IV.

From all ungodly guests _libera nos_! Although they had feasted so late

at night, the people of the empress did make an early call for a

matutinal refection; and our good chamberlain and coquinarius and

cellarius were made to bestir themselves by times, and sundry of our lay

brothers and servitors, to the great endangering of their souls, were

made to run with viands and drink into our lord abbat's hall, and there

wait upon the daughter of the Beauclerc and her foreign black-eyed

damsels, who did shoot love-looks at them and discompose their monastic

sobriety and gravity by laying their hands upon their sleeves and

twitching their hoods for this thing and that (for the young Jezebels

spoke no English), and by singing snatches of love songs at them, even

as the false syrens of old did unto the wise Ulysses. Certes, the

founder of our order, the blessed Benedict, did know what he was a-doing

when he condemned and prohibited the resort of women to our houses and

their in-dwelling with monks. Monks are mortal, and mortal flesh is

weak: _et ne nos inducas in tentationem_.

It was still an early hour, not much more than half way between prima

and tertia, when more troubles came upon us. The two knights who had

been sent forth by the daughter of the Beauclerc to make an espial into

the condition of the country, and to summon her friends unto her,

returned to our gate with a large company of knights and men-at-arms,

and demanded to be readmitted. Our good abbat, calling together the

fathers of the house, held counsel with them; and it was agreed that to

admit so great a company of men of war would be perilous to our

community; and even our bellicose prior did opine that our people would

be too few to protect the abbey if these men without should be joined to

those the empress had within. It was our prior who addressed that great

company from the porter's window over the gateway, telling them that the

two knights who had come from London with the empress might be

readmitted, but that our doors would not be unbarred even unto them

unless the rest of that armed host went to a distance into the King's

Mead. Hereat there arose a loud clamour from those knights and

men-at-arms, with great reproaches and threats. Yea, one of those

knights, Sir Richard à Chambre, who was in after time known for a most

faithless man, and a variable, changing sides as often as the moon doth

change her face, did call our lord abbat apostate monk and traitor, and

did threaten our good house with storm and spoliation. The major part of

us had gathered in front of the house to see and hear what was passing;

but, alack! we were soon made to run towards the back of the abbey, for

while Sir Richard à Chambre was discoursing in this unseemly strain, and

shaking his mailed fist at the iron bars through which he could scantly

see the tip of our prior's nose, a knight on foot, who wore black mail

and a black plume in his casque, and who never raised his visor and

scarce spoke word after these few, came running round the eastern angle

of the abbey walls, shouting "'Tis open! 'tis ours! Win in, in the name

of Matilda!" The voice that said these few words seemed to not a few of

us to have been heard before, but we had no time to think of that. The

armed host set up a shout, and ran round for our postern gate, which

openeth upon the Kennet, and we all began to run for the same, our lord

abbat wringing his hands, and saying "The postern! the postern! some

traitor hath betrayed us!"

Now our postern was secured by two great locks of rare strength and

ingenuity of workmanship, and the keys thereof were not intrusted to the

portarius, but were always kept by the sub-prior, and without these keys

there was no undoing the door either from within or from without. As he

ran from the great gateway, I heard our prior say in an angry voice unto

the sub-prior, "Brother Hildebrand, how is this? Where be the keys?" And

I heard the sub-prior make response, "On my soul, I know not how it is,

but verily the keys I did leave under the pallet in my cell."

When we came into the paved quadrangle, we found some of our retainers

hastily putting on their armour; but when we came into the garden, we

found it thronged with men already armed, and we saw the postern wide

open and many more warriors rushing in through it: the evil men who had

stayed with the queen, and who had so much abused our hospitality, had

already joined the new comers, and the united and still increasing force

was so great that we could not hope to expel them and save our house

from robbery and profanation. Our very prior smote his breast in

despair. But our good abbat, though of a less bellicose humour, had no

fear of the profane intruders, for he stood up in the midst of them and

upbraided them roundly, and threatened to lay an interdict upon them all

for the thing that they were doing. But anon the empress herself came

forth with one that waved a flag over her head, and at sight hereof the

sinful men set up a shouting and fell to a kissing, some the flag, which

was but a small and soiled thing, and some--on their knees--the hand of

the Beauclerc's daughter; and while this was passing, those foreign

damsels came salting and skipping, and clapping their hands and talking

Anjou French, into the garden. There was one of them attired in a short

green kirtle that had the smallest and prettiest feet, and the largest

and blackest eyes, and the longest and blackest eyelashes, and the

laughingest face, that ever man did behold in these parts of the world;

