THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND.
Compared with Crowland, Ely was quite a dry place: there the abbey
church and conventual buildings stood upon a hill and on firm hard
ground;[132] but here all the edifices stood upon piles driven into the
bog, and instead of a high and dry hill, there was nothing but a dead
wet flat, and unless in those parts where the monastery and the town
stood the ground was so rotten and boggy that a pole might be thrust
down thirty feet deep. Next to the church was a grove of alders, but
there was nothing else round about but water and bogs, and the reeds
that grow in water. In short this Crowland, both in the situation and
nature of the place, was a marvel even in the fen-country; and, certes,
it was different from all places in any other part of England. Lying in
the worst part of the fens, it was so enclosed and encompassed with
deep bogs and pools, that there was no access to it except on the north
and east sides,[133] and there too only by narrow causeways. Even in
the summer season the cattle and flocks were kept at a great distance,
there being no pasture-land upon which they could be placed without
danger of seeing them swallowed up; so that when the owners would milk
their cows they went in boats, by them called skerries, and so small
that they would carry but two men and their milk-pails. There was no
corn growing within five miles of Crowland. The greatest gain was from
the fish and wild-ducks that were caught; and the ducks were so many
that the Crowland fowlers could at times drive into a single net three
thousand ducks at once; and so the good people called these pools their
real corn-fields.[134] For this liberty of fishing and fowling they
paid yearly to the Lord Abbat a very round sum of money: and, we ween,
the abbat and the monks had ever the choice of the best fowls and
fishes they caught. That holy man Guthlacus, who had laid the Crowland
devils, and who had cut the sluices that led from the fetid pools to
the flowing rivers, had also made the causeways which gave access to
the town and monastery. These narrow but solid roads of wood and gravel
ran across the deepest marshes, and had willows and alders growing on
either side of them: they were marvellous works for the times; and do
we not see in our own day a pyramidal stone on the causeway leading to
the north, inscribed with the name of Guthlacus?[135] Much had this
beatified anchorite done to alter the face of the country; yet many of
the foulest pools remained and could not be purified. The town was
separated from the abbey by a broad stream, and three other streams or
water-courses flowed through the town,[136] separating the streets from
each other; the streets were planted with willows; and the houses
raised on piles driven into the bottom of the bog; and the people of
one street communicated with the people of another street by means of
light flying-bridges or by means of their skerries. A bold people they
were, and hardy and dexterous withal, for their lives were spent in
hazardous fowling and fishing, and in toiling over measureless waters
and quagmires. Fenners must be bold and expert men, or they must
starve. Moreover the folk of Crowland town were very devout and
constant in their worship of the Saxon saints and had a laudable
affection for their dispossessed Saxon monks and Lord Abbat: although
in the time of King Edward, of happy memory, when they knew not what
real sorrow or trouble was, they would at times murmur to my Lord
Abbat’s chamberlain about the money they were called upon to pay, and
at times they would even quarrel lustily with the purveyors of the
house about eels and wild-ducks, pikes and herons, and such like
trivialities. But the usurping abbat from France had already nearly
doubled their rents and dues, and for every fish or fowl that the Saxon
purveyors had claimed, the Norman purveyors laid their hands upon a
dozen. Ye may judge, therefore, whether the good folk of Crowland town
did not abhor the Norman monks and wish them gone.
In turning away the good Lord Abbat and all his obedientiarii or
officials, and all his superior monks, the intruders had left in the
house a few inferior monks, and about half a score of servientes and
lay-brothers to hew their wood and draw their water. And they had so
overwrought these Saxon laics, and had so taunted and vilipended them,
that the poor hinds, one and all, wished them in the bottomless pit.
