ELFRIC THE EX-NOVICE, AND GIROLAMO OF SALERNO, PREPARE TO PLAY AT DEVILS.
A feast was prepared in the great hall of the manor-house, and the
young Lord of Brunn was about sitting down to table with his kinsmen
and the good friends that had rallied round him in the hour of need,
when Elfric arrived at Brunn from the house of the Ladie Alftrude at
Ey. To look at Lord Hereward’s glad countenance as he talked in a
corner of the hall with the new comer, one would have thought that he
had won a fairer house and a wider domain than those of his ancestors
of which he had repossessed himself in the morning. And for that matter
he had won or was winning his way to a better house and greater estate;
for had not the fair young heiress of Ey sent again to tell him that
she abided by her troth-plight, and looked for him to come and rescue
her from that burthensome and dishonouring protection of the Normans
under which she had been living! The retainers of her father’s house,
and all the hinds and serfs, were devoted to her, and ready to receive
the young Lord of Brunn as their own liege lord and deliverer. Her
friends and neighbours had all been consulted, and would assemble in
arms and meet Lord Hereward at any hour and place that it might suit
him to name. Save some few men-at-arms that were at Crowland to protect
the intrusive Norman monks, there was no Norman force nearer to Ey than
Stamford. The season of the year and all things were favourable for
recovering the whole of the fen-country, and for driving the invaders
from every country in the neighbourhood of the fens.
After putting a few questions to Elfric, such as lovers usually put to
their pages when they come from seeing their ladie-loves, Hereward
asked what force there might be in Crowland Abbey. Elfric said that
there might be one knight and from ten to fifteen men-at-arms; but then
all the monks that had been so recently brought over from France were
fighting men, at a pinch; and these intruders were from thirty to forty
in number, and well provided with weapons and warlike harness. The
young man also bade Lord Hereward reflect that the great house at
Crowland was not like the cell at Spalding, but a lofty and very strong
place, and built mostly of stone and brick. Elfric too had learned that
Crowland was well stored with provisions, so that it might stand a long
siege.
“And yet,” said the Lord of Brunn, “it is upon the great house of
Crowland that I would fain make my next attempt; and great in every way
are the advantages that would follow the capture of that strong and
holy place, and the immediate restoration of the true Saxon Lord Abbat
and his dispossessed brethren.”
“My silly head hath been venturing to think of this,” said Elfric, “and
I very believe that with the aid of Girolamo and with a little of that
blue fire and stinking smoke which he hath the trick of making, I could
drive knight, men-at-arms, and monks all out of the abbey without any
loss or let to our good Saxons.”
“Why, what wouldst do?” said Hereward.
“Only this, my lord. I would make the Normans believe that all the
blubber-devils of Crowland were come back to earth to drive them from
the house.”
“I see, yet do not fully comprehend,” said Lord Hereward; “but we will
talk of these things with Girolamo to-night, when this my first feast
as Lord of Brunn is over, and when every Saxon shall have seen that the
hospitality of mine ancestors is not to know decrease in me.”
And late that night, when Hereward’s first and most bountiful feast was
over, and when his guests had betaken themselves to the town of Brunn,
or to their beds or to clean hay and rushes in the manor-house, Elfric
and Girolamo followed Hereward to his inner chamber, and consulted with
him about the best means of driving out the French from Crowland. First
crossing himself—for although he feared not man, he had a lively dread
of all manner of goblins and demons—the Lord of Brunn said, “Elfric,
thou mayest now tell us about thy Crowland devils.”
“You wist well, my lord,” said Elfric, “for who should know it better,
that in the heathenish times the whole of the isle[129] of Crowland and
all the bogs and pools round about were haunted day and night, but most
at night, by unaccountable troops and legions of devils, with
blubber-lips, fiery mouths, scaley faces, beetle heads, sharp long
teeth, long chins, hoarse throats, black skins, hump shoulders, big
bellies, burning loins, bandy legs, cloven hoofs for feet, and long
tails at their buttocks. And who so well as your lordship knoweth that
these blubber-fiends, angered at that their fens and stinking pools
should be invaded, allowed our first monks of Crowland no peace nor
truce, but were for ever gibing and mowing at them, biting them with
their sharp teeth, switching them with their filthy tails, putting dirt
in their meat and drink, nipping them by the nose, giving them cramps
and rheums and shivering agues and burning fevers, and fustigating and
tormenting not a few of the friars even to death! And your lordship
knows that these devils of Crowland were not driven away until the time
when that very pious man Guthlacus became a hermit there, and cut the
sluices that lead from the fetid pools to the flowing rivers. Then, in
sooth, the devils of Crowland were beaten off by prayer and by holy
water, and the horrible blue lights which they were wont to light upon
the most fetid of the pools, ceased to be seen of men.”[130]
“All this legend I know full well,” said the Lord of Brunn, explaining
it to Girolamo of Salerno, who crossed himself many times as he heard
the description of the very hideous Crowland devils.