and she danced near to me on those tiny pretty feet, and glanced at me

such glances from those black eyes, that my heart thumped against my

ribs; but the saints gave me strength and protection, and I pulled my

hood over my eyes and fell to telling my beads, and thus, when others

were backsliders, I, Felix the novice, was enabled to stand steadfast in

my faith.

The empress had taken no heed of our lord abbat, or of any of us; but

when she had done welcoming the knights that came to do her service,

and, imprimis, to escort her on her way to Oxenford, she turned unto the

abbat and said, "Monk, thou art too weak to cope with a queen, the

daughter of a king, the widow of an emperor, and one from whom many

kings will spring. But by thy perversity, which we think amounts to

treason, thou hast incurred the penalty of deprivation; and when we

have time for such matters, or at the very next meeting of a synod of

bishops and abbats, I will see that thou art both deprived and

imprisoned."

"That synod," said our abbat very mildly, "will not sit so soon, and

from any synod I can appeal to his holiness the Pope."

"Fool!" quoth Matilda, with the ugliest curl of the lip I ever beheld;

"obstinate fool! the Pope's legate is our well-beloved subject and

friend the Bishop of Winchester."

"See that you keep his allegiance! He hath put you upon a throne, and

can pull you down therefrom!" So spake our prior, who could not stomach

the irreverent treatment the Countess of Anjou put upon his superior,

and who knew that Matilda had in various ways broken her compact with

him, and done deeds highly displeasing to King Stephen's brother, the

tough-hearted Bishop of Winchester.

"Beshrew me!" quoth Matilda; "but these Reading monks be proud of

stomach and rebellious! Sir Walleren of Mantes, drive them into their

church, and see that they quit it not while we tarry here."

"I will," said the foreign knight; "and also will I see that they do

sing the _Salve, Regina_."

And this Sir Walleren and other unknightly knights drew their swords and

called up their retainers; and before this ungodly host the abbat and

prior and the monks were all compelled to retreat into the church,

leaving the whole range of the abbey to those who had so unrighteously

invaded it. But as soon as we were in the choir, instead of singing a

_Salve, Regina_, we did chant _In te, Domine, speravi_.

