has evolved
the "death watch," ticked as it ran over the door posts.
Glow-worms winked in pale gleams among the grass, and louder than any
other noise was the deep hum of the great Stag-beetle as he flew by. A
myriad night life pulsed round the waking man. The Goatsucker flew round
the borders of the wood catching the insects in his flight, and his
strange, jarring pipe thrilled all the heavy air; among the leaves and
undergrowth the Hedgepig, rested with his long day's sleep, rustled in
search of food, making his curious, low, gurgling sound, and rattling
his spines.
In those far-off days wild life luxuriated and throve. Day and night
were full of strange sounds heard but rarely now. As Hyla stood wearily
by his hut, the Polecat was fishing for eels in the mud of the lake
shore. Old dog-foxes slunk through the woods in search of prey, while
their cubs frisked like kittens in the open spaces of the woods, playing
hide-and-seek, and engaging in a mimic warfare. The air was full of
Noctules and Natterers, great silent bats.
In some dim way, Hyla was influenced by all this vitality around him.
Richard Espec in his place would have said, "In wisdom Thou hast made
them all, the earth is full of Thy riches. Thou openest Thy hand and
fillest all things living with plenteousness; they continue this day
according to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee. He spake the
word and they were made, He commanded, and they were created!"
That would have been the logical expression of a good man who spent his
life in reconciling the concrete with the unseen. Hyla's attitude was
just the same, though he was not educated to elevate a thought into an
expression of thought.
But, nevertheless, he felt the mystery of the night, and the live
creatures at work in it.
The Spirit of God worked in him as it worked in wiser and more
considerable men.
But it was rather lonely also. His great deed still had its influence of
terror upon him. A man who violently disturbs the society in which he
lives and moves, as Hyla had done, wants human companionship. It is ill
to know one is absolutely alone.
He thought that he would seek Cerdic, if, perchance, he was in a mood
for talk, and not too drowsy. He went towards his friend's hut. In the
dim light, as he threaded his way across the stoke, he saw that many
other serfs had found their shelters too noisesome and hot for comfort.
They lay about in front of the huts in curious twisted attitudes,
breathing heavily with weariness and sleep.
Cerdic had also chosen the air to lie in. He was stretched on a skin,
lying on his back, and in his hand was a half-eaten piece of black
bread, showing that sleep had caught him before he had finished his
supper.
Hyla lent over him and whispered in his ear. It was interesting to see
how quickly and yet how silently the man awoke. With no sound of
astonishment or surprise, he sat up, with alert enquiring eyes, full
awake and ready for anything that might be toward.
"Peace!" said Hyla, "there is nothing to trouble about. But I cannot
sleep, and feel very lonely, and want speech with a man. The air is full
of winged things, and the shaw yonder of beasts. I do not know why, I
want a man's voice."
"You made your bede to-night?" said Cerdic.
"Yes, I prayed, Cerdic, and you with me. But I feel ill at ease, and
sweating with the heat."
"Yes, yes," said Cerdic, as one who was used to these fleeting
sicknesses of the brain, and as one who could prescribe a cure. "I wist
well how you feel, Hyla. 'Tis the night and the loneliness of it.
Onnethe can a man be alone at night unless he is busy upon something.
Come sit you down and talk."
They reclined side by side upon the grass, but neither had much to say.
Hyla found something comforting in the companionship of Cerdic.
"I keep minding _His_ face," said Hyla suddenly.
"Then you are a fool, Hyla. But I wist that is only because 'tis
nighttime. You are not troubled in the day. You have had your wreak upon
your foe. Let it be, it is done, and Sir Priest hath absolved you from
sin, and eke me."
He looked at Hyla with a smile, as who should say that the argument was
irresistible.
"Cerdic," said Hyla, "I feel in truth something I cannot say. I am
absolved and stainless, I wist well, yet I am accoyed. I fear some evil,
and the night is strange. The air is thick with flies and such volatile,
and--I wist not. I wist not what I mean."
"Hast eaten too heavily and art troubled by this new place. Shall I pray
for you a space?"
His face lit up with eagerness as he said it.
"Not now, Cerdic," said Hyla, "I am not for bede to-night. Come you
with me to lake-side; there will be air upon the water, perchance. I
cannot breathe here."
"I have slept enough and will go with you, but these sick fancies are
not in your fashion. You have never been y-wone to them; and for my
part, Hyla, I put my trust in my lords the angels, and think that evil
thoughts come from devils of Belsabubbis line."