On the night after Lord Hereward’s feast at Brunn and the fifth night
from the festival of the Nativity, Alain of Beauvais, the intrusive
abbat, was feasting in the hall with his Norman friars, who had never
passed through a noviciate, and with his Norman men-at-arms, who were
neither more nor less godly than his monks. One or two of the English
laics were waiting upon these their lords and masters; the other
lay-brothers were supposed to be gone to their straw beds. Alain the
pseudo-abbat, being warm with wine, was talking in the manner of all
Frenchmen about dames and demoiselles, and was telling his company what
a sweet lady it was that broke her heart when he first left Beauvais to
seek his fortune with Duke William. Just at this juncture of time there
came into the hall an invisible devil in the essence of a stink. It was
such a stench as mortal nose had never smelt before—it was so intense,
so foul and diabolical, that no mortal man could bear it long! Alain
the pseudo-abbat, putting both his hands to his nose, said, “Notre Dame
de la misericordi! what smell is this?” They all put their hands to
their nostrils, and roared “What stink is this?”
Before the English lay-brothers could make any answer, the foul smell,
which kept growing stronger, was accompanied by a terrible rumbling
noise:—and then there came most violent gusts of wind, which
extinguished all the lamps, cressets, torches, and candles; and then,
upon the darkness of the hall, there burst a livid, ghastly, blue
light, and above and below, from side to side, the hall seemed filled
with streaming blue flames, and still that atrocious stench grew
stronger and stronger! Abbat, monks, men-at-arms, and all, rushed out
of the hall, some crying that it was the eve of the day of judgment,
and some roaring that it must be the devils of Crowland come back
again. Outside the hall, in the darkened corridor (and by this time
there was not a single lamp left burning in any part of the house, but
only the altar-lights in the church) they ran against and stumbled over
other Frenchmen who were running up from the inferior offices and from
the stables, for they had all and several been driven away by blue
lights and foul smells; and every mother’s son of them believed that
the Crowland devils had been sent to dispossess them and drive them
back to Normandie. The corridor was long and straight, but as dark as
pitch; some fell in their flight and rolled the one over the other, and
some stood stock still and silent as stocks, save that their knees
knocked together and their teeth chattered; and some ran forward
howling for mercy, and confessing their sins to that hell-darkness.
But, when near the end of the long dark passage, a French monk and a
man-at-arms that ran the foremost of them all fell through the flooring
with a hideous crash, and were heard shrieking from some unexplored
regions below, that the fiends had gotten them—that the devils of
Crowland were whirling them off to the bottomless pit! [The pit or
fetid pool into which these two evil-doers were thrown was not
bottomless, though deep; yet I wist nothing was ever more seen either
of that monk or of that man-at-arms.] As these piercing shrieks were
heard from below, the Normans roared in the corridor—some blaspheming
and cursing the day and hour that they came to England, others praying
to be forgiven, with many a _Libera nos!_ and _Salve!_ and others
gnashing their teeth and yelling like maniacs. But some there were that
made no noise at all, for they had swooned through excess of fear.
And now there came an exceeding bright light from the chasm in the
floor through which the monk and the man-at-arms had fallen; but the
light, though bright, was still of a ghastly blue tinge; and by that
light full twenty devils, or it might be more, were seen ascending and
descending to and from the flaming pit, or chasm in the floor. Some of
these fiends had blubber-lips, beetle heads, humped shoulders, and
bandy legs, and were hirsute[137] and black as soot; others of them
were red and altogether shapeless; others were round and yellow; but
all their visages were most irregular and frightful, and they had all
long tails tipped with fire, and flashes of red, green, and yellow
flames came out of the mouths of every one of them. As for hoarse
throats, no voices could be hoarser and more dreadful than the voices
of these lubber-fiends as they went up and down the pit, like buckets
in a well, or as they roared in the dark cavities under the passage,
and beneath the very spot where the Normans lay huddled. The intrusive
abbat tried to say a _De profundis_, but the words stuck in his throat,
not being very familiar with that passage.
