VII.

When our good lord abbat Edward had been dead well nigh a year, to wit,

in the summer season of eleven hundred and forty-two, King Stephen, from

great fatigue of body and uneasiness of mind, fell sore sick, and lay

for a long while like one that was dying. While this lasted the barons

of his party did many evil deeds, there being no authority strong enough

to check their lawlessness; and, at the same troublous season, the

partisans of Matilda and the foreign mercenaries in her pay did ravage

all the western parts; and more robbers came over from Anjou, Normandie,

and Picardie, asking no pay, but only free quarters, and the right of

plundering the poor English. It was a Benedictine from Rome that had

studied medicine in the school of Salerno, that brought a healing potion

to the king, and snatched him back to life from the jaws of the grave.

So soon as Stephen could mount his war-horse he marched with a great

force unto Oxenford, where the countess had fixed her court; and he

invested that unhappy city with a firm resolution never to move thence

until he had gotten his troublesome rival into his hands. After some

fighting, in which many lives were lost by both parties, Stephen burst

into the town, and having set fire to a large part thereof, he laid

siege unto the castle into which Matilda and her people had retired. Now

the castle of Oxenford, standing in the midst of waters, was very

strong. From St. Michael's mass well nigh unto Christ's mass, _à festo

Michæelis usque ad natali Domini_, did King Stephen persevere in the

siege, telling all men that complained of the hard service that he must

have the castle, and in it the countess, and that then there would be

peace in England.

In the mid siege, our new lord abbat, who had had much correspondence

with the lord abbat of Abingdon, with the prior and monks at Hurley, and

with other Benedictine houses, for the good purpose of saving the

remnant of the Christian people in those parts, and putting an end to

the cruelties and many deadly sins which were daily committed, received

from the Abingdon cell at Cumnor, nigh unto Oxenford, a missive from the

abbat of that community, who entreated him, now that the country was

clear of Matilda's people, to repair unto Cumnor that they might take

council together, and together confer with King Stephen, who seemed at

that moment to be in a heavenly disposition, and to have an exceeding

great desire to tranquillize the land, and to consult with the loyal

abbat of Reading. Now albeit Stephen had, by means of Sir Alain de

Bohun, expressed his great contentment at the expulsion of Father

Anselm, and at all that had been done by our community since the great

meeting of the synod at Westminster, the election of the prior to be our

lord abbat had not yet been formally confirmed by the king; and

therefore Dominus Reginaldus did make haste to accept the invitation of

the abbat of Abingdon, and to get him unto Cumnor. Not for any merit of

mine own, but through the kind favour he was ever pleased to show me, I

was chosen to be of the travelling party. Philip the lay-brother went

likewise; but Philip was a brave and ready man, quick-witted, and

well-trained aforetime in the use of arms, and in the riding of the

great horse. Although the nerve of the Angevin faction was shut up in

Oxenford Castle, my Lord Reginald was too wise a man to put himself on

the road with a weak escort; for he well knew that there were many

barons and knights, calling themselves King Stephen's friends and the

friends of mother church, that would not scruple to plunder an abbat, or

to keep him in their donjons for the sake of a great ransom; and well

nigh every castle between Reading and Oxenford, and between Oxenford and

Bristowe, was a den of thieves, and worse; and Lord Reginald had not

lost his bellicose humour by being promoted to the highest dignity. "By

the head of Saint John the Baptist," said he, as we were about to take

our departure, "not a robber of them all shall lay me in his crucet

house without having a hard fight for it! Before I bear the weight of

their sachenteges, I will make them taste the sharpness of my lance, and

the weight of my mace." And so was it that we went forth from Reading

forty and one strong, and every man of us armed cap-à-pie, and most of

us well mounted. The lord abbat wore a steel cap under his hood, and a

coat of mail and steel hose under his robes; and he had a two-edged

sword at his side and a heavy mace at the pommel of his saddle, and a

good lance resting on stirrup-iron; yea, and I, Felix the novice, wore

ringed armour and a steel casque, and had my sword and lance: Englehard

de Cicomaco, that famed and well-judging knight, who was one of the

retainers of our abbey, doing military service for the abbey lands he

held near Hurley Common, did say that I looked a very proper

man-at-arms, and did bestride my steed like a knight--but these are

vanities, and I by my vows did renounce all vanity. Yet can I but mark

that when we came to Cumnor a great baron asked who was that gallant

well-favored young soldier that rode in the van, near to the lord abbat

of Reading.

