Three years had passed away since the death of the Lady Sybil of
Walderne.
A great change had passed over the scene. War—civil war—the fiercest of
all strife—had fairly begun in the land. Lest my readers should marvel,
like little Peterkin, “what it was all about,” let me briefly explain
that the royal party desired absolute personal rule, on the part of the
king, unfettered by law or counsellors. The barons desired that his
counsellors should be held responsible for his acts, and that his power
should be modified by the House of Lords or Barons, if not by the
Commons as well; the latter idea was but dawning. In short, they
desired a constitutional government, a limited monarchy, such as we now
enjoy.
The Pope had been called upon to mediate, and had decided in favour of
the King, and absolved him from his oath and obligations to his
subjects, especially those “Provisions of Oxford.” Louis IX, King of
France (afterwards known as Saint Louis), had been appealed to, but,
though a very holy man, he was a staunch believer in the divine right
of kings; and he, too, decided against the barons.
What were they to do? Most of the barons were in submission, but Earl
Simon said:
“Though all should leave me, I and my four sons will uphold the cause
of justice, as I have sworn to do, for the honour of the Church and the
good of the realm of England.”
They changed their standing point, and, to meet the condemnation which
both Pope and King of France had awarded to the “Provisions of Oxford,”
took their stand upon Magna Carta instead.
But here they fared no better. In March 1264 a parliament had been
summoned to meet at Oxford by the king, that he might there undo what
the barons had done in 1258. At this period the action of our tale
recommences.
Drogo was still lord of the Castle of Walderne. No news had reached
England of Hubert these three long years, and hence no one disputed the
title of Drogo to present possession. His steps had been taken with all
the craft of a subtle fox. One by one he had removed all the old
dwellers in the castle, and, so far as was possible, the outside
tenantry also, and substituted creatures of his own—men who would do
his bidding, whatsoever it were, and who had no local interests or
attachment to the former family.
And, little by little, his rule had been growing as hard and cruel as
that of a medieval tyrant could be. The dungeons were reopened which
had long been closed; the torture chamber, long disused, was refitted,
as it had been in the dreadful days of King Stephen; the defences had
been looked to, the weapons furbished, for, as a war horse sniffs
battle afar off, so did Drogo.
Need I tell my readers which side Drogo took? He had never, since the
day he was expelled from Kenilworth, ceased to hate Earl Simon, and now
he declared boldly for the king, and prepared to fight like a wildcat
for the royal cause.
But Waleran, Lord of Herstmonceux, the father of our Ralph, espoused
the popular side warmly, as did all the English men of Saxon race—the
“merrie men” of the woods, and the like.
But the great Earl de Warrenne of Lewes was a fierce royalist. So was
the Lord of Pevensey.
Already the woods were full of strife. Whensoever a party met a party
of opposite principles, there was instant bloodshed. The barons’ men
from Herstmonceux pillaged the lands of Walderne or Pevensey. The
burghers of Hailsham declared for the earl, as did most burghers
throughout the land; and Lewes, Pevensey, and Walderne threatened to
unite, harry their lands, and burn their town. The monks of Battle
preached for the king, as did those of Wilmington and Michelham. The
Franciscans everywhere used all their powers for the barons, for was
not Simon de Montfort one of them in heart in their reforms?
So all was strife and confusion—the first big drops of rain before the
thunderstorm.
Drogo was at the height of his ambition. He had added Walderne to his
patrimony of Harengod. He had humbled the neighbouring franklins, who
refused to pay him blackmail. He had filled his castle with free
lances, whose very presence forced him to a life of brigandage, for
they must be paid, and work must be found them, or—he could not hold
them in hand. The vassals who cultivated the land around enjoyed
security of life with more or less suffering from his tyranny; but the
independent franklin, the headmen of the villages, the burgesses of the
towns (outside their walls), the outlaws of the woods, when he could
get at them all, these were his natural sport and prey.
He had a squire after his own heart, named Raoul of Blois, who had come
to England in the train of one of the king’s foreign favourites, and
escaped the general sentence of expulsion passed at Oxford in 1258.
One eventide—the work of the day was over, and Drogo and this squire
were taking counsel in the chamber of the former; once the boudoir of
Lady Sybil in better days.
“Raoul,” said his master, “have you heard aught yet of the Lady Alicia
of Possingworth?”
“Yes, my lord, but not good news.”
“Tell them without more grimace.”
“She has placed herself under the protection of the Earl of Leicester.”
Drogo swore a deep oath.
“We were too weak, my lord, to interrupt the party, and we did not know
in time what they were about. But one thing I heard the demoiselle
said, which you should hear, although it may not be pleasant.”
“Well!”
“Although my first love be dead, I will never marry a man who poisoned
his aunt.”
“They have to prove it—let them.”
“My lord, the old hag who sold you the phial, as she says, yet lives,
and I fear prates.”
“She shall do so no longer. Get a party of half a dozen of your
tenderest lambs ready for secret service. We will start two hours
before dawn, when all the world is fast asleep. See that you are all
ready and call me.”
All lonely stood the hut—in the tangled brake—where dwelt a sinful but
repentant woman. For one had broken in upon her life, and had awakened
a conscience which seemed almost non-existent until he came—our Martin.
And this night she tosses on her bed uneasily.
“Would that he might come again,” she says. “I would fain hear more of
Him who can save, as he said, even me.”