By degrees that exceeding bright light from the chasm in the floor died
away, leaving the corridor as black as Erebus. “An we could but get to
the church door,” said one of the false monks, “we might be safe! Will
no man try?—Is there no brave man-at-arms that will adventure along
this passage and see whether we can cross that chasm and get out of
it?” The men-at-arms thought that this was a reconnaissance to be more
properly made by monks, who were supposed to know more about the devil
and his ways than did plain soldiers: nevertheless several of them said
they would adventure, if they had but their swords or their pikes with
them. But they had all left their weapons in their several lodgings;
and so, not one of them would budge. The darkness continued, but the
voices which had been roaring below ground ceased. At last Alain of
Beauvais, fortifying himself with such short prayers and Latin
interjections as he could recollect, and crossing himself many score
times, resolved to go along the dark passage and try whether there
could be an exit from it. Slowly he went upon his hands and knees,
groping and feeling the floor with his hands, and now and then rapping
on the floor with his fist to essay whether it was sound. Thus this
unrighteous intruder went on groping and rapping in the dark until he
came close to the edge of the chasm. Then a quivering blue light shot
out of the pit, and then—monstrum horrendum! a head, bigger than the
heads of ten mortal men, and that seemed all fire and flame within,
rose up close to the intrusive abbat’s nose, and a sharp shrill voice
was heard to say in good Norman French, “Come up, my fiends, from your
sombre abodes! Come up and clutch me my long while servant and slave
Alain of Beauvais!” The intrusive abbat rushed back screaming, and fell
swooning among the swooned. Again the long corridor was filled with
that intense and intolerable blue light, and again the blubber fiends
ascended and descended like buckets in a well, and again the horrible
noise was heard below, and the devil that spoke the good Norman French
was heard shouting, “Devil Astaroth, art thou ready? Devil Balberith,
hast thou lit thy fires on the top of the waters? Devil Alocco, are thy
pools all ready to receive these Norman sinners? Fiends of the fen, are
your torches all prepared? Fire fiends, are ye ready with your
unquenchable fires? Incubuses[138] and succubuses, demons, devils, and
devilings all, are ye ready?” And the hoarse voices, sounding as if
they came from the bowels of the earth, roared more fearfully than
before; and one loud shrill voice, that sounded as if close to the
mouth of the pit, said in good Norman French, “Yea, great devil of
Crowland, we be all ready!”
“’Tis well,” said the other voice, “then set fire to every part of this
once holy building, over which the sins of these Norman intruders have
given us power! Fire it from porch to roof-tree, and if they will seek
to abide here, let them perish in the flames, and be buried under the
cinders and ashes.”
“If the devil had spoken Saxon,” said one of the monks, “I should have
known nought of his meaning, but since he parleys in Norman, it is not
I that will neglect his warning!” And rushing back into the hall where
they had so lately been feasting, and bursting open one of the windows,
this well-advised intruder leaped from the window into the stinking
moat. As when a frighted ram is seized by the horns and dragged by the
shepherd hind through the brake, all the silly flock that could not
move before follow him one by one, even so did our Norman monks and
men-at-arms follow the first monk through the window and into the foul
moat! Such as had swooned were brought, if not to their senses, to the
use of their legs and arms, by the renewal of that exceeding bright
light, or by the pinches and twitches of their comrades, which they
took for pinchings of the devil—roaring accordingly. But in a
wondrously short space of time every one of the intruders was outside
of the house, and was either sprawling in the foul moat, or wading
through muck and mud towards the firm, dry causeway. There was great
peril of drowning or of being suffocated in the bogs; nor were they yet
free from the supernatural terrors, for ghastly blue fires were burning
on the surface of sundry of the deeper pools, and there was an
overpowering stench of sulphur. Not one of them doubted but that the
lights were from hell; yet, truth to say, those blue flames showed them
how to avoid the deep pools in which they might have been drowned, and
how to find their way to the causeway; for the moon had not yet risen,
and except when illuminated by these unearthly lights the fens were as
dark as chaos. When they had floundered a long while in the mud and
fen-bogs, they got to the firm and dry causeway which the holy
Guthlacus had made for the use of better men. They were so exhausted by
the fatigue, fright, and agony of mind they had undergone, that they
all threw themselves flat upon the narrow road, and there lay in their
soaked clothes, and shivering in the cold winds of night. They were
still so near to Crowland that they could see bright lights, with
nothing blue or unearthly about them, streaming from the windows of the
abbey and from almost every house in the township, and could very
distinctly hear the ringing of the church bells and the shouting of
triumphant voices.