On our way we tarried for a night at Berecourt by Pangbourne, where we

had a goodly house among the hills which had wont to be a summer

residence of our abbats. But this goodly house had been robbed and

spoiled, and our vassals and serfs had not yet been enabled to restore

it. We were therefore roughly lodged and not over well fed; but that

which affected me more grievously than this was the sad condition of the

poor people of Pangbourne, who had been so prosperous and happy before

these accursed wars began. Sad were the tales they told, and not the

least sad of them all was this: my quondam friend and brother novice,

Urswick the Whiteheaded, had been in the spring season of this year at

Pangbourne with a great band of English and foreign robbers, ransacking

the place of his birth and maltreating the friends among whom he had

been born and bred; and his aged father had to his face pronounced a

curse upon him; and in a quarrel with some savage men from Anjou

touching the division of spoil, Urswick had been slain on the bank of

Thamesis, before he could recross the river or get out of sight of his

native village: and, since that black morning, or so our serfs did say,

his well-known voice had been heard at midnight, and he had been seen by

the light of the moon, now habited as a monk, and wringing his hands by

the river side where he fell, looking piteously towards the abbey of

Reading, from which he had fled, and now equipped as a man-at-arms, and

galloping on a great black horse, across the country and up the steep

hills and down the precipices--fire flashing from the eyes and nostrils

of the infernal steed, and from the burning heart of the lost novice.

On our march from Pangbourne we shunned the townships and castles as

much as we could, and took especial heed not to get near unto

Wallingford; for the strong castle there was held by Brian Fitzcount,

the most terrible of all Matilda's partisans, and the greatest robber of

them all; and the castle at this very time was known to be full of

unfortunate prisoners whom he kept and daily tortured in order to make

them disclose their supposed hidden treasures, or to pay a heavier

ransom than any they had the means of paying. Christian burghers and

franklins, noble knights who had warred against the heathen in

Palestine, nay churchmen, the highest in the hierarchy, were known to be

in his foul prison, pent up with Jewish traffickers and money-dealers;

the noblest and the purest with the vilest and foulest of the earth: and

the gaolers and torturers of Brian Fitzcount treated the Christians no

whit better than the Israelites that were chained at their sides,

contaminating them with their touch and poisoning the air they breathed.

Night after night, such of the poor townfolk as had contrived to live in

the midst of these horrors without deserting Wallingford, were startled

in their sleep by the cries and shrieks which came from the grim castle;

and when in the morning they adventured to ask what had been toward in

the night watches, the Count's people would tell them jestingly from the

battlements that it was nothing, or that Brian Fitzcount had only been

coining a little more money, or that a Jew had had his teeth drawn, or

that a traitor to the empress-queen had been questioned about his

treason and treasure.

The great prison in this castle of Wallingford was called Brian's Hell,

and it was deserving of the name. But the fiends were abroad, as well as

within those abominable walls--the spirit of the arch-fiend was

everywhere. The village churches and the chapels and hospitia in

solitary places had been destroyed or turned into fortalices; deep

trenches were cut in the churchyards among the consecrated abodes of the

dead; the sweet sounding church bells had been thrown down, and engines

of war had been set up on the church towers. Yea! the resting places

which the church and the piety of the faithful had built and stocked for

the poor and hungry wayfarers in the desert had been plundered and

destroyed--the last holy resting-places had been profaned! The temple of

peace and mercy had been turned into a place of arms!

As we came near to Hanney mead and the river Ock--that pleasant little

river that wells from the ground near Uffington and drops into Thamesis

by Abingdon, and that has the most savoury pike that be fished in these

parts--we came suddenly upon a castellum which we could by no means

avoid; for it had been lately built, and we knew not of it, and it lay

so low among marshes that we saw it not until we were close upon it. It

lay close to the only road that led to the ford across the river. To a

trumpet which sounded a challenge from the walls our party replied with

sound of trumpet, and then at the abbat's commandment proceeded

deliberately onward. As we came nearer, the warder of the castle shouted

"For whom be ye?"