A strong guard was put at the church-door and in the cloisters; but it

was not needed, as we could oppose no resistance to those who were now

robbing our house; and as it had been determined therefore that all who

had come into the church should remain, with psalmody and prayer, until

these men of violence should take their departure from the abbey, or

complete their wickedness by driving us from it. As they ransacked our

house, as though it had been a castle taken by storm, and as they

shouted and made such loud noises as soldiers use when a castle or a

town hath been successfully stormed, we only chanted the louder in the

choir. For full two hours did these partisans of Matilda ransack the

abbey, with none to say them nay. At the end of that time, when they had

gotten all that they considered worth taking, that ill-visaged knight

Sir Walleren of Mantes came to the church-door, and called forth the

abbat and prior, saying that the queen would speak with them before she

went, and give them a lesson which they might remember. Though thrice

summoned in the name of the queen, the heads of our house did not move,

nor would they have gone forth at all if the fierce Sir Walleren

aforesaid had not sent in a score of pikes to drive them, or prick them

from their seats. Nay, even then, the prior would have run not unto the

door, but unto the altar; but the good abbat, fearing that God's house

might be desecrated by blood, took the prior by the sleeve, and

whispered a few soothing words to him, and so led him out into the

cloisters; and then all we who had been driven into the church followed

the abbat and the prior, and went to the quadrangle, where was the queen

on horseback, mounted on the lord abbat's own grey palfrey, which had

been stolen from the stable, together with every horse and mule that our

community possessed. It was a sad sight; and the lord abbat's master of

the horse and his palfrey-keeper were wringing their hands at it. Our

good cattle, save and except the lord abbat's palfrey and a fine

war-horse which had appertained to one of our knights, but which was now

mounted by that silent knight in the black mail, who never raised his

visor, were loaded with the spoils of our own house, to wit, the coined

money taken out of our mint, provisions, corn, wine, raiment, and goodly

furnishings. The masked knight had a plain shield, carried by his page,

and no cognizance whereby he might be known: he held in his hand one of

the queen's reins, and by his gestures, and his constant looking to the

great gate of our house, which was now thrown wide open, he seemed very

eager to be gone. As our lord abbat, with his hand still upon the

prior's sleeve, came through the crowd and nigh to the space where

Matilda sat upon his own palfrey, she first frowned upon him and then

laughed at him, and between laughing and frowning said--"Oh abbat that

shalt not be abbat long, thou hast comported thyself like a traitor and

a very churl in stinting thy queen of that which she needed, in

begrudging hospitality to these fair damsels, and in barring thy doors

against these my gallant knights and faithful people. For this have we,

for the present, relieved thy house of some of its superfluous stuff. It

is not well that disloyal monks be so well supplied and furnished, when

a queen, and noble ladies, and high-born knights be unprovided and bare,

and forced by treasons foul to flee from place to place as if they were

accursed Israelites. Light meals are followed by light digestion, and

abstinence is favourable to prayer and devotion. Yet have we taken

nothing from ye, O monks, but what is rightfully ours, or was given ye

by my father of thrice glorious memory."

"Oh Empress, or Countess of Anjou, or Queen of England, if so must be,

the deeds which have been done in this holy house, built and endowed by

thy father for the expiation of his sins, will make the bones of thy

father turn in his grave, and will bring down a curse upon the heads of

thee and thy party. Bethink thee, and repent while it is yet time! Thy

father, the father of his people and the peace of his country, _Pax

patriæ, gentisque suæ Pater_, did for the good of his own soul found

this abbey, and endow it with the town and manor of Reading, and with

all the lands which had aforetime belonged to the nunnery of Reading and

the monasteries of Cholsey and Leominster (which houses had been

destroyed in our old wars), and he did make it one of the royal mitred

abbeys, and did give the lord abbat privilege to coin his own money, by

having a mint and mintmaster. Other donations did he make, and other

privileges and honours did he confer upon our community. And hath not

our lord the pope by a special bull confirmed and sanctified this kingly

grant, and taken our house, with all its possessions and appurtenances,

to wit, lands cultivated and uncultivated, its manors, meadows, woods,

pastures, mills, fisheries, and all other, under the protection of the

holy Roman see? And hath not his holiness decreed that none are to

disturb our house, or to lay an impious hand on our possessions, or to

keep, or diminish the same, or in any other way give us trouble; but

that all that we have and hold is to be kept under the government of the

monks, and for the pious uses for which it was given? And in the same

bull hath not the pope blessed those who keep this commandment, and

cursed those who in any way break it? Unless thou makest restitution

thou wilt be denied the viaticum on thy death-bed--_et a sacratissimo

corpore et sanguine Dei et Domini nostri aliena fiat_."

At these words spoken, the countess did somewhat tremble on the palfrey,

and turn pale; but one of her wicked advisers from beyond sea said that

she did but borrow, and would make restitution at the fitting time, and

that we, being so rich, could well spare some of our substance.

Our treasurer, who would not deign to speak to this foreign marauder,

said to the countess, "Oh, ill-advised ladie, we be none so rich, and

much is expected from us. By thy father's endowment full two hundred

monks are to be kept for aye in this his royal abbey, and we be as yet

scantly more than one hundred and two score. Also do the good people

that we have drawn to this township of Reading look to us for present

employment and support; and herein have we much laboured, for the good

of the realm, and the happiness of the commoner sort. In the days of thy

grandfather, the dread Conqueror of this kingdom, when the Domesday-book

was made, Reading had only twenty-nine houses; but now look abroad, and

see how new houses have risen, and men have increased under the shadow

of our peaceful walls."

"There will be woe and want among that industrious people," said abbat

Edward, "if thou carriest away from us this great spoil, and all the

money that we have minted! The curse of the poor, which is the next

terriblest thing to the curse of God and holy church, will cling to

thee, oh countess, or queen! Look to it, oh Matilda! I see the crown

already dropping from thy head."