“The like of this hath not been seen or heard,” said Alain of Beauvais;
“the serfs of Crowland are in league with the devils of Crowland! The
Saxon rebels to King William have called the demons to their
assistance!”
“Nothing so clear,” said one of the men-at-arms, “but let my advice be
taken. The moon is rising now, therefore let us rise and follow the
road that lies before us, and endeavour to get out of these infernal
fens to the town of Huntingdon or to the castle at Cam-Bridge, or to
some other place where there be Normans and Christians. If the men of
Crowland should come after us, Saxons and slaves as they are, they may
drive us from this causeway to perish in the bogs, or cut us to pieces
upon the narrow road, for we have not so much as a single sword among
us all!”
“We have nothing,” groaned Alain of Beauvais.
“Aye,” grunted one of his friars, “we brought little with us and
assuredly we take less away with us! We be poorer than when we came and
drove the English abbat out of his house with nought but his missal and
breviary.”
“But we men-of-war depart much poorer than we came,” said one of the
soldiers; “for each of us brought a good stout English horse with him,
and arms and armour—and all these are left to the devils of Crowland;
and we shall all be laughed at for being devil-beaten, though how
men-at-arms can contend with demons I cannot discover. But hark! what
new din is that?”
The din was a roar of voices proceeding from Crowland town. It soon
came nearer, and still nearer; and then the hurried tramping of many
feet, and the tramp of horses as well as of men, were heard along the
causeway; and, as the moon shone out, the head of a dense moving column
was seen on the narrow road and sundry skerries or light skiffs were
seen gliding along the canals or broad ditches which ran on either side
the causeway; and shouts were heard of “Hereward for England! Hereward
for England!”
Hereupon the Normans all rose from the cold ground, and began to run
with all the speed and strength that was left in them along the narrow
road, the hindmost hardly ever ceasing to cry “Misericordia,” or “Have
pity upon us, gentle Saxons!” But run as they would, the cry of
“Hereward for England” was close behind them; and the horses, being put
into a trot, broke in among them. More than one of the men-at-arms had
the mortification of being knocked down and ridden over by a Crowland
man mounted on his own war-horse; several of the monks got fresh
immersions in the canals. Had the Saxons so disposed, not a Norman of
all that company would have escaped with his life, for they were all as
helpless as babes in their swaddling-clothes. But Hereward of the true
English heart had conjured Elfric and the Salernitan to shed as little
blood and destroy as few lives as possible; and Girolamo well knew that
the terror and panic these fugitives would carry into whatsoever Norman
camp or station they went would do far more good to the good cause than
was to be done by despatching or by making prisoners of this score or
two of obscure rogues.
Thus Elfric, who led the van on a stately horse, called a halt when he
had carried his pursuit to some three miles from Crowland abbey. “And
now,” said he, “with the permission of good Guthlacus, we will cut such
a trench as shall prevent these robbers from returning to Crowland. So
dig and pull away, ye lusty fenners and nimble boys of Crowland that
lately made such good sham devils! Dig away for one good hour by this
bright moonlight, and to-morrow ye may make the trench broader and
deeper by daylight! Oh, Guthlacus, we will repair thy good work when
the good times come back again, and when honest men may walk along the
road in peace, without any fear of Norman cut-throats!”
Two score and more lusty hinds came forward with axes and spades and
mattocks; and within the hour a trench was dug quite broad and deep
enough to stop the march of any heavily armed man or war-horse. The
Saxons then returned to Crowland, and as they went they sang in chorus
a joyous war-song, and shouted “Hereward for England!”
