THE MAN WITH THE HAWK
ADERHOLD saw no fairies, though sometimes of moonlight nights he
pleased his fancy by bringing them in his mind’s eye in a ring around
the oak. Hours—days—weeks passed, and still he abode at the Oak
Grange.
Together he and Master Hardwick had gone over an ancient record. There
was the Aderhold line, intertwining with the Hardwick. The blood-tie
was not close, but it was there. Back in the reign of the sixth Henry
they found a common ancestor in one Gilbertus Aderhold, slain on
Bosworth Field. The blood-warmth was between them. Moreover, the old
man had turned with a strong liking to this present Aderhold, and
besides all there was his fear of illness and death. How well to have a
leech always at hand! At last it came to “Will you live here for your
roof and keep? I could not give you money—no, no! I have no money to
give.”
Refuge—security—here in this silent place, behind the great screen
of Hawthorn Wood.... Aderhold stayed and was glad to stay, and served
the old man well for his keep. The region grew to know that here was
old Master Hardwick’s kinsman, brought with him when he came back from
London, to live with him and doubtless become his heir. He was a
leech. Goodman Cole, living by the forest, fell ill of a racking cough
and a burning fever, sent for the doctor at the Grange, was swiftly
better, and sang the leech’s praises. As time wore on he began to be
sent for here and there, chiefly to poor people’s houses. Eventually he
doctored many of such people, now in the village, now in the country
roundabout. Few of the well-to-do employed him; they sent to the town
for a physician of name. He asked little money for his services; he did
not press the poor for payment, and often as not remitted the whole. He
earned enough to keep him clad, now and then to purchase him a book.
He soon came to the conclusion that whatever store of gold Master
Hardwick might once have had, it was now a dwindling store. In whatever
secret place in his gaunt, bare room the old man kept his wealth, he
was, Aderhold thought, nearing the bottom layer. There was a rueful
truth in the anxiety with which he regarded even the smallest piece
of either metal he must produce and part with. And if, at the Oak
Grange, there was little of outgo, there was still less of income. The
land which went with the Grange was poor and poorly tilled. There was
a cot or two with tenants, dulled labourers, dully labouring. Mostly
they paid their rent in kind. He heard it said that in his middle life
Master Hardwick had ventured with some voyage or other to the Indies,
and had received in increase twenty times his venture. If so, he
thought that his venture must have been but small.
Master Hardwick kept but the one man, Will the smith’s son, who did
not sleep at the Grange, but came each morning and cared for the horse
and the cow and the garden. Within doors there was old Dorothy, who
cooked 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 stirred
abroad. There was in truth a lack of health. The physician thought
that the old man had not many years to live. Aderhold set himself with
a steady kindness to doing what could be done, to giving sympathy and
understanding, and when the old man wished it, companionship. Sitting
in the dim house with him, facing him at table over their scant and
simple fare, listening to his brief talk, the physician came to find,
beneath a hard and repellent exterior, something sound enough, an
honesty and plain-dealing. And Master Hardwick, with a hidden need both
to feel and receive affection, turned and clung to the younger man.
Visitors of any nature rarely came to the Oak Grange. The place was
as retired as though fernseed had been sprinkled about and the world
really could not see it. Once, during this early summer, Harry Carthew
came, riding across the stream upon his great roan. But this day
Aderhold was away, one of the tenants breaking a leg and a small child
being sent wailing with the news to the Grange. And Master Thomas
Clement came, alike afresh to reason with the miser and to view this
new parishioner.
Aderhold saw him cross the stream by the footbridge and come on beneath
the 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 was
now for peace and quiet living. He tied a millstone around the neck of
the Gilbert Aderhold of Paris and sank him deep, deep! The minister
stayed no great while and directed most of his discourse toward Master
Hardwick. When he turned to Aderhold, the latter said little, listened
much, answered circumspectly, and endued himself with an agreeing
inclination of the head and an air of grave respect. When the minister
was gone, he went and lay beneath the fairy oak, in the spangly
twilight, his head buried in his arms.
The next Sunday he went to church and sat with a still face, watching
the sands run from the pulpit glass. There were facts about the region
which he had gathered. The town a few miles away with the earl’s seat
above it was prelatical and all for “superstitious usages.” The country
between town and village might be called debatable ground. But Hawthorn
Village and the region to the north of it might have been approved by
Calvin or by Knox.