"This is treason!" said the silent knight with his visor down, in a

voice which made all of us start, for it sounded like that of one who

had lately been our fast friend.

Matilda, rising in her saddle, with glaring eyes and reddened cheek,

said, "And I, rebel monk, do see the mitre falling from thy head. Thou

wilt not be abbot of Reading this time next month."

"_Fiat voluntas_, let the will of God be done," replied our lord abbat.

"And now," quoth the violent daughter of the Beauclerc, "let us ride on

our way for Oxenford. Methinks we be now strong enough to defy all

traitors on the road." And she struck with her riding-wand the grey

palfrey, which it much grieved our abbat to lose, and followed by her

knights and her leering and laughing foreign damsels, she rode out at

our gate, and with a great host departed from Reading.

When the evil-doers were all gone we made fast our doors, and proceeded

to examine the condition of our house and its community. They had

completely emptied the buttery, the store-house, the granary, the

wine-cellar; they had so stripped the lord abbat's house and the lodging

of the prior that there was nothing left in them save the tables and

chairs, the mats and rushes; they had broken open both treasury and

sacristy, and had stolen thence all our most precious relics, and all

our gold and silver vessels, and all our portable pictures and

crucifixes; they had not left us so much as a patera, a chalice, or an

encensoire; they had even laid their impious thievish hands upon the

silver lamp which had been used to burn day and night at the head of the

Beauclerc's tomb, and they had carried off with them the Agnus Dei and

the jewelled cross which Henricus Primus had worn for many years of his

life, and which, at his order, had been laid upon his tomb. That silver

lamp had been sent to the abbey by Queen Adelise, the Beauclerc's second

and surviving wife, who, on the first anniversary of the Beauclerc's

death, gave us the manor of Aston in Hertfordshire, offering a pall upon

the altar in confirmation of the grant; and who likewise gave us the

land of Reginald, the Forester, at Stanton-Harcourt, nigh unto Oxenford,

and afterwards the patronage and revenues of the church of

Stanton-Harcourt, to supply the cost of the silver lamp, which she

herself did order should burn continually before the pix and the tomb of

her late husband. Yet Matilda and her plundering band had carried off

this precious cresset--and long did they prevent us getting any rent or

revenues from the lands which Queen Adelise had granted us. Not the most

recondite and secret part of our house had escaped their search. Much

did we marvel at this, until, calling over the roll, we found that three

members of our community did not answer to their names. The three

missing were, two novices, to wit, young Urswick, the whiteheaded, from

Pangbourne, and John Blount from Maple-Durham, and one full monk, to

wit, Father Anselm, of Norman birth, who had but lately taken the vows,

but who had been much employed by our treasurer in offices of trust. The

two novices (may their souls be assoiled!) had been wiled away by those

young Jezebels, and had put on warlike harness, and had gone with

Matilda to serve her as men-at-arms: Father Anselm, being a

well-favoured man, had found favour in the sight of the Countess of

Anjou, and had gone with her to be her mass-priest, and to aim at some

vacant bishopric or abbey. Well had it been for us if he had never come

back to Reading. Heavy suspicions had fallen upon our sub-prior

Hildebrand, touching the postern gate; but it was ascertained upon

inquiry, that Urswick, the whiteheaded, who had been wont to wait upon

the sub-prior, did, at the bidding of Matilda, or of one of her damsels,

steal the keys and undo the door.

Besides the three deserters from our own body, we found that divers of

our armed retainers had taken service with the errant countess, and had

gone away with her with their arms and horses; and that even one of our

knights, who did service for the lands of the abbey he held, had

forgotten his bounden duty and his honour in a sudden fantastic

affection for a pair of black eyes.

We were bemoaning our losses, and our exceeding great calamity and

disgrace, and wondering where we should get a dinner, when, some three

hours after the departure of Matilda, and the host that followed her

standard, another great body of horse and foot, bearing the banner of

King Stephen, marched towards our gates, demanding meat and drink, and

vowing, with many soldier-like profane oaths, that they would burn and

destroy all such as were not for Stephen. The new alarm thus created

was, however, but short, for some noble barons and knights, who had been

riding in the rear, came spurring up to the van, which was now halting

in the Falbury, and among these we saw, with his vizor down, that right

noble lord Sir Alain de Bohun, Lord of Caversham and the well-beloved

nephew of our lord abbat, whose sad heart was much rejoiced at his so

sudden appearance.