"What if I say for King Stephen?" quoth our lord abbat, rising in his

stirrups and waving his lance over his head.

"Long live King Stephen! an thou wilt," said the warder, "but thou must

pay toll ere thou mayest pass the river."

"The lord abbat of Reading pays not even bridge toll, and here there is

no bridge," said our lord abbat, "and fords be ever free. Go read our

charter: _In terris et aquis, in transitibus pontium_, by land and by

water, and in the passing of bridges, we be free from all tolls or

consuetudinary payments. If thou wilt have toll from me, i'faith, thou

must come forth and take it."

"Thou art but a traitor," cried the warder. "Long live the

empress-queen!" shouted divers armed men who ran to the battlement, and

as they did shout did also bend their cross-bows. But by this time we

had all put spurs to our horses, and we dashed past the ugly castellum

and across the ford without receiving any hurt, albeit a quarrel did hit

the lord abbat's steed near unto the tail and make him caper. Had our

party been less numerous and warlike, doubtless we had been lodged that

night among Brian Fitzcount's prisoners.

The town and abbey of Abingdon we did also avoid, keeping a little to

the westward thereof; for another tyrant and man destroyer had built

himself a great castle in that vicinage, and there had been many feuds

and factions and changing of sides among the monks of Abingdon, while

the best and most trusty of that community were known to be at the house

at Cumnor with their abbat. The roads were deep and miry, the way was

long, the days were short, and the weather of the saddest; but on the

third evening after our departure from Reading we arrived at the Cell of

Cumnor, where our lord abbat was hospitably received by the abbat of

Abingdon, and where we of less note found good lodging and

entertainment, to wit, a blazing wood fire whereat to dry our clothes,

clean straw to sleep upon, and salted meats and manchets to eat, and

good Oxenford ale to drink.

On the morrow, when it wanted but two days of the feast of St. Thomas

the Apostle, King Stephen with a few lords and knights rode from the

beleaguer of Oxenford Castle to Cumnor, and did there confer with the

two abbats and other ecclesiastics. What passed in the council chamber I

cannot tell; but it was seen by all of us that the king wore a cheerful

aspect, and it was told unto us all that the castle was reduced to

extremity, and that, there being no escape thence, the countess must

soon surrender or die of starvation. When the conference was over, and

when the king had been entertained as royally as the abbat of Abingdon

could do it in that place and at that time--and when Stephen had laid

his offering upon the altar in the church, he rode back to the siege,

and our lord abbat of Reading, and all of us who had come with him,

attended the king to Oxenford, intending there to tarry until the

surrender of Matilda.

