mud, then with clay. Neither would hold when dry. Then he saw a workman
repairing part of the garden wall, and in an evil moment borrowed some
of the mortar while the man was gone to his dinner. He had just set it
down near the mount when Collet came to call the children to their own
dinner. The bucket remained there, and Lady Ebba's old gray cat,
chasing a hound she had discovered near the hole where her kittens were
secreted, bounced off a wall and fell into the mortar--fortunately hind
feet foremost. The indignant Jehan came searching for his bucket and
kicked the pile of stones in all directions, Lady Ebba made stern
inquiry into the misfortune which had come to her cat, and wall-building
was abandoned.
For a week or more, Roger gardened, fished and practiced archery in a
somewhat subdued fashion. Lady Philippa, watching Eleanor's brown head
and the boy's tousled tow-colored mop, as they consulted over a boat
Roger was making, smiled and sighed. She wished that Alazais were there
to see them play together.
Not long after the disastrous building incident Sir Walter appeared one
day with surprising news indeed. Sir Stephen Giffard, the elder brother,
was about to marry and come to live in the old Norman chateau. The new
chatelaine was a rich widow of Louvain. Sir Stephen and Lady Adelicia
would be the lord and lady of the castle, and would have the tapestry
chamber.
“Oh, moth-er!” cried Eleanor piteously. No other room in the castle
would ever be so pleasant. She could not understand her mother's
untroubled acceptance of the change.
“But my dear child,” Lady Philippa went on, “we shall not be here; we
are going away. King Henry has given your father a great estate in a
wild country in the west of England, and he is building a castle for our
home. You will be an English maiden, sweetheart, and have your tapestry
of Saint George for your very own room.”
Eleanor's eyes were starlike. Then her mouth began to droop a little.
“Is Roger to stay here?”
“Roger will be with us. His father's castle is only a few leagues from
ours, and he is going to leave Roger at our home for a year or more
while he is away.”
This made it quite perfect. Roger rejoiced openly at the prospect of
going back to England. In stray moments Eleanor wondered a little how
Lady Ebba liked it. She rather doubted whether Lady Adelicia would be as
content there as her mother.
When they rode away from the old Norman gateway for the last time
Eleanor laughed gleefully: “I don't care where we go, mother,” she
whispered, “we've the roots and seeds from your garden, and we shall
have a tapestry chamber!”
THE CASTLE
O the Castle of Heart's Delight!
The winds of the sunrise know it,
And the music adrift in its airy halls,
To the end of the world they blow it--
Music of glad hearts keeping time
To bells that ring in a crystal chime
With the cadence light of an ancient rime--
Such music lives on the winds of night
That blow from the Castle of Heart's Delight!
O the Castle of Heart's Delight
Where you and I go faring--
Heritage dear of love and toil,
Guerdon of faith and daring.
For all may win to the ancient gate,
Though some are early and some are late,
And each hath borne with his hidden Fate,--
For never a man but hath his right
To enter his Castle of Heart's Delight!
VI
THE FAIRIES' WELL
“What a beautiful place this is,” Lady Philippa said softly. She was
standing with her husband near the great stone keep, looking out across
a half-built wall at the hills and valleys of his wilderness domain.
It was one of those mornings of early summer when the air is cool
yet bright with sunshine, and the unfolding beauty of the world has
something of heaven in it. Birds were singing everywhere, and the green
of new leaves clothed the land in elvish loveliness. “Your England is
very fair, Gualtier.”
“It is good that you find it so, love,” answered the knight. He had had
misgivings a-plenty in bringing his gently-bred Provencal wife to this
rough country. Often he had to be absent from dawn to moonrise, riding
on some perilous expedition. He and his little force of men-at-arms and
yeomen were doing police work on the Welsh border, and no one ever knew
just when the turbulent chiefs of those mountains would attempt a raid.
Lady Philippa never complained. She ruled her household as he ruled
his lands, wisely and well. She called her husband Gualtier instead
of Walter, because he liked it, and sang to her lute the canzons and
retronsas of her country, but she seemed to love his England as he did.
She talked to the woodcutters' wives and the village women and farm
people as if she had played in childhood about their doors. In fact the
knight had a shrewd notion that if he had been a bachelor the taming of
his half-British, half-Saxon peasantry would have been far less easy.
He had not wished to dominate and overawe the people, but to win them to
true loyalty. He had known exactly what he wanted when he selected the
place for his castle, and a man who knows his own mind can usually find
men to do his work.