Sitting far back, in the bare, whitewashed church, he remarked men and
women truly happy in their religion, men and women who showed zeal
if not happiness, men and women who wore zeal because it was the
fashionable garment, men and women, born followers, who trooped behind
zeal in others, and uttered war-cries in a language not their own. In
the pulpit there was flaming zeal. The sermon dealt with miracles and
prodigies, with the localities of heaven and hell, with Death and the
Judgement—Death that entered the world five thousand and six hundred
and odd years ago. “For before that time, my hearers, neither man nor
animal nor flower nor herb died!”
Aderhold walked that summer far and wide, learning the countryside. Now
he wandered in deep woods, now he climbed the hills and looked upon the
fair landscape shining away, now he entered leafy, hidden vales, or
traced some stream upward to its source, or downward to the murmur of
wider 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.... He
loved the view of this town with the winding river and the bridge,
and above the climbing streets the old castle and the castle wood. He
liked to wander in its streets and to mark the mellow light upon its
houses. Now and then he went into the great church where the light
fell through stained glass and lay athwart old pillars. Once he found
himself here, sitting in the shadow of a pillar, when people began to
enter. Some especial service was to be held, he knew not wherefore. The
organ rolled and he sat where he was, for he loved music. There was a
sermon, and it was directed against Puritan and Presbyterian, and more
especially against that taint of Republicanism which clung to their
Geneva cloaks. No such imputation breathed against the surplice. _The
Divine Right of Kings._—_The duty of Passive Obedience._—_Authority!
Authority! Authority!_ It rolled through the church, boomed forth with
passion.
Aderhold, coming out into the sunshine, walked through the town and
found himself upon the London road. It was high summer, the sun yet
far aloft, and when it sank the round pearl of the moon would rise. He
had not before walked upon this road. An interest stirred within him
to view the country toward the Rose Tavern, travelled through in the
darkness 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 the
road, and crowning it, a gibbet with some bones and shrivelled flesh
swinging in the chains. It was nothing uncommon; he had seen in France
a weary number of such signposts, and on this great road, coming north
from London, he had twice passed such a thing. It was so fair and soft
a summer’s day, the gauzy air filled with dancing sunbeams, the sky
a melting blue—the very upright and cross of the gibbet faded into
it and seemed robbed of horror. Indeed, long usage had to the eyes of
most robbed it of frightfulness at any hour, unless it was in the dead
of night when the chains creaked, creaked, and something sighed. The
traffic of the road went talking and jesting by, with hardly a glance
aside at the arm across the sky.
Aderhold sat down upon the opposite bank, amid fern and foxglove, and
with his chin in his hand regarded the gibbet. Now and again man and
beast passed, but they paid no attention to the dusty, seated figure.
For the greater while the road lay bare. He gazed, dreaming, and
through the mists of time he seemed to see Judea....
At last he spoke. “Carpenter of Nazareth! Man as we are men, but a
Prince in the house of Moral Genius! Born with thy heritage, also, of
an ancient, savage faith, in thine ears, still, old saws of doom, on
thy lips at times hard sayings of that elder world, in thy mind, yet
unresolved, 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!... Genius
and Golden Heart and Pure Courage and Immortal Love.... Condemned
by a Church, handed over by it to the secular arm, gone forth to
thy martyr’s death—and still, Sage and Seer! misunderstood and
persecuted,—and still thou standest with the martyrs ... slain afresh
by 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 and
softly touched, one by one, the purple bells. “Freedom—love!... Thou
flower! 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 knees
again regarded the gibbet; then, when some minutes had gone by, rose
and pursued his way. Another half-hour and he came to a place where
three roads met. A passing shepherd boy told him the name was Heron’s
Cross-Roads. It was a lonely place, wold and stunted wood, and in an
angle, amid heath and briar, was set a blackened stake. Aderhold went
across to it. In the wood was a rudely cut name, with a word or two
below; the stake was set through the heart of a suicide. Nettles were
about it, and some one passing had thrown an empty and broken jug of
earthenware. 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 was
a long way to the Oak Grange, and Master Hardwick was concerned if
the house were not closed and fast at a most early hour. _Heron’s
Cross-Roads._ As Aderhold walked an association arose with the name.
Heron—that was the name of the old man who owned the cottage on the
edge of Hawthorn Forest. He was not there now; the cottage had been
shut up and tenantless since early summer. He and his daughter were
gone, Will had told him, on a long visit to the old man’s brother, the
earl’s huntsman who lived in the castle wood above the town. No one
knew when they would be back. Most of their furnishings and household
things had been loaned here or there. The dairy woman had taken their
cow, some one else the beehives. Heron! He had a moment’s drifting
vision of the girl gathering faggots in the forest. It passed and the
present day and landscape took its place. Soon he came again to the
rise 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 the
wayside growth.