"With the saints to my aid," said our abbat, "I may prevail upon this

perverse daughter of the Beauclerc to deliver herself quietly up, and

upon King Stephen to be merciful unto her in her captivity. If the

Angevin countess should still persevere in the wickedness of her ways,

and attempt to escape again on a bier instead of putting an end to the

woes of the land by a surrender, forty good swords the more may do

service for the king. My children, my friends, ye will all be vigilant

in this matter, and do duty like good soldiers, if it should be required

of ye!" And as the good lord Reginald went into Oxenford town and saw

the palace which the Beauclerc king had there builded, and saw the

engines of war, and heard the horrid noise of war all about, he heaved a

sigh and said, "_Eheu! quantum mutatur!_ How be all things changed! Here

in the days of Henricus Primus, that peace-loving king, _Rex pacis_,

have I seen nothing but quiet scholars and learned men, and the court of

a king that was an academe and a sanctuary of letters. Wot ye, my boy

Felix, why it was that Henricus did build him a palace here?" And I

having confessed my ignorance as became me, our abbat went on to say,

"Felix, my son, the Beauclerc had collected in his most royal park at

Woodstock many wild beasts from foreign parts, such as lions and bears,

leopards and lynxes, and porcupines, and of these he had a wonderful

great liking, and here at Oxenford learned men were collecting every

year in greater numbers, and in the company of these scholars his grace

did take marvellous delight: in truth it were not easy to say whether he

liked the beasts better than the bookish men, or the bookish men better

than the beasts; but, to have the enjoyment of both, he ofttimes fixed

his residence between them; and therefore was it, my son, that Henricus

Primus raised this royal dwelling, and preferred it above his other

houses." That very night, albeit I knew it not then, there came to King

Stephen the very unfavourable news that the countess's half-brother, the

great Earl of Gloucester, who for some months had been absent, had

returned into England with a great body of Angevin and Norman troops,

and had brought with him Henry Fitz-empress, Matilda's young son and

heir, had stormed and taken the castle of Wareham, had been joined by

many traitorous barons who had but lately given fresh oaths of fidelity

to Stephen, and was marching through the land to relieve his sister in

Oxenford Castle and fall upon her besiegers. Maugre the pains that were

taken to conceal this intelligence, it got abroad, and was by some

double-dealer conveyed to Matilda within the castle.

That night there fell a great fall of snow, and after the snow a sharp

and most sudden frost did set in, which in less than twenty-four hours

did cover the river Isis and the moat of the castle and the circumjacent

marshes with thick ice. The beleaguerers made themselves great fires,

and seemed not to remit in their watchfulness. I, Felix, with Philip the

lay-brother, and Sir Englehard de Cicomaco, did mount guard and stand

wakeful all that bitter night, opposite to a postern gate of the castle.

From time to time some great officer of King Stephen went from watch to

watch, and all round the lines to see that the people did their duty and

slept not. Joy came to my heart, and the deadening cold seemed to quit

my body, when I saw Sir Alain de Bohun come to the place where I stood.

"Watch well to-night, oh Felix," said that brave and always courteous

lord; "watch well to-night, and to-morrow will we have our enemy in our

hands--and dear friends, too. Felix! I have had assurance that my son

and thy little friend is within those walls! To-morrow Matilda must

yield; so watch well that postern."

I kissed Sir Alain's hand, and vowed that not so much as a famished cat

or rat should come forth of that gate, nor did there while my watch

lasted.

On the next day, the vigil of St. Thomas, as soon as it was light, a

white flag was raised in the camp in token of peace or truce, and our

lord abbat, with a goodly train of ecclesiastics, bearing church banners

and elevated crucifixes, came down to the very edge of the castle moat,

and demanded speech of the countess; and Matilda ascended to the

battlements, but rather to rebuke them than to hear them. I, Felix,

being relieved from my night watch, did see that stern woman of many

adventures and indomitable pride stand on the castle top in that cold,

grey, leaden air. Thin was she, and gaunt and pale, like one that had

suffered long fasting and sickness; but she had the same flashing eye

and resolute look as at the time when she dictated her will to our house

at Reading; and if her voice was more hollow, it was not less imperious

and awe-commanding now than it was then. The lord abbat entreated her to

give up the castle, promising, in the name of King Stephen, that no harm

should be done to her or to any that were with her; that she should be

honorably escorted to the coast, and there embarked for Anjou; that

lands and money should be given to her and her adherents with a liberal

hand; and that the king would take all her partisans into his peace, if

they would but be true to treaty, and give up a war which had already

lasted so many years to the reproach of Christendom, and to the utter

undoing of the people of England. The abbat told her that her famishing

state was known, and that hope of escape there was none.

"And who told thee, oh meddling monk, that I ever thought of escape?

Dost not know that the Earl of Gloucester is at hand, to do the thing

which he did aforetime at Lincoln? We have meat and meal yet, and will

abide the earl's coming. I will not throw open these gates, or quit

these walls, until I see the false recreant Stephen in chains at my

feet, praying again for that life which I ought to have rid him of long

since."

As the proud woman said these words, I could see that many of our

bystanders looked at one another with perplexity and alarm, and that

divers even of the churchmen put on very thoughtful countenances, and

did nothing and said nothing to aid our lord abbat, or to rebuke the

countess, who in a great passion of wrath threatened to have him hanged

for a felon under the archway of his own abbey.

