THE HERMITAGE
For many days Evroult and Richard, the sons--unhappy, leprous sons--of
Brian Fitz-Count, bore their sad lot with apparent patience in the
lazar-house of Byfield; but their minds were determined, come weal or
woe, they would endeavour to escape.
"Where there is a will," says an old proverb, "there is a way,"--the
chance Evroult had spoken of soon came.
It was the hour of evening recreation, and in the spacious grounds
attached to the lazar-house, the lepers were walking listlessly around
the well-trodden paths, in all stages of leprous deformity; it was
curious to note how differently it affected different people; some
walked downcast, their eyes on the ground, studiously concealing their
ghastly wounds; some in a state of semi-idiotcy--no uncommon
result--"moped and mowed"; some, in hopeless despair, sighed and
groaned; and one cried "Lost, lost," as he wrung his hands.
There were keepers here and there amongst them, too often lepers
themselves. The Chaplain, too, was there, endeavouring to administer
peripatetic consolation first to one, then to another.
"Well, Richard, well, Evroult, my boys, how are you to-day?"
"As well as we ever shall be here."
"I want to get out of this place."
"And I."
"Oh will you not get us out? Can you not speak to the governor? see, we
are _nearly_ well." Then Richard looked at his hand, where two fingers
were missing, and sobbed aloud.
"It is no use, my dear boys, to dash yourselves against the bars of your
cage, like poor silly birds; I fear the time of release will never come,
till death brings it either for you or me--see, I share your lot."
"But you have had your day in the world, and come here of your own
accord; we are only boys, oh, perhaps with threescore and ten years here
before us, as you say in the Psalms."
"Nay, few here attain the age the Psalmist gives as the ordinary limit
of human life in his day, and, indeed, few outside in these days."[16]
"Well, we should have been out of it all, had you not interfered."
"And where?"
Echo answered "Where?"--the boys were silent.
The Chaplain saw that in their present mood he could do no good--he
turned elsewhere.
Nothing but an intense desire to alleviate suffering had brought him to
Byfield lazar-house. The Christianity of that age was sternly practical,
if superstitious; and with all its superstition it exercised a far more
beneficent influence on society than fifty Salvation Armies could have
done; it led men to remember Christ in all forms of loathsome and cruel
suffering, and to seek Him in the suffering members of His mystical
body; if it led to self-chosen austerities, it also had its heights of
heroic self-immolation for the good of others.
Such a self-immolation was certainly our Chaplain's. He walked amongst
these unfortunates as a ministering angel; where he could do good he did
it, where consolation found acceptance he gave it, and many a
despairing spirit he soothed with the hope of the sunny land of
Paradise.
And how he preached to them of Him Who sanctified suffering and made it
the path to glory; how he told them how He should some day change their
vile leprous bodies that He might make them like His own most glorious
Body, until the many, abandoning all hope here, looked forward simply
for that glorious consummation of body and soul in bliss eternal.
"Oh! how glorious and resplendent
Shall this body some day be;
Full of vigour, full of pleasure,
Full of health, and strong and free:
When renewed in Christ's own image,
Which shall last eternally."
But all this was lost on Evroult and Richard. The inherited instincts of
fierce generations of proud and ruthless ancestors were in them--as
surely as the little tigerling, brought up as a kitten, begins
eventually to bite and tear, so did these poor boys long for sword and
lance--for the life of the wild huntsman or the wilder robber baron.
Instincts worthy of condemnation, yet not without their redeeming
points; such were all our ancestors once, whether Angle, Saxon, Jute, or
Northman; and the fusion has made the Englishman what he is.
* * * * *
The bell began to ring for Vespers; there was quite a quarter of an hour
ere they went into chapel.
It was a dark autumnal evening, the sun had just gone down suddenly into
a huge bank of dark clouds, and gloom had come upon the earth, as the
two boys slipped into the bushes, which bordered their path, unseen.
The time seemed ages until the bell ceased and they knew that all their
companions were in chapel, and that they must immediately be missed from
their places.
Prompt to the moment, Evroult cried "_Now_, Richard," and ran to the
wall; he had woven a rope from his bed-clothes, and concealed it about
his person; he had wrenched a bar from his window, and twisted it into
a huge hook; he now threw it over the summit of the lofty wall, and it
bit--held.
Up the wall the boys swarmed, at the very moment when the Chaplain
noticed their missing forms in their seats in chapel, and the keepers,
too, who counted their numbers as they went in, found "two short," and
went to search the grounds.
To search--but not to find. The boys were over the wall, and running for
the woods.
Oh, how dark and dismal the woods seemed in the gloom. But happily there
was a full moon to come that night, as the boys knew, and they felt also
that the darkness shielded them from immediate pursuit.
Onward they plunged--through thicket and brake, through firm ground and
swamp, hardly knowing which way they were going, until they came upon a
brook, and sat down on its bank in utter weariness.
"Oh, Evroult, how shall we find our way? And we have had no supper; I am
getting hungry already," cried the younger boy.
"Do you not know that all these brooks run to the Cherwell, and the
Cherwell into the Thames? We will keep down the brook till we come to
the river, and then to the river till we come to Oxnaford."
"Listen, there is the bay of a hound! Oh, Evroult, he will tear us in
pieces! It is that savage mastiff of theirs, 'Tear-'em.' The keepers are
after us. Oh, what shall we do?"
"Be men--like our father," said the sterner Evroult.
"But we have no weapons."
"I have my fist. If he comes at me I will thrust it down his foul
throat, or grasp his windpipe, and strangle him."
"Evroult, I have heard that they cannot track us in water. Let us walk
down the brook."
"Oh, there is a fire!"