She mutters no longer spells, but prayers. The stone seems removed from
the door of that sepulchre, her heart. Towards morning sleep, long
wooed in vain, comes over her—and she dozes.
It wants but an hour to dawn, but the night is at its darkest. The
stars still drift over the western sky, but in the east it is cloudy,
and no morning watch from his tower could spy the dawning day.
Eight men emerge from the deep shade of the tangled wood. In silence
they approach the hut, and first they tie the door outside, so that the
inmate cannot open it.
“Which way is the wind?” whispers the leader.
“In the east.”
“Fire the house on that side.”
They have with them a dark lantern, from which a torch is fired and
applied to the roof of light reeds on the windward side. We draw a veil
over the quarter of an hour which followed. It was what the French call
_un mauvais quart d’heure_.
The sun had arisen for some hours when the solitude of the forest was
broken by the tread of three strangers—travellers, who trod one of its
most verdant glades. The one was a brother preacher of the order of
Saint Francis. The second, a knight clad in hunting attire. The third,
the mayor, the headman of the borough of Hamelsham.
“The cottage lies here away,” said the first. “We shall see the roof
when we turn the end of the avenue of beeches.”
“Do you not smell an odour unusual to the forest?”
“The scent of something burnt or burning?”
“I have perceived it.”
“Ah, here it is,” and the three stopped short. They had just turned the
corner to which they had alluded. A thin smoke still arose from the
spot where the cottage had stood.
They all paused; then, without a word, hurried on ward by a common
impulse. They only found the smoking embers of the dwelling they had
come to seek.
“This is Drogo’s doing,” said Ralph of Herstmonceux.
“Could he have heard of our intentions?” said the mayor.
“No, but—he might have learned that poor Madge was a penitent, and
then—” said Martin.
“Well, our work is done, and as the country is not over safe so near
the lion’s den—”
(“Wolf’s den, you mean,” interrupted Ralph—)
“And we have come unattended, the sooner we retire the better.”
“Too late!” said a stern voice: and Drogo stood before them.
“My Lord of Walderne, this is ill pleasantry,” said Ralph.
“‘Pleasantry,’ you call it, well. So it is for those who win.”
He whistled shrill, And quick was answered from the hill;
That whistle garrisoned the glen,
With twice a hundred armed men.
In short, the three travellers were surrounded on all sides. Their
errand had been betrayed by one of Drogo’s outlying scouts.
“What is thy purpose, Drogo?” said Martin.
“Do ye yield yourselves prisoners?”
“On what compulsion?”
“Force, the right that rules the world.”
“And what pretext for using it?” said Ralph, drawing his sword.
“I should advise thee not to touch thy weapon, unless thy skill is
proof against an arrow. In a word, Ralph of Herstmonceux, art thou for
the king or the barons?”
“Thou knowest—the barons.”
“And I for the king; no more need be said. Yield to ransom.”
“I will not give my sword to thee,” and Ralph flung it into a pond.
“And what right hast thou to arrest me?” said the mayor.
“Good mayor, hast thou not stirred up thy town of Hamelsham, thy
puissant butchers and bakers, to resist the good king and to send aid
to the rebellious Earl of Leicester, may the fiends rive him! Wherefore
I might, without further parley, hang thee to this beech, which never
bore a worthier acorn.”
“Yes, hang him for the general amusement,” said several deep voices.
“Nay, dead men pay no ransom, and we will make his beer-swilling,
beef-eating brother burghers pay a good sum for his fat body.
“Thou hast thy choice, mayor. Ransom or rope?”
“Seeing I must choose, ransom; but rate me not too high, I am a poor
man.”
They laughed immoderately.
“We have borrowed a hint from the outlaws, and unless thy brethren pay
for thee soon, we will send thy worthless body to them in installments,
first one ear, then the other, and so on.”
“Our Lady help me!”
“Brother, be patient. Heaven will help us, since there is no help in
man,” said Martin. “And now, Drogo, whom I knew so well of old, and in
whom I see little change, what is thy charge against me?”
“A very serious one, brother Martin, and one I grieve to bring against
such an eloquent preacher of the Gospel, but my conscience compels me.”
“Thy conscience!”
“Yes, I can afford to keep one as well as thou. Dost thou think thou
art the only creature who has a soul to be saved?”
“Go on without further blasphemies.”
“Well then, I grieve to say that it is my painful duty to arrest thee
on a charge of murder.”
“Of murder!” cried all three.
“Yes, of the murder of his aunt, the late lamented Lady of Walderne.”
“Good heavens!” cried the knight and mayor.
“Oh heaven and earth, this slander hear!” said Martin.
“Do not swear, it misbecomes a friar.”
“Thou didst murder her thyself.”
“Nay: who gave her the sleeping draught the last night? I have just
discovered that it contained poison supplied by the old witch who lived
here, and whom I have duly punished by fire. But whose hand,
administered it?”
Martin turned pale.
“I ask,” continued Drogo, “who gave her the draught?”
“It was I, but who poisoned it?”
“Satan knows best, but thou hast owned it.
“I call thee to witness, most valiant knight, and thee, O Mayor of
Hamelsham, that you both hear him—_confitentem mum_, as Father Edmund
used to say at Kenilworth.
“Ah, I have him on the hip. Away with them to Walderne: the deepest
dungeon for the poisoner.”