Girolamo the Salernitan, who had remained in the abbey with the Saxon
lay-brothers, had put the house so completely in order and had so
cleansed it of the foul odours he had made by his art, and had so
sweetened it with frankincense brought from the church, and with barks
and fragrant spirits taken from his own packets, that no man could have
conceived that anything extraordinary had taken place. Save that the
good Lord Abbat and his cloister monks were missing, the whole house
looked just as it did before the Normans broke in upon it and drove
away the Lord Abbat and his brethren. Honest and merry English voices
rang again through hall, corridor, and cloister, instead of Norman
speech that whistles in the nose; and Saxon saints were once more
invoked instead of the unknown saints of France.
Other men had been busy in the house besides the Salernitan and his
assistants. No joyful occurrence ever took place among the Saxons
without its being noted by a feast;—provided only that such good
Saxons had wherewith to feast upon. The Normans had gone off in much
too great a hurry to think of taking anything with them. In the buttery
remained, among other rich drinking-horns, all carved and ornamented
with silver, that famed horn which Witlaf,[139] king of Mercia, had
given from his own table to Crowland monastery, in order that the elder
monks might drink thereout on festivals, and in their benedictions
remember sometimes the soul of the donor. It was a mighty large horn,
such as became a great king: and it was an ancient custom of the house
that when any new Lord Abbat came they filled the horn with strong
wine, and offered to him to drink, and if he happened to drink it all
off cheerfully, they promised to themselves a noble Lord Abbat and many
good years in his time. Now for this high festival the subcellarer
brought forth this ancient and royal drinking-horn, which held twice
the quantity of our modern horns; and in order that there might be no
delay in filling it, the good subcellarer caused to be brought up from
below an entire cask of wine, and as soon as the cask was in the
refectory the head of it was stove in. Old Robin the cook, who had been
pastor and master in the art culinary to that good cook of Spalding,
had so bestirred himself, and had put so many other hands and feet in
motion, that there was a good supper ready for all of the house, and
all of the town, and all of the vicinage of Crowland who had been
aiding in the good work of disseising, now so happily accomplished; and
by the time Elfric and his friends got back to the monastery, the feast
was ready. The thin and dark Salernitan, being but a puny eater and no
drinker, and not fully versed in our vernacular, partook only of three
or four dishes and of one cup of wine; and then went straight to the
bed which had been prepared for him. The homely Saxons felt a relief
when he was gone. They sent the wine round faster, and began to
discourse of the wonders they had done and seen. Elfric gave thanks to
the lay-brothers of the house without whose aid the sham devils of
Crowland could never have gotten within the house.
“And how suitably attired!” said Roger the tailor.
“Yet what nimble devils we were!” said Orson the smith.
“What vizards! what tails! That thin dark stranger made the vizards;
but it was I that made the tails, and proud am I of the work! How they
twisted! How lism[140] they were! How I switched mine about by pulling
the strings under my jerkin!”
“I wish,” said Hob the carpenter, “that thou hadst not switched thy
devil’s tail into mine eye as I was coming up after thee through the
trap-door. That trap-door was a good device, and it was all mine own;
for who went and cut away the beams just at the right time but Hob?”
“All did well,” said Elfric, “but there were some that did wondrously.
Colin Rush, thou madest a very pretty nimble devil! Hugh, thy roar was
perfection! Joseph the novice, thou wast so terrible a devil to look
upon, that although I dressed thee myself, I was more than half afraid
of thee!”
“And I,” responded Joseph, “was wholly terrified at thee, master
Elfric! nor can I yet make out how thou didst contrive to throw about
all that fire and flame, through eyes, mouth, and nostrils, without
burning thy big vizard. Hodge the miller set fire to his big head and
burned it to pieces, and so could do nothing but stay below in the
cellar and help in the roaring.”
“And not much did I like that dark underground place,“ quoth Hodge:
”and when the lights were all out, and goodman Hugh, groping his way in
the dark, caught my tail in his hand and pulled it till it nearly came
away from my breech, I ’gan fancy that the Crowland devils were
angered, and that some real devil was going to haul me off! I wot that
the roar I then gave was quite in earnest! My flesh still quivers, and
ice comes over my heart as I think of it!”