Some there were that would have counselled an immediate assault upon the

fortress; for albeit no breach had been made in those formidable walls,

the moat was so frozen that it would bear any weight, and scaling

ladders and other needful materials were not wanting. But the more

cautious sort said that the famishing garrison were very numerous and

very desperate; that it would be better to wait a day or two, and have

the castle upon composition; that the Earl of Gloucester had yet sundry

days of march to perform; and that if he came with ever so great a host,

he would find it no easy work to break through our barricades and

defences, and get into the town. Some of the churchmen, moreover, did

say that no enterprise of war would prosper during the festivals of the

church; and, certes, the major part of King Stephen's soldiers did seem

fully determined to keep this the vigil, and to-morrow the festival of

St. Thomas the Apostle, according to the rubric, whether the king would

have it so or not. Hence there was a very visible relaxation of

vigilance. Refreshed by a short sleep in the day, I did watch again that

night with the beleaguerers; but my post was not where it had been the

night before, and in the morning, before I could be relieved, I learned

that the countess had escaped through the postern which I had watched so

well. Marvellous, truly, was the skill and fortune of the Beauclerc's

daughter! She had escaped from Devizes by putting on the semblance and

trappings of the dead, and now she had escaped from Oxenford like a

sheeted ghost! A little after the midnight hour she had dressed herself

all in white, and had thrown white sheets over Sir Ingelric of

Huntercombe, and three others of her knights; and she and these four

sheeted warriors had stolen out of the castle by the postern gate, and

had crossed the moat on the ice and traversed the ice-bound Isis, and

creeping on their hands and knees over the deep white snow, they had

escaped detection, and got safely through our lines and all our

outposts. On foot, in the deep snow, Matilda with her attendant spectres

travelled to Abingdon; but there they found friends and horses, for the

news of the coming of the Earl of Gloucester had reached the place, and

had been very fatal to men's loyalty unto Stephen. From Abingdon,

without resting there, the countess rode through that cold night to

Wallingford Castle, where Brian Fitzcount received her very joyfully.

But these things came to my knowledge afterwards; and when it was first

heard that the countess was gone, none could tell how she was gone, or

whither she had betaken herself. The notice was not given until more

than seven hours after her departure, when, as the day began to dawn, a

starving man-at-arms cried out from the battlements that the garnison

were ready to throw open the gates unto King Stephen, and so save

themselves from death by hunger, as the queen had fled thence, and was

no longer in any danger. At first the news was not credited by any of

the king's people; but soon the governor of the castle sounded trumpets

for a parley, and held out a flag of truce, and offered to deliver up

the castle upon condition that his life and the lives of his people

should be spared. King Stephen himself came rushing to the post opposite

the castle gate to learn the truth, and settle the conditions of

surrender; and with him came Sir Alain de Bohun, mortified yet rejoiced,

a much perplexed yet a happy man; for though it should be found that the

scourge of England had escaped, he had a confident hope that she could

not have carried away his son with her.

King Stephen spoke aloud to the castellan, and said, "This is but a

fabulous rumour! The countess of Anjou is where she hath been these last

three months! Unsay what hath been said! Tell me that she is within

those walls, and, starving as thou art, I will give thee more than the

conditions thou askest--I will give thee wealth and honours! Only say

that she hath not escaped."

"Earl of Moriton and Boulogne!" shouted the proud castellan, "if the

empress queen were within these walls I would starve and die, but never

open these gates unto thee! Let mine offer to surrender be a proof that

she is gone hence. I swear, by the holy rood, that she hath been gone

ever since midnight."

"Whither hath she gone?" cried Stephen.

"I know not, and would not tell thee if I did know; but 'tis likely she

will soon tell thee where she is."

While the castellan was talking in this guise on the outer walls, many

of our lords and knights, with their men-at-arms, got them to horse,

and, dividing into different parties, went scouring over the country in

all directions, some along the road that leads to Woodstock, some on the

Abingdon road, some down the river towards Newnham, some towards Forest

Hill, and some across the hills towards Islip and Weston-on-Green.