A castle in that place and time was a little town in itself, and it must
be able to exist by itself when necessary, without markets or factories
or outside help of any kind. Like most Normans the knight was a born
builder, and had taken care to make his castle as proof against attack,
and as scientifically built, as castle could be. Each landowner had to
be his own architect. Certain general rules were followed, of
course. The keep, the fosse, the inner and outer bailey, the general
construction, were much the same in all fortresses of Normandy or Norman
Britain. But no two sites were alike, and the work had to be planned
not only according to the shape of the hill but with reference to the
material to be had, the amount and quality of labor at hand, and the
climate. This castle was on a hill not high originally, but made some
fifty feet higher by heaping up earth and stone to bring the whole top
somewhere near the level of the huge rock on which the keep was built.
On that side the river flowed almost under the precipitous western face
of the mount, so that a stone could be dropped from the battlements into
the water. The young page, Roger, thought he could fish from his window
if he could get a line long enough. The keep was still the living-place
of the family, but the double line of stone wall encircling the mount
was finished, and at exposed points small watch-towers were placed,
known as the mill-tower, the armorer's tower, the smith's tower or the
salt-tower, according to their use. If the castle should be attacked
each one of these outworks would be the post of a small garrison and
stubbornly defended, while the keep could be held almost indefinitely.
The deep cellars would hold grain and salt meat enough for months, and
there was a spring within the walls. Even the narrow windows were so
shaped that an arrow aimed at one of them would almost certainly strike
the cunningly-sloped side and rebound, instead of entering the building.
The gate was of massive timbers held together by heavy iron hinges
and studded with nails, and above it was a projecting stone gallery
connecting the two gateway towers. This gallery was machicolated,
or built with a series of openings in the floor, through which the
defenders could shoot arrows upon the besiegers, or pour boiling pitch
down upon them. This was a Saracen contrivance, and had been suggested
and supervised by Sir Hugh l'Estrange, who had seen the like in Spain.
There was one place where all plans had gone wrong, and that was a part
of the wall near the keep, almost under the windows of the well-chamber.
It had been built three times, and always, before it was done, the
stones would begin to slip and sink. Yesterday a section of wall had
gone clean over into the river and carried a mason with it. Fortunately
he could swim, and though nobody thought he would come out alive, he had
scrambled up the bank very cold, somewhat bruised, and sputtering like a
wet cat.
That brought the matter to a crisis. There were uneasy whispers of a
curse on the mount, a tradition that no castle built there would ever
be finished, an old custom of sacrificing some human being to be buried
under the foundation of a castle for the pacifying of the ancient gods.
And all of this uncanny terror was somehow connected with a hill some
distance away toward the forest-clad mountains, where a low brown-tiled
cottage crouched like a toad, under a poplar whose leaves were ever
twinkling in the sun.
“Gualtier,” queried Lady Philippa, her eye following his, “what is it
about old Mother Izan? The maids have been telling all sorts of foolish
tales about her enchantments. What has she been doing?”
The knight laughed, but not very mirthfully. “Nothing whatever, in my
opinion. But I may as well tell you--they say that she has overlooked
the mount so that we shall never be able to finish this corner of the
wall. It is vexatious, because I meant that nook for your garden. It is
the only place that is sheltered from the wind and at the same time
has sunshine and a good outlook. But the wall has thrice been all but
finished, and each time the stones have begun to sink and topple. This
time Howel the mason was nearly killed. Of course, a feeble bent old
woman who can hardly hobble ten rods cannot have undermined a wall at
this distance. That is absurd. But the panic the men have got into is
not. That wall will have to be finished--somehow.”
Lady Philippa looked at the tumbled masses of stone. “It would be a
charming place for roses,” she mused, and looked again at the cottage,
where beside the door a gleam of water caught the light. “That is the
spring they call the Fairies' Well.”
“Yes; it is one of the oldest wells in this part of England. The water
is pure as the sunlight, and never fails. Hugh thinks it may be one of
the places the heathen priests held sacred. It is not so very long since
the people worshiped pagan gods.”
The lady traced a pattern in the dust with the point of her slender
shoe. “I think,” she said, “that I will take the children and ride over
to see Mother Izan.”
The knight made no objection, for the country was quiet, and he could
see the party from the castle mount as they set forth, Lady Philippa on
her black Arabian jennet, Eleanor and Roger on their forest ponies.
