XI.

I have said that we heard all too much of our powerful and wicked

neighbour Brian Fitzcount. But now that he knew Henry Plantagenet was

coming, and was one that would have power to destroy him and to put an

end to all plundering and castle-building, a sudden repentance seized

his time-hardened conscience. Some did much praise him for this, and

greatly admired the seeming severity of his penance; but it is to be

feared that he, like many others among our castle-builders and

depredators, did only repent when he found that he could sin no more. So

great had been his crimes, and so noted was Duke Henry for his strict

execution of justice, that, notwithstanding his long adherence to

Henry's mother, Sir Brian could not hope to escape a severe punishment,

with forfeiture of the broad lands which had become his by marriage, and

with deprivation of the great riches he had accumulated by plundering

the country. In this wise no secure asylum was open to him except in the

cloisters or in taking the cross. And before the Plantagenet returned

into England Sir Brian Fitzcount did take upon him the cross, and giving

up his terrible castle at Wallingford with all his fiefs, and abandoning

all his riches--_relictis fortunis omnibus_--he joined other crusaders

and took his departure for Palestine. His wife Maud, the rich daughter

of Sir Robert d'Oyley, had before this time retired into a convent in

Normandie, and there, being awakened to a sense of the wickedness of her

past life, she did soon take the veil. As they had no issue, and left no

knight near of kin, King Henry, soon after his coronation, took

possession of Wallingford Castle and of the honour of Wallingford; and

from that happy moment the troubles of the country and of our good house

ceased. Such was the fate of our worst enemy; but of the scarcely less

wicked Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe we still could learn nothing of

certain, and the rumours which reached us were very contradictory, some

saying that he had been slain by Welsh thieves, some that he had fled

beyond sea, some that he had entered into religion under a feigned name,

and was preparing to take the monastic vows in the Welsh house at

Bangor, and some asserting that he had gone with a desperate band into

Scotland to take service with that king and aid him in subjugating the

wild mountaineers of the north. Nay, there was still another report

common among the poor country folk that dwelt upon Kennet near Speen,

and it was to the effect that Satan had carried him away bodily. In

short, none knew what had become of him, but all prayed that they might

never see his face again.

Henry Plantagenet was busied in reducing the castles of some of his

turbulent barons in Normandie when he received the news of King

Stephen's demise. Being well assured that none in England would dare

question his right to the vacant throne, and being moreover a wise

prince, who always finished that which he had in hand before beginning

any new thing, he prosecuted his sieges, and ceased not until he had

reduced all the castles. Thus it was good six weeks after the death of

Stephen, and hard upon the most solemn festival of the Nativity, when

Henry came into England with his wife Eleanor and a mighty company of

great men. He was received as a deliverer, and there was joy and

exultation in the heart of every true Englishman at his coming. A

wondrously handsome and strong prince he was, albeit his hair inclined

to that colour which got for his great-uncle the name of Rufus or Red

King. His forehead was broad and lofty, as if it were the seat of great

wisdom, and a sanctuary of high schemes of government. His eyes were

round and large, and while he was in a quiet mood, they were calm, and

soft, and dovelike; but when he was angered, those eyes flashed fire and

were like unto lightning. His voice!--it made the heart of the boldest

quake when he raised it in wrath, or in peremptory command; but it

melted the soul like soft music when he was in the gentle mood that was

more common to him, and it even won men's hearts through their ears: it

was by turns a trumpet or a lute. Great, and for a prince miraculous,

was his learning, his grandfather, the Beauclerc, not having been a

finer scholar: wonderful was his eloquence, admirable his steadiness,

straightforwardness and sagacity in the despatch of all business. He

breathed a new life, and put a new soul into the much worn and

distracted body of England. There shall be peace in this land, said he;

and peace sprang up as quick as the gourd of the prophet: there shall be

justice among men of all degrees; and there was justice. Having taken

the oaths to be good king and lord--to respect mother church and the

ancient liberties of the people, the great Plantagenet was solemnly

crowned and anointed in the royal city of Winchester on the 19th of the

kalends of December, by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury; and Eleanor,

his wife, was crowned with him. In the speech which he did then deliver,

he boasted of the Saxon blood which he inherited from his grandmother,

Queen Maud, of happy memory, who descended in right line from Alfredus

Magnus; and these his royal words did much gratify the English people,

without giving offence to the lords and knights of foreign origin, who,

by frequent intermarriages, had themselves become more than half Saxons,

and who had long since prided themselves in the name of Englishmen, and

would, in truth, be called by none other name. And full soon did

Henricus Secundus make it a name of terror to Normandie, to the whole of

France, and all circumjacent nations; and now that I write, in his happy

time, hath he not filled the highest offices in church and state with

men of English birth, and with many of the unmixed Saxon race? From his

first entrance into the government of this realm, he was principally

directed in matters of law and justice by our great lord archbishop,

Thomas à Becket, then only archdeacon of Canterbury, provost of

Beverley, and prebendary of Lincoln, and St. Paul's, London; and our

Lord Thomas, as all men do know, is the son of Gilbert à Becket,

merchant of the city of London.

King Henry kept his Christmas at Bermondsey; and it was from that place

that he issued his royal mandate, that all the foreign mercenaries and

companies of adventure that had done such terrible mischief in the wars

between King Stephen and Matilda should depart the land within a given

time, and without carrying with them the plunder they had made. Divers

of these men had been created earls and barons, and still kept

possession of fiefs and castles, but they nearly all yielded for the

great dread they had of the new king, and so got them out of England by

the appointed day, as naked and poor as they were when, for our sins,

they first came among us; and many a Fleming and Brabanter, Angevin and

Breton, from being a baron and castle-builder, returned to the

plough-tail in his own country. As the spring season approached, our

great king repaired unto Wallingford Castle, and there convened a great

council of earls, bishops, abbats, and some few citizens of note and

wealthy franklins. It was a pleasant and right joyous journey that which

I had with our Lord Abbat Reginald, and Sir Alain de Bohun, and my young

Lord Arthur. Already the hamlets which had been burned began to rear

again their yellow-thatched roofs in the bright sun; the wasted and

dispeopled towns were already under repair; the shepherd, with his snowy

flock and skipping lambs, was again whistling on the hill sides like one

that had nought to fear; the hind was singing at his labours