Many slips and falls had they on the frozen ice and slippery roads; yet

was it all but a bootless chace. The party that went along the Abingdon

road, and that came back even faster than they went, as Sir Brian

Fitzcount had advanced a body of horse to the township of Abingdon, had

met on their advance an aged shepherd who had been out in the night in

search of some sheep that had been lost in the snow drifts; and this

aged man had told them that about the midnight hour he had seen gliding

along the road between Oxenford and Abingdon five ghosts or revenants

all in white, which he took to be the uneasy spirits of some who had

perished in our diurnal slaughters; and this was all that was learned by

our too late pursuing companies.

In the first heat of his wrath and bitterness of his disappointment the

king refused to admit the garnison to capitulation, and threatened to

hang them all, together with many of his own watch; but our lord abbat

moderated his wrath. Sir Alain de Bohun, eager for sight of his boy, and

always averse to bloodshed, did recommend mercy and moderation; and so,

about mid-day, terms were granted, and the castle was given up to

Stephen. I was among the first that entered with our good Lord of

Caversham. Sir Alain found many friends among those who had been kept as

prisoners by the Countess; but for some time he could not find his son,

or hear anything concerning him, save that the boy had been seen in the

castle a few days agone. Fearful thoughts agitated the loving father,

and made him turn ghastly pale. Had the Countess in her rough nocturnal

flight carried the boy with her? No, there was a knight who opened the

postern-gate for her, and who swore upon his cross that none had gone

forth but the empress-queen, Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and the three

other knights. Had the desperate woman in her fury against one of the

most constant of her enemies taken the life of the dear boy? None would

confess to the atrocious deed, yet none seemed to know what had befallen

Sir Alain's son. In truth they were all ravenous and stupified with

their excess of hunger, and were only eager to get out into the town,

and at the meat and drink which had been mercifully promised them; and

for many a day few of them had taken any note of what was doing within

the castle or in the lodging of Matilda. But the Lord of Caversham and

the best of his own people, and I, Felix, and Philip, the lay-brother,

did rush into the apartment of the Countess and ransack it well; and

while we were in an inner room in the tower that looks upon Isis, we

heard a feeble voice as of one lamenting, and pulling aside some

hangings on the wall, we discovered a small low door under an arch, and

thereupon Sir Alain, all of a tremble, cried out in a voice that went

unto the hearts of all of us, "Who lieth within? Is it thou, mine only

son?" and the faint voice said "My father," and said no more. The

iron-bound door was locked, and the key was gone; but spite of its

thickness and strength, we soon burst the door open with a mighty crash.

I did enter that foul hole in the wall with Sir Alain, and did see and

hear that which passed when he raised his boy from the dirty straw upon

which he had fainted; but I have not the power to narrate that which I

saw and heard. Nay, to speak more soothly, I did see but faintly, for

the light that came into the cell through a narrow loophole was but

scant, and my gushing tears did almost blind me. But we soon carried the

boy out into wholesome air, and put wine to his lips; and he recovered

and knew his father. And when he had eaten and gained strength, he told

his sire, who had never before been seen so wrathful, that he had not

tasted meat or drink for two whole days and nights. Verily it did seem

that the Countess had destined him to die of starvation, and that she

had herself secreted him in that hideous hole in the castle-wall, for

none of her attendants would confess any knowledge of the thing. But Sir

Alain would not give credit to these protestations of ignorance, saying

that some of the Countess's people must have known what was done in her

own apartment, and sorely did he beat with the flat of his sword an old

foreign hag that had been the Countess's chamber-woman, and two Angevins

that had been in constant attendance upon her; and he swore more oaths

than had ever come from his lips, that were it not for the love of the

king his master, and for the king's honour, and for his own religious

respect for compacts and treaties and capitulations of war, he would

hang them all three on the top of that accursed tower.