The children had had their own discussion about that wall the day
before, and returned to it as they rode along the trail that led to
Mother Izan's cottage. It was a longer way than it seemed from the
height, for a marsh full of tall reeds almost encircled the hill on
which the Fairies' Well was, and the trail kept to the high moorland
above.
“I do wonder what is the matter with the wall,” mused Eleanor. “Do you
suppose it can be bewitched, Roger?”
“Maybe,” Roger admitted. “But if Mother Izan can't keep her cow out of
the bog I don't see how she could pull down a stone wall. It's like
the story of Dinas Emrys father told me,” he added with relish. “King
Vortigern was building a castle on Snowdon, and every night whatever
they had built in the daytime fell down. After awhile they sent for old
Merlin to see what the matter was. And it was two great serpents in a
pool away down under the foundation. One was white and one was red, and
they fought all the time. First the white one had the best of it, but
the red one beat him at last, and chased him out of the pool. Merlin
told them that the red serpent meant the British and the white serpent
the Saxons, and the British would drive the Saxons out. But they haven't
done it yet.”
This was deliciously horrible. “You don't suppose there are snakes under
our castle, do you, Roger?”
“Of course not,” said Roger, pulling in his lively pony. “That was
nothing but a tale. I wish I could bore a hole into the cliff, and see.”
“Collet says Mother Izan is a witch,” said Eleanor, abandoning the
subject of snakes. “She hated it, when mother used some of her herb
drinks last year.”
“I like Mother Izan,” said Roger sturdily. “She cured my leg once, when
a stone fell on it--long before you came, when I was a little fellow.”
Roger was not quite ten. “She knows more about plants and animals than
anybody. Ruric let her doctor his dog, the big one he calls Cuchullin.”
“Collet doesn't like Ruric either,” said Eleanor.
“She doesn't like anybody here really, except mother and me. I
never mind very much about what she says. There's Mother Izan in the
doorway,--and oh, what has she got hanging up in the big tree?”
The old woman was a queer bent creature with greenish eyes like a cat's,
and white unruly hair that would not stay under her coif. In fact she
looked not unlike a gaunt, grim old puss who had all her life fought
what crossed her path, from snakes to staghounds. She was so old that
the village people could not remember when she had been young, and her
grandsons were elderly men.
A wicker basket hung from the lowest branch of the poplar tree. In it,
cradled in close fine-woven osiers with a lining of rabbitskin, lay a
solemn black-eyed baby, looking almost as old as the old woman herself.
“It's like a changeling,” thought Eleanor, looking with fascinated
eyes at the weird little being. Lady Philippa smiled, and laid her
hand softly on the furry black head. “This is an unusual sight in your
cottage,” she said. “Whence came it, Goody?”
“Tis none of mine,” old Izan grumbled, “'tis the brat of a
scatter-brained woman--Kate, wife to Howel the mason. She came
screeching at me saying the babe was a changeling I had left in place of
her child of two years, and I should care for it. I have no mind for the
tending of babes at my time of life, but I could not let the creature
starve. Natheless 'tis but ill fed, for my cow was lost in the marsh,
and none will let me have milk for it. Kate she's dead of a fever,
and Howel will have naught of the young one, so I have made shift as I
could, with bread soaked in herb drink.”
Lady Philippa was twisting a vine-garland into a leafy canopy to keep
the sun from the baby's eyes. “'Tis a pretty baby,” she said, “though so
small. The cow that was lost in the marsh--how did that happen?”
The old woman's eyes blazed with hatred. “My lady, the lads of the
village drove her there, and the poor hunted beast floundered into a
quagmire. I cursed them well for it, but that does not bring back the
good cow. And Howel will do nothing for me because the child is so
weazened and so small.”
The lady frowned. “It is all wrong,” she said, “the lads' cruelty and
the cursing of them and the blame of the woman who thought you had
witched her child. Sir Walter shall send you a goat that you can tether
within sight of the cottage. In my country the folk often feed their
babes on goat's milk, and I would like well to taste goat's milk cheese
again. Is Howel at work now?”
“He was, my lady, but since he fell into the water he swears that he
will work no more on the wall.”
Lady Philippa spoke but with winsome frankness,--“The men say, good
mother, that the wall is witch-ridden because it has fallen thrice. They
are afraid, that is why they do not reason. Surely in God's world we
should be safe from such evil, if we serve Him. Perhaps if the baby
grows fat and merry, Howel will be kinder. Has it been christened yet?”