“All that dwell in the fen-country know the legend,” continued Elfric;
“the house of Crowland is full of the legend, and the usurping Norman
crew must know the legend well, and in the guilt of their conscience
must needs tremble at it! The devils are painted in cloister and
corridor, their blue lights are painted, as they used to appear to our
first good monks; and the most pious anchorite Guthlacus[131] is
depicted in the act of laying the evil ones. If a Saxon saint laid
them, these Norman sinners have done enough to bring them back again;
and it can only be by the bones of our saints and the other Saxon
relics that lie in the church of Crowland, that the devils of Crowland
are prevented from returning. Now all that I would do is this,—I would
haunt the house and the fens round about with sham devils, and so make
these Norman intruders believe that the old real blubber-fiends were
upon them! I do not believe they would stand two days and nights of
such a siege as I could give them, if your lordship would but consent
and Girolamo lend his aid.”
“But were it not sinful for christened Saxon men to play at devils?”
“Assuredly not, when playing against devils like these Normans, and for
a holy end, and for the restoration of such good men and true Saxons as
my Lord Abbat of Crowland and his expelled brotherhood.”
Hereward put the question, as a case of conscience, to Girolamo, as
_vir bonus et sapiens_, a good man and learned; and Girolamo was of
opinion that, as the wicked ofttimes put on the semblance of saints to
do mischief, the good might, with certain restrictions, be allowed to
put on the semblance of devils to do good. His patron Hereward, he
said, would give him credit for being a true believer, and a devout,
though weak and sinful, son of the church, yet would he think it no sin
to play the part of a Crowland devil, or to give to Elfric the benefit
of his science in making ghastly blue lights, or in causing flames to
appear on the surface of the stagnant waters, or in fact in doing
anything that might be required of him in order to scare away the
Normans. Hereward had still some misgivings, but he yielded to the
representations of Elfric and the exceeding great earnestness of
Girolamo; and when he dismissed them for the night he said, “Well,
since you will have it so, go and play at devils in Crowland. Only have
a care that ye be not taken or slain, and be back to this house as soon
as ye can; for if Crowland cannot be taken, we must try and blockade
it, and proceed to Ey to collect more strength.”
“I have good hope, my lord,” said Girolamo; “for with my white magic I
can do things that will carry terror to the hearts of these untaught
Normans; and then this young man Elfric hath ever succeeded in all that
he hath attempted: he already knoweth enough of my language (thanks to
the little Latin he got as a novice) to make out my meaning and to act
as my interpreter to others. He tells me that even should the devil
experiment fail, he can assure our retreat, with scarcely any chance of
danger.”
“Then go, Girolamo, and take with thee such men and boats and other
appliances as thou mayest need. But have a care, for I have work on
hand that cannot be done without thee; and if I lose Elfric I lose the
nimblest-witted of all my Saxons. So good night, and may the blessed
saints go with ye both, although ye be dressed in devils’ skins!”
“Brother devil, that is to be,” said Elfric to the Salernitan, “there
be bulls’ hides and bulls’ horns in the out-houses; and good coils of
iron chain in the kitchen, to do the clanking.”
“Boy,” said Girolamo, “thou hast but a vulgar idea about demons! Dost
think I am going to make jack-pudding devils, such as are gazed at at
wakes and country fairs? No, no; I will give you devils of another sort
I guess. But leave all that to me, and apply your own mind to the means
of getting into the house at Crowland or of establishing a
correspondence therein, so that the Normans may be devil-ridden inside
as well as outside.”
“And do thou, great master Girolamo, leave that to me,” said Elfric,
“for I know some that are within the house of Crowland that would face
the real devil and all his legions for the chance of driving out the
French abbat and friars; and if I myself do not know every dark corner,
every underground passage, and every hiding-hole in and about the
house, why there is no one living that hath such knowledge.”
Here the two separated. The young Saxon lay down on some rushes near
the door of Lord Hereward’s chamber, and pulling his cloak over his
face was soon fast asleep: the Salernitan, who had a chamber all to
himself, sat up till a late hour among the packages and vessels he had
brought with him: and yet was he ready to start on his journey for
Crowland at the first glimpse of day. Those who entered his room in the
morning, just after he was gone, smelt a strong smell of sulphur: and,
sorely to Girolamo’s cost, some louts remembered this smell at a later
season.