A horse and rider emerged with suddenness from a sunken lane upon his
left, and stood still in the middle of the road—a fine horse, and a
fine, richly dressed rider, a man of thirty-five with a hawk upon his
gauntleted fist. Turning in the saddle he looked about him, and espying
Aderhold 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 the
hooded falcon while the horseman waited for the hawking party from
which some accident had separated him. Aderhold took the peregrine
from the other’s wrist and stood stroking softly with one finger the
blue-black plumage. The rider rose in his stirrups, swept the horizon
with his eye, and settled back. “Dust in the distance.” His voice went
with his looks—he seemed a rich and various person, who could show
both 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, smoothing
the bird with his finger, “biding at present at the Oak Grange, beyond
Hawthorn Village.”
“You take,” said the horseman with a glance at the gibbet, “a merry
signpost to rest beneath!”
“It is neither merry nor dismal,” said Aderhold, “but a subject for
thought. That which swung there swings there now—though shrunken and
dark and answering to no lust of the eye. But that which never swung
there swings there now neither. I trouble it not. It is away from here.”
The other swung himself from his saddle. “I had rather philosophize
than eat, drink, or go hawking—and philosophers are most rare in this
region!” He took his seat upon a heap of stones, while his horse beside
him fell to grazing. “Come, sit and talk, travelling scholar!—That
fellow 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, then
violently resisted and wounded those sent to his hut to take him, and
finally, in court he miserably defamed and maligned the laws of the
land and the judge in his chair. So there he swings for an example
to stealers of deer and resisters of constables, to say naught of
blasphemers of procedure and churls to magistrates!... What is your
opinion, travelling scholar, of Authority?”
“Nay,” said Aderhold, “what is yours?”
The other laughed. “Mine, Sir Prudence?—Well, at times I have thought
this and at times that. Once or twice a head like Roger Bacon’s has
spoken. ‘The swollen stream forgets its source, and the overweening son
turns and with his knotted and sinewy hands chokes his mother that bore
him.’”
“It is a good parable,” said Aderhold. “I trust that your worship,
being obviously of those in authority, will often listen to that brazen
head!”
“Ah!” answered the other. “I am of that camp and not of it. My brazen
head will yet get me into trouble!” He sat regarding the mound
opposite, the tall upright and arm, the creaking chain, and the
shapeless thing, now small, for most of the bones had fallen, which
swung and dangled. “And, friend, what do you think of this matter of
the Golden Age, man’s perfection, Paradise, the friendship of angels
and 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 of
approaching horsemen, of voices and laughter. The waiting cavalier
rose to his feet, caught his horse by the bridle and mounted. Aderhold
gave him back the falcon. The earl and his train, a dozen in all,
gentlemen, falconers, and grooms, coming across the fields, leaped the
hedge and crowded into the road, gathering into their number the rider
with the hawk. Aderhold heard him named as “Sir Richard.” He waved
his hand to the physician—all rode away with a flash of colour and a
blare of sound. A few moments, and there was only the bare highway, the
little rise of ground, and the gibbet with its outstretched arm against
the blue and serene sky.
Aderhold, keeping on to the town, passed along its bustling high
street, and down the steep slope, beneath the shadow of the great
church and the castle in its woods above, to the river and its
many-arched, ancient bridge. Before him lay the fair country between
the town and Hawthorn village. He travelled through it in the late,
golden light, and at sunset came into Hawthorn. Children were playing
and calling in the one street and several lanes, on the green, by the
pond, and the village stocks. The ale-house had its custom, but, as he
presently saw, most of the inhabitants of Hawthorn were gathered in a
buzzing cluster before the church. A post, riding from London north,
had passed through the village and left behind a dole of news. Among
his items, principal to Hawthorn was this: The King, they say, will
presently of his good pleasure, lighten the pains and penalties now
imposed upon Papists.
Aderhold, touching the fringe of the crowd, caught a glimpse of Master
Clement, standing upon the church steps, haranguing. He caught the
words, “The Scarlet Woman ... Babylon ... Lighten? Rather double and
treble and quadruple—” Near the minister he saw Harry Carthew. He did
not pause; he went by like a moth in the dusk. As the moon rose he came
to the stream before the Grange, crossed it by the footbridge, and went
on beneath the fairy oak to the house where one candle shone from a
single window. In the middle of the night he was wakened by some one
calling and throwing pebbles against his casement. The miller, a mile
down the stream, was ill and groaning for the leech.