“Then melt thine ice with good warm wine,” said Elfric: pushing him a
cup: “I thought thou hadst known that all the Crowland devils had been
laid for aye by the good Guthlacus, and that thou hadst had nothing to
fear whilst engaged in so good a work and all for the service of thy
liege lord the abbat, and for the honour and service of the church and
the liberties of England. Did I not besprinkle thee with holy water
before thou didst don thy devil-skin?”
“For my part,” said another, “what most feared me was that awful
stench! I was told, that as a devil I must not cough, but help coughing
I could not as I stirred up the pan over the charcoal fire, and kept
throwing in the foul drugs the dark stranger gave me to throw in. In
sooth I neither frisked about nor hauled myself up by the rope over the
trap-door; nor did I howl, nor did I help to carry the blue links and
torches; but the stinking part did I all myself, and I think I may be
proud of it! Not to defraud an honest man and good artisan of his due,
I may say it was Hob the carpenter that bored the holes through the
floor so that the incense might rise right under our Norman abbat’s
nose; but for all the rest it was I that did it. That hell-broth still
stinks in the nose of my memory. Prithee, another cup of wine, that I
may forget it.”
“Well,” said old Gaffer the tithing-man of Crowland, “we have done the
thing, and I hope it hath been honestly done; and without offence to
the saints or to the beatified Guthlacus.”
“Never doubt it,” quoth Elfric: “the Norman spoilers and oppressors are
gone to a man, and as naked as they came. I, the humble friend and
follower of my Lord Hereward the liberator, am here to dispense
hospitality to-night; your own Lord Abbat will be here in a few days;
and the dread of our demons of the fens and Crowland devils will make
the invaders run from all the fen country. So much good could not have
come out of evil; if the means employed had been unlawful or in any way
sinful, we should have failed, and never have met with such easy and
complete success.”
“Nevertheless,” continued Gaffer, “the things which I have seen fill me
with doubt and amaze. Whoever saw the like before? Fire burning upon
the top of water, flames not to be quenched by water from below nor by
water from above! Smoke and flames not of their natural colours, but
blue, and green, and scarlet, and bright yellow! and the light from
these flames so dazzling and so ghastly! In truth I wot not how this
can be done by mortal man!”
“Nor wot I,” said Elfric; “but this I know full well, that there was no
magic or sortilege in the preparation, and that the stranger is as good
and devout a Christian as any that dwells in the land. Many are the
things which I have seen done by the hand of man that I cannot
understand; but am I therefore to think that the evil one hath a finger
in them? I have carried on my back, and have handled with mine own
hands, the liquids and the substances which have been used, and yet
have felt neither cramp nor any other ache. And plain homely things
those substances and liquids do appear to be—the quietest and dullest
trash until mixed together and compounded. Girolamo, who hath studied
in the schools in foreign parts, even as our young clerks studied at
Cam-Bridge before the detestable Normans came and built their donjon
there, calls this art of compounding by the name of Chemeia, or Chimia,
and he says that things much more wondrous are to be done by it.
Further, he says, that his own proficiency has been acquired by long
fasting and diligent study, by prayers to heaven and votive offerings
to the saints. Methinks it were better to give God credit for these
inventions and combinations, and for the wit and ingenuity of man, than
to be always attributing them to the devil, as our uninformed clowns
do. [But these last words the ex-novice spoke under his breath.] And
this also do I know—the stranger sprinkled his powders with holy
water, and prayed the prayers of our church all the while he was doing
his preparations.”
“But what makes him look so grim and black, and so wild about the
eyes,” said the old cook.
“Nothing but sorrow and anxiety, sun and climate,” replied Elfric. “In
the country of the south where he was born there be no blue eyes or
flaxen heads of hair; and the Normans drove him from his home and
seized his house and lands, even as they are now doing with Englishmen;
and he hath known long captivity and cruel torture, and hath wandered
in the far climates of the East where the hand of the Arab is lifted
against every man.”
“Well,” said Hob the carpenter, “two things are clear—the Normans are
gone from Crowland, and we have gotten their wine butts. And,
therefore, I submit to this good company that we should leave off
talking and be jolly. Goodman Hodge, pass me down the cup.”