"Be it King Stephen or Queen Matilda," said the abbat, "let us throw

open our gates to our well-beloved nephew, for he will not see harm done

to us, and now, verily, we have nothing to lose but lives not worth the

taking." And the gates were thrown open, and Sir Alain was welcomed and

affectionately greeted by his uncle; and after many expressions of

astonishment and indignation at the wrongs which had been done us, Sir

Alain and divers of the lords and knights with him retired for a space

to the lord abbat's despoiled and naked apartment, with the lord abbat

and our prior, and some other fathers. I was not of that council, being

but a novice, nor can I say it that I ever learned in after times _all_

that was said in it; but I do know that when it was finished (and it

lasted not long) the prior came forth with a very confident countenance,

and told us all that the Bishop of Winchester, the pope's Legatus à

latere, had changed sides, that Stephen of Blois was still King Stephen,

and that we must sing a _Te Deum laudamus_ for that same. And we all

went forthwith into our church, and the barons and knights went in after

us, and we admitted as many as the church would hold of those

men-at-arms, and bill-men and bow-men, that had halted in the Falbury

with King Stephen's banner, and albeit we were hungry and faint, we sang

the _Te Deum_ for Stephen with sonorous voices.

Sir Alain de Bohun, one of the very few lords of England that never

changed sides during these nineteen years of revolutions and wars, had

fought bravely for King Stephen in the great battle at Lincoln, where

other barons and knights had deserted with all their forces to Matilda's

illegitimate brother and commander the Earl of Gloucester; and after

Stephen had been taken prisoner (not until both his sword and battle-axe

had been broken), Sir Alain had escaped from the field and had joined

one of the many leagues of nobles who vowed never to submit to the

distaff, or allow the Countess of Anjou to be Queen of England. In the

five months which had passed since the battle of Lincoln, Sir Alain had

fought in sundry other battles, and had given heart to many a knight,

who, after the synod of Winchester, had despaired of the cause of King

Stephen. He had appeared with a good body of horse, and the standard of

Stephen, on the southern side of Thamesis, opposite the city of London,

and his appearance had encouraged the citizens to rise and drive out

Matilda. And the day before, appearing in the suburb of London, Sir

Alain de Bohun had been at Guildford, and had there conferred with

Stephen's queen, the good Maud, and also with Stephen's brother, the

Bishop of Winchester, who did already repent him of that which he had

done in synod. But that the bishop had met either Queen Maud or Sir

Alain was for the present kept secret.

The Lord of Caversham and his friends had crossed the river, and entered

London city within an hour of Matilda's flight. Having toiled far that

same day, the horses of the king's party were weary, and could not give

pursuit; but after short rest they followed the flying queen along the

great road which leads to the westernmost parts of our island. Jesu

Maria! had they come unto Reading a few hours sooner, before the arrival

of that battalia which the two knights Matilda had sent forth from our

abbey had collected, the violent woman might have been made prisoner,

and our house have been saved from plunder. But now the horses of King

Stephen's friends were again aweary, and though Sir Alain and the noble

barons with him were stronger in foot soldiers, they were much weaker in

horse than the host which had left Reading with the countess, who, upon

these sundry considerations, and for that she had been gone more than

two hours, was let go on her road to Oxenford without pursuit.

The burghers of Reading who had endeavoured to save themselves from

plunder and violence by throwing up their caps and shouting for the

errant queen, but who had been plundered and beaten all the same (nay,

divers of them were wounded by sword and lance, and cruelly maimed), now

came to our abbey-gates, making their throats hoarse with shouting for

King Stephen and the good and gracious Lord of Caversham; and some of

the richer franklins of the township and neighbourhood, who had escaped

being plundered by Matilda's party, upon learning the sad case in which

we, the monks, had been left, hastened to bring us meat and drink.

Sir Alain de Bohun, who had not seen his wife or his home for many a sad

day, was about to ride across the fields homeward, when his ladie's page

was seen running across the King's Mead towards our abbey.

"Yonder comes one from Caversham," said Sir Alain; "and I read by his

looks and his hurry that he bringeth no good news!"