“Nay--what have we to do with such gear? But my lady--heard ye never the
old rhyme--
“'Overlook the Fairies' Well--
None did that since Adam fell;
Overlook the Fairies' Hill--
Then Old Nick shall have his fill.'”
“That has naught to do with our castle,” said the lady wonderingly.
“Look--the keep is no higher than your roof-tree. My lord chose not the
site for its loftiness but for the sure foundation.”
“Aye,” chuckled the old woman, “you say well, 'tis a good foundation.
All but that corner. Tell your lord to raise no towers on that corner.”
“I am sorry the wall has given so much trouble,” Lady Philippa said
regretfully, “for that is the only place for my garden--my roses and
violets and herbs. My lord will try once more to finish it. If I might
have but that piece of garden it would be like a bit of my old home, and
that is a dear treasure, Mother Izan, in a foreign land.”
Her voice trembled as she spoke, and Eleanor pressed close to her
mother's side and held her hand. She had never heard a word before about
her mother's longing for Provence.
As the three rode away old Izan stood for a long time, shading her eyes
and gazing after them. Next morning a village boy in charge of Roger
came up the path to her door, leading two bleating bewildered goats,
which were securely fastened to a stake to graze at will.
“I came myself,” said Roger loftily, “because I meant to make sure that
it was all right. I haven't forgotten the time you cured my leg, Mother
Izan, and neither has father. Have those blue-tit eggs hatched yet?”
The old woman's brown withered face crinkled in a smile. “Trust you,
Master Roger!” she muttered. “Come still.”
She hobbled around to the rear of the cottage and paused to draw aside a
branch. Roger cautiously peered through the leaves, and a hiss like that
of an angry snake sounded within.
“If I didn't know it was a bird I should think there was a snake or a
cross cat in there,” said Roger, after he had had a look at the small
but spirited bird-mother. “What ever makes her do that, Mother Izan?”
Old Izan put out a gnarled hand to feed the titmouse a few live insects.
“Same as an old woman don't mind folk saying she's a witch so they let
her alone, mayhap,” she said. “You'd not reach your hand in there if
'twas an adder's nest, I reckon.”
“I'm teaching Eleanor all the birds' names,” went on Roger, quite at his
ease, munching a bit of flag-root. “They don't have the same names here
that they do in Normandy, you know. Old Jehan--the gardener that used to
know Eleanor's grandfather--taught me all their names when I was there.
The nuthatch is Pic Macon, and the mum-ruffin is Pendolin, and the robin
is Marie-Godrie. I'm going to show Eleanor the nest next time we come,
if you don't mind.”
To the surprise of everybody old Izan rode up the castle mount one day
on a borrowed donkey. “Howel he loaned it to me,” she explained dryly.
“Seems like he has less fear of witches since little Gwillym began to
fat up. I have secret things to speak of to my lord, Master Roger. Will
'ee take him word?”
In private, with only Sir Walter and Lady Philippa to hear, the old
woman told her secret.
“'Tis the Fairies' Well that drags down your wall,” said she. “My
grandfather told me the tale, and he had it from his father. The outlet
is a hidden stream that runs underground to the river, and not the
stream in the marsh as folk think. The underground channel goes under a
corner of your mount. When the snows melt and the waters are strong in
mountain and in valley, then rises the water in this channel, deep under
the mount, and heaves at the rocks above it and throws down your wall.
That is all the witchcraft of it. So long as 'twas your stones and
battlements that fell I cared no whit, but when my lady told me that she
would have her garden there I could not bear to think of the peril for
her and the younkets. I am no witch, my lord, unless it be Satan that
gives us to know more than others. But I have hated the Normans who
came here to steal our land, and have helped my people to harass them in
years gone by. All but you and Sir Hugh l'Estrange, they have despoiled
and plagued the folk. But build no wall above the stream, for 'twill
fall--'twill fall--'twill fall. The waters will pull it down.”
The knight sat thinking, his hands on the arms of his tall carved chair.
“I am not so sure,” he said. “Maybe we can lift the curse on the mount
and make the wall secure. You shall dwell in peace by your well so long
as you may live, and your children after you, if you will show me where
this channel goes and keep the secret. Tis in my mind that it is best to
keep it secret still.”
The old woman looked up with bright inquiring eyes.
“See you,” the knight went on, “if we dig a channel to let the waters
run to the river by a shorter swifter way there will be no more trouble.