"No, it is the moon rising over the trees; that is the light she sends
before her. You are right--now for the brook. Ah! it feels clear and
pebbly, no mud to stick in. Come, Richard! let us start. No, stay, I
remember that if the brute finds blood he will go no farther. Here is my
knife," and the desperate boy produced a little pocket-knife.
"What are you going to do?"
"Drop a little blood. There is a big blue vein in my arm."
And the reckless lad opened a vein in his arm, which bled freely.
"Let me do the same," cried the other.
"No; this is enough." And he scattered the blood all about, then looked
out for some "dock-leaf," and bound it over the wound with part of the
cord which had helped them over the wall.
"Now, that will do. Let us hurry down the brook, Richard, before they
come in sight."
Such determination had its reward; they left all pursuit behind them,
and heard no more of the hound.
Tired out at last, they espied with joy an old barn by the brook side,
turned in, found soft hay, and, reckless of all consequences, slept till
the sun was high in the heavens.
Then they awoke, and lo! a gruff man was standing over them.
"Who are you, boys?"
"The sons of the Lord of Wallingford."
"How came you here?"
"Lost in the woods."
"But Wallingford is far away to the south."
"We are on our road home; can you give us some food?"
"If you will come to my house, you shall have what I can give you. Why!
what is the matter with that hand, that cheek? Good heavens, ye are
lepers; keep off!"
The poor boys stood rooted to the spot with shame.
"And ye have defiled my hay--no one will dare touch it. I have a great
mind to shut you both in, and burn you and the hay together."
"That you shall not," said the fierce Evroult, and dashed through the
open door, almost upsetting the man, who was so afraid of touching the
lepers that he could offer no effective resistance, and the two got off.
"That was a narrow escape, but how shall we get food?"
A few miles down the brook they began to feel very faint.
"See, there is a farm; let us ask for some milk and bread."
"Richard, you are not marked as I am, you go first."
A poor sort of farm in the woods--farmhouse, ricks, stables, barns, of
rude construction. A woman was milking the cows in a hovel with open
door.
"Please give us some milk," said Richard, standing in the doorway; "we
are very hungry and thirsty."
"Drink from the bowl. How came you in the woods?"
"Lost."
"And there is another--your brother, is he?--round the door. Drink and
pass it to him."
They both drank freely, Evroult turning away the bad cheek.
As Richard gave back the bowl, the woman espied his hands.
"Mother of mercy! why, where are your fingers? you are a leper, out!
out! John, turn out the dogs."
"Nay! nay! we will go; only throw us a piece of bread."
"Why are you not shut up? Good Saints!"
"Please do not be hard upon us--give us some bread."
"Will you promise to go away?"
"Yes, if you will give us some bread."
"Keep off, then;" and the good woman, a little softened, gave them some
oaten cakes, just as her husband appeared in the distance coming in from
the fields.
"Now off, before any harm come of it; go back to Byfield lazar-house."
"It was so dreadful; we have run away."
"Poor boys, so young too; but off, or my good man may set the dogs at
you."
And they departed, much refreshed.
"Oh Evroult, how every one abhors us!"
"It is very hard to bear."
At midday, still following the brook, they were saluted with a stern
"Stand, and deliver!"
A fellow in forester's garb, with bow and arrow so adjusted that he
could send the shaft in a moment through any body, opposed their
passage.
"We are only poor boys."
"Whither bound?"
"For Wallingford."
"Why, that is three days' journey hence; come with me."
He led them into an open glade; there was a large fire over which a
cauldron hung, emitting a most savoury stew as it bubbled, and stretched
around the fire were some thirty men, evidently outlaws of the Robin
Hood type.
"What are these boys?"
"Wanderers in the woods, who say they want to go to Wallingford."
"Whose sons are ye?"
"Of Brian Fitz-Count, Lord of Wallingford."
"By all the Saints! then my rede is to hang them for their father's
sake, and have no more of the brood. Have you any brothers? Good
heavens! they are lepers."
"Send an arrow through each."
"For shame, Ulf, the hand of God hath touched them; but depart."
"Give us some food."
"Not unless you promise to go back to the lazar-house, from which we see
you have escaped."
Poor boys, even hungry as they were, they would not promise.
"Put some bread on that stump," said the leader, "and let them take it;
come not near: now off!"
It was the last food the poor boys got for many hours, for every one
abhorred their presence and drove them off with sticks and stones,
until, wearied out, Richard sank fainting on the ground on the eventide
of that weary day.
Evroult was at the end of his resources, and at last felt beaten; tears
were already trickling down his manly young face.
An aged man bent over them.
"Why do you weep, my son? what is the matter with your companion?"
It was an old man who spoke, in long coarse robe, and a rope around his
waist. Evroult recognised the hermit.
"We are lepers," said he despairingly.
The old man bent down and kissed their sores.
"I see Christ in you; come to my humble cell--there you shall have food,
fire, and shelter."
He helped them to ascend the rocky side of the valley, until they came
to a natural cave half concealed by herbage--an artificial front had
been built of stone, with door and window; a spring of water bubbled
down the rock, to find its destination in the brook below. Far over the
forest they could see a river, red in the light of the setting sun, and
the buildings of a town of some size in the dim distance. The river,
although they knew it not, was the Cherwell, the town, Banbury.
He led them and seated them by a fire, gave them food, then, after he
had heard their tale--
"My dear children," he said, "if you dread the lazar-house so much, ye
may stay with me while ye will; go not forth again into the cruel, cruel
world, poor wounded lambs."
And the good man put them to bed upon moss and leaves.
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Too true. Bad sanitary arrangements causing constant plague and
fever, ignorance of medicine, frequent famines, the constant casualties
of war, had brought men to think fifty years a ripe old age in the
twelfth century.