"Fear not," said the abbat, who saw that his nephew's cheek was growing

pale, "for the saints have ever defended thy roof-tree, and as I told

thee before, the Ladie Alfgiva and the children were as well as well

could be at the hour of noon of yesterday, when I did see them."

Nevertheless, the little page did bring bad news, or tidings which much

afflicted Sir Alain and our lord abbat. There had been treachery at

Caversham, and a fast friend had played loose. That sweet babe, the

daughter of Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, who had caused our household so

much dismay four years agone, and had sent me and Philip the lay-brother

on the night-journey to Sir Alain de Bohun's castle, had dwelt in that

castle ever since, and had been nurtured with all delicacy and honour,

like a child of the house. For a long season Sir Ingelric, her father,

had no safe home unto which he could take her; for since the beginning

of these unhappy wars, no house in England could be called safe that was

not moated and battlemented, and strongly garrisoned; and if Sir

Ingelric had possessed a castellum, he had no gentle dame unto whom he

could confide his infant female child. But the Ladie Alfgiva was as

tender as a mother to this babe, and this tenderness became the greater

when death deprived her of her own little daughter. Sir Ingelric of

Huntercombe, who had taken vengeance on the destroyer of his wife and

home, Sir Jocelyn de Brienne, in the Falbury almost at our abbey gates,

seemed engaged for life in a blood-feud with Sir Jocelyn's family and

friends, and to be for ever wedded to the party of King Stephen by the

strong ties of necessity and revenge. Many were the combats he had

fought between that time his house and wife were burned, and the time

when King Stephen prepared for that campaign which had ended so

disastrously at Lincoln. During this long and busy interval he went not

often to Caversham, so that his child grew up with little knowledge of

him. The little Alice was wont to call Sir Alain de Bohun her father,

even as she called the Ladie Alfgiva mother. Once or twice within the

last twelve months Sir Ingelric had said, that since his house was well

nigh rebuilt, he should have a safe bower for his daughter, and that

Alice must soon home with him; and each time he had said the words the

child had run from him to the Ladie Alfgiva, and had clung round her

neck, weeping and saying that she would not leave her mother; and her

playmate and champion, that right gallant boy Arthur de Bohun, the only

son, and now the only child, of Sir Alain, who was some four years older

than Alice, said that she must not leave him. It was noticed upon these

occasions, that although Sir Ingelric began as in a jest, his

countenance soon grew dark and his voice harsh, and that he almost shook

his child when he took her on his knee and told her that she must love

her father, and must not always be a burthen unto other people. Nay,

the last time that he said these words he pressed the little Alice's arm

so violently that he left the blackening marks of his fingers upon it.

Other things were noted as well by Sir Alain de Bohun as by the Ladie

Alfgiva. It is not every man that is chastened by calamity. Sir

Ingelric's great misfortune had made him fierce, proud, and rebellious

to the will of Heaven; and, in losing his fair young wife, he had lost

his best guide and monitor. He became hard of heart, and grasping, and

covetous; and as for more than three years the party of King Stephen had

been almost everywhere victorious, he had abundant opportunities of

satisfying his appetite for havoc and booty. But the more he gained the

more he wished to get, and by degrees he gave up his whole soul to

avarice and ambition. Sir Alain de Bohun, who looked for no advantage

unto himself, who adhered to King Stephen out of loyalty and affection,

and who kept out of the horrible and unnatural warfare as much as he

thought his duty would allow him, entertained apprehensions that his

friend Sir Ingelric loved the war for what he gained by it, and would

not be very steady to any losing party. Sir Ingelric, however, had

fought bravely for King Stephen at Lincoln, and had there been taken

prisoner. But he had paid a ransom to his captor, and had been some time

at large, busied in putting the finishing hand to the strong castle

which he had raised on his lands at Speen. Though the distance was so

short to Caversham, he had not gone once thither until the evening of

the unhappy day on which the Countess of Anjou had come to our

abbey--that is, the evening of yesterday--but then he had told the

Ladie Alfgiva that as the weather was so fine and the country so

tranquil (alack! the good people at Caversham had not seen the arrival

of Matilda and her young Jezebels at our abbey), he would take the two

children forth for a walk in the meadows by the river side; and the

false knight had gone forth with the children, and neither he nor the

children had since been seen or heard of. As the little page came to

this point in his dismal story, not only our prior, but several of us

less entitled to speak in such a presence, cried out, "That knight in

the black mail who kept his vizor down, and that went away with the

countess, was none other than Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe;" and our

abbot said, "Verily, the voice was that of Sir Ingelric!"