I think that we will make an excuse of draining the marsh. Then if we
can, when the underground way is no more the channel of the stream,
we will wall it in to make a secret passage from the castle in time of
need. You have kept the secret so long that I may trust it with you--and
there will be no more talk of the powers of evil taking toll of my
people.”
Sir Walter rose and went his way, and in due time consulted with his
head mason about the canal to the river. But Lady Philippa came and took
both old Izan's work-hard hands in hers, and thanked her, with tears in
her eyes. Thereafter no more masonry fell above the hidden waters, and
the cottage by the Fairies' Well was left in peace.
LULLABY OF THE PICT MOTHER
Hush thee, my baby O! never thee cry,
Cradled in wicker, safe nested so high.
Never gray wolf nor green dragon come near,--
Tree-folk in summer have nothing to fear.
Hee-o, wee-o, hear the wild bees hummin',
See the blackcock by the burnie drummin',--
Wattle-weaving sit we snug and couthie,--
Hee-o, wee-o, birdling in our boothie!
Hush thee, my baby O! dark is the night--
Cuddle by kiln-ring where fire burns bright.
Trampling our turf-roof wild cattle we hear--
Cave-folk in winter have nothing to fear.
Kling-klang, ding-dong, hear the hammers clinking--
Stone pots, iron kettles, copper cups for drinkin'!
Elf-shots for bowmen plough a mighty furrow--
Hee-o, wee-o, foxling in our burrow!
Hush thee, my baby! The Beltane's aglow,
Making the deasil the wiseacres go.
Brewing our heather-wine, dancing in round--
Earth-folk are we, by her spells are we bound.
Hee-o, wee-o, hear the pipes a-croonin',
Like the dragon's beetle-wings a-droonin',
Dyeea guard us from the Sword-man's quellin',--
Hee-o, wee-o, bairnie in our dwellin'!
Hush thee, my baby O! hear the dogs bark,
Herdin' the lammies home out o' the dark.
Cradled and christened frae goblin's despite,
House-folk we hear the kirk bells through the night.
Hee-o, wee-o! hear the cricket chirrin',
Hear auld Bawthrens by the ingle purrin',--
Christ us keep while daddie's gone a-huntin'!
Hee-o, wee-o, bonnie Babie Buntin'!
The winds and the waters our Father shall praise,
The birds, beasts and fishes shall tell o' His ways.
By seashore and mountain, by forest and ling,
O come all ye people, and praise ye our King!
VII
THE WOLVES OF OSSORY
Philosophers generally incline to the opinion that the werewolf has no
tail. Therefore, this being the sign--”
“Nennius positively states that in certain Irish families, the power to
change at will into a wolf--”
“And who knows how numerous may be these abominable wizards?”
Padraig, the scribe, sat listening intently while the company around the
guest-house fire discoursed in monk-Latin of werewolves in Ireland.
“In saecula saeculorum”--“ab incunabilis horrendum”--“quocunque
nomine notandum”--“coram diabolo”--the sonorous many-syllabled phrases
clattered like the noise of rooks in treetops. It was January, the
“wolf-month” of old English shepherds. Meadows ran floods of icy
half-melted snow; mountain winds were screaming about the cloisters, and
for two days travelers had been weather-bound at the Abbey.
Some time before, there had been rumors of wolves infesting the hills
and displaying in their forays an all but human boldness and cunning.
Then other tales began to be whispered. The peasantry huddled early
about their turf-fires, and the shepherds of the Abbey sought counsel
from their superior. They got small comfort from the Abbot, who curtly
ordered them to attend to their duty and avoid vain babblings.
All the same, among the manuscript volumes in the nest-egg of a library
the monks possessed, there were chronicles that mentioned the
werewolf. Marie de France in her “Lays” included the Breton romance of
Bisclaveret, the loup-garou. The nerves of the weaker ones began to
play them tricks. It was less and less easy to keep unbroken the orderly
round of monastic life.
This little religious community, toiling earnestly and faithfully under
wise direction, might in time bring some comfort and prosperity into a
desolate land. Ireland had once been known as the Isle of Saints.
Now, despoiled by warring kings, pagan Danes and finally the Norman
adventurers under Strongbow, the people were in some districts hardly
more than heathen. This Abbey, set by Henry Plantagenet in a remote
valley, was like a fort on the frontier of Christendom. The people were
sullen, suspicious, ignorant, and piteously poor. To deal with them
demanded all that a man had of courage, faith and wisdom. And now came
these rumors of men-wolves.