Hyla crossed himself in silence. "Rest a moment," he said. "I will see
if Gruach wakes, and if she does, tell her I am going to the lake-side
for coolness, and that I cannot sleep."
But when he got to the hut it was as silent as when he had left it, and
he heard the untroubled breathing of the women he loved.
With a curious expression of tenderness for so outwardly unemotional a
man he made the sign of salvation in the gloom of the door, and with a
heart full of foreboding turned towards Cerdic.
The lawer-of-dogs was not anxious to leave his sleep and wander through
the night. Far rather would he have lain sleeping till the sun and birds
of morning called him to work in a happy security he had never known
before. But there was a great loyalty in him, and a love for his friend
that was as sincere as it was unspoken.
Moreover, he began to see of late new traits in Hyla. He found him
changed and less easily understood. Mental influences seemed at work in
him which raised him, or removed him, from the ordinary men Cerdic knew.
Cerdic only _felt_ this. He did not think it. Yet his unconscious
realisation of the fact made him defer to Hyla's moods and fall in with
his suggestion.
He was a shrewd, gentle, fine-natured man. I should like to have clasped
his hand.
He put a lean, brown paw on Hyla's broad shoulder, and together they
threw the plank over the evil-smelling ditch, malodorous and poisoning
the night, and strode out into the wood.
They flitted noiselessly among the dark trees, silent amid the noble
aisles and avenues which sloped down to the lake.
The air was certainly cooler as they left the stoke behind.
They had gone some distance upon their way when they sat for a moment to
rest upon the bole of a fallen oak tree in a little open glade some ten
yards square. The clearing was fairly light, but a black wall of trees
encompassed it. There, such was the influence of the place and hour,
they fell talking of abstractions with as much right and probably as
luminous a point of view as their betters.
"What think you, lad, Geoffroi be doing now?" said Hyla.
"Burning in hellis fire," said Cerdic in a tone of absolute conviction.
"Think you for ever?" said Hyla musingly.
"Aye, Hyla, I pray Our Lady. The Saints would not have him in heaven,
and I wist St. Jesu also."
"We might go to him," said Hyla.
Cerdic gazed at him through the dark with genuine astonishment.
"By Godis ore!" he said, "never shall we two roast for long. Prior hath
prayed with us and we are shriven. We have done no man harm. I am
certain, Hyla, that the Saints and Our Lady will take us in. An it only
be to carry water or dung fields, we shall be taken in."
The absolute assurance in his tone told upon the other and comforted
him.
"Art not accoyed to die?" he asked.
"No wit. Natheless, I would live a little longer now we have won kind
masters. Yet would I die this night withouten fear. I would well like to
see the Blessed Lady and all her train. It will be a wonderful fine
sight, Hyla."
As they sat thus, talking simply of that other life, which was so real
to them in their childlike, undisturbed faith, they did not hear the
moving of many feet through the underwood or the low whispers of a body
of men who were approaching the glade in which they sat.
One loud word, a chance oath, would have startled them away and saved
them. Indeed, had they not been so intent upon high matters they must
have heard footsteps. Trained foresters as they were, creatures of the
fields, the woods, and the open heavens, no men were more quick to hear
the advance of any living thing or more prompt to avoid hostile comers.
The first intimation that came to them was the sudden clank of a
steel-headed pike as it fell and rattled against a tree stump. They
leapt to their feet, but it was too late. The wood seemed peopled with
armed men. Their alarm came upon them so quickly that each tree all
round was transformed into a man-at-arms. Before they could turn to fly
the leaders of the band were up with them, and strong mailed arms
grasped them.
Black-bearded faces peered into theirs, striving to see who they were in
that dim light.
"Are ye prior's men?" said Huber, in a low, eager voice.
Then with a sick fear the two serfs knew into whose hands they had
fallen. With an icy chill of despair, they realised that these were
Fulke's men, and that his vengeance was long-armed, and had come upon
them stealthily in the night.
Then in that moment of anguish, they tasted all the bitterness of death.
The new, fair life that was opening before them so brightly vanished in
a flash. The old cruel voices of their masters were like heavy chains; a
black curtain fell desolately and finally over their lives.
Suddenly one of the men who had been scrutinising them closely gave a
loud and joyous cry. "God's rood!" he shouted. "These be the two men
themselves a-coming to meet with us in t' wood! Mordieu, these be the
murderers!"
The men-at-arms crowded round the captives with cries of savage joy.
"The Saints have done this," cried one man. Then, being above all things
soldiers, and alive to all the fortunes and chances which await men in a
hostile neighbourhood, they bound the serfs with thongs, and hurried
them swiftly down the hill to the boat.