So soon as I saw that the hope of the house of Caversham was restored to

some of his strength (and he gave me a proof thereof by saluting me and

taking me by the hand as an old friend), I went forth to try if I could

gain some intelligence of the little Alice, who was not born to live

separated from Arthur, and likewise of my whilom friend and companion

John-à-Blount from Maple-Durham, who had fled from our house at Reading

with the novice Urswick, of unhappy memory. I soon learned from some

retainers of Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe that the little maiden, before

the coming of King Stephen to Oxenford, had been bestowed with her

step-mother in the strong castle at Old Speen, which Sir Ingelric had

rebuilded; but the fellows knew not, or pretended not to know, anything

touching our fugitive novice John-à-Blount. Therefore did I put my soul

and body in peril by going into the very midst of the Countess Matilda's

black-eyed damsels; for I thought in the nature of things that he

should be among those young Jezebels who had first led him astray.

Albeit the merciful terms of capitulation were faithfully observed, and

knights of good repute were stationed in the castle to see that no harm

was done to those that had surrendered; the interior of the fortress was

still a scene of unspeakable confusion and alarm. Fierce knights that

had not prayed for many a day, and rough outlandish soldiers who knew

not how to say a credo or an ave, were muttering orisons and telling

their beads, or holding their crucifixes in their hands, crying ever and

anon to the more truculent visaged of the king's people, "We have all

rendered upon paction--We be all in the king's mercy and honour--Touch

not our lives or limbs, or eyes, but give us to eat, or we perish!"

The women of the countess, whose eyes were much less bright and

dangerous than when I last saw them in their pride and insolency at our

abbey, lay all huddled and crouching together in a corner of the

castle-yard, where divers clerks of Oxenford, with the marshal of King

Stephen's camp, were making lists of the names and qualities of the

prisoners. Many men, as well English as foreign, were standing near

these affrighted and more than half-famished women; and a few young

knights and esquires seemed to be speaking words of comfort to divers of

them; but among these men I could not see John-à-Blount, from

Maple-Durham, nor any young man that resembled him; and when I asked of

many, they all told me that they knew nothing of the said John: which

was grievous unto my soul, for I had hoped to find him there, and to

reclaim him, and thereby save him from the fate of the unhappy Urswick.

As I was about to turn from that company of women, I was brought to a

pause by a pair of eyes, swimming in tears, that did bind me to the

spot, like one spell-bound. They were the large black eyes of that

damsel in the short green kirtle, and of the incomparably small feet and

ankles that had come salting and dancing up to me in the garden of our

house at Reading; but alack, she danced not now, and seemed scarcely

able to stand, and instead of the laughingest she had the saddest face;

and she was all thin and haggard as the poorest of the wandering

houseless beggars we had met on our march from Reading to Oxenford. I

had the remnant of a manchet in the sleeve of my monastic gown, and

though many eyes were upon me, and others might be as hungry as she was,

I took forth the blessed piece of bread, and thrust it into her skinny

hands, and then hurried away to Sir Alain de Bohun, who did forthwith

order some meat and drink to be given to those poor outlandish

starvelings.

On the day next after the surrender of the castle, the foreign

women--praise and thanks to the Lord for that same!--were all sent away

under a strong and reliable escort for the city of London, there to be

kept by Stephen's good queen Maud until they should be ransomed or

exchanged for other prisoners. And in the current of that same day we

did hear but too surely what the escaped countess was a-doing. She had

gone forth from Wallingford Castle with Brian Fitzcount and a great host

of foreign mercenaries, and was marching to the westward to meet the

Earl of Gloucester, who was not so near to Oxenford as had been

reported, and she was again marking her evil path with blood and

flames. King Stephen resolved to follow her and bring the great earl to

battle; but the countess and her half-brother having met in Wiltshire,

retreated rapidly to the west, where lay their great strength in

partisans and castles, and they threw themselves into the castle of

Bristowe, which was their strongest hold all through the war. The king

would have turned back to lay siege to Wallingford Castle, in the

absence of its terrible lord the merciless Brian Fitzcount; but a plot

broke out in the vicinage of London, and sundry barons raised the banner

of Matilda in Essex, thereby obliging Stephen to march with all speed to

the eastward. So Wallingford Castle remained in the hands of the

robbers, to be a curse to the country and a den of torture: but we, the

monks of Reading, with little aid but what the saints sent us, and with

no loss of life to our party, did prevail over another band of thieves

and destroy their den, to the inestimable relief and comfort of that

country side.