"Woe for these changes!" said Sir Alain de Bohun, "woe and shame upon

them. If men have no faith even with old friends--if men do shift from

side to side like the inconstant wind, this war will never know an end,

and truth, and honour, and mercy will depart the land! Sir Ingelric of

Huntercombe! I aided thee in thy wretchedness, and King Stephen did

afterwards hand thee on the road to riches and greatness. I first gave

thee money and the labour of my serfs that thou mightest re-edify thy

house, but now thou hast built to thyself a strong castle, wherein thou

thinkest thou canst defy me, now thou believest the cause of Stephen to

be desperate, and therefore dost thou raise thy hand against me, and

steal away, like a thief, not only the child that was thine own, but

also mine only son, that the woman of Anjou may have my dearest hostage

in her power. May God of his mercy protect my dear boy! But, oh Sir

Ingelric, thy treachery is ill-laid and ill-timed, thy cunning is

foolishness. Great things have happened since thou hast been

castle-building, and thou wilt find that thou hast quitted the stronger

for the weaker party. Hereafter will I make thee pay, if not for thy

black ingratitude to me, for thy disloyalty to thy too bountiful king,

and for the tears my ladie wife will shed for her double loss!"

Here moisture very like a tear stood in the eyes of the Lord of

Caversham: but grief gave way to wrath as he said that the felon knight

might have taken his own child, which would long since have been in its

grave but for the Ladie Alfgiva, without robbing him of his son.

Our good abbat, who had his prophetic seasons, said, "Grieve not, my

well-beloved nephew. The two children will do well together, and thou

wilt soon have them restored to thy house: they were born to be together

and love one another, and so will not be separated. Alice will repay

thee hereafter for the ingratitude and treasons and other evil doings of

her father."

Here I, Felix the novice, and Philip the lay-brother, who had carried

little Alice from the abbey unto Caversham, and who had loved the child

ever since, did say "Amen! amen! So be it."

"The children," said an honest franklin who had stood by all the time of

these discourses, "be surely gone with the Countess of Anjou for

Oxenford; as on the road beyond the town I saw a blue-eyed boy riding

before a man-at-arms, and a little girl in the arms of a waiting-woman

who rode close to the countess on a piebald horse, and both the children

were crying piteously."

"Then will we recover them at Oxenford," said one of the knights.

Sir Alain de Bohun, with a part of the company who had come with him,

mounted for Caversham; and when Sir Alain began to ride, I could see

that he rode hotly and impatiently. The rest of the knightly company we

entertained in the abbey as best we could, and lodged them for that

night, the good franklins having brought us in some clean straw and

rushes for that purpose. The commoner sort slept in the open air on the

Falbury, with their weapons by their sides.

But before the troublous day was finished, other dismal tidings and

sights of woe were brought to our house. John Appold and Ralph Wain, two

franklins whilome of good substance, who farmed some of our outstanding

abbey lands beyond Pangbourne, came to tell us that their houses had

been burned, their granaries emptied, and the plough-hinds and shepherds

and all the serfs driven away by Matilda's people, who had chained them

together by their iron neck-collars, and had goaded them before them

like cattle with the points of their lances. And before these sad tales

were well ended, Will Shakeshaft, a faithful steward who dwelt in a

house our lord abbat had at Purley, arrived on a maimed horse, and with

a ghastly cut across his face, to let us know that violence had been

done to his wife, and that that fair house had been burned also. A

little later there came three of our poor serfs howling so that it was

dreadful to hear, and holding in the air their red and still bleeding

stumps. They had been amputated and then liberated, in order that they

might go forth and show all the people what they had to expect if they

opposed or so much as forbore to aid and join the empress-queen. As the

night became dark, we could trace the march of the countess by a line of

fire and smoke. Such were the things which drove the poor people of

England into impiety and blasphemy, making them say that Christ and the

saints had fallen asleep! And these things lasted in the land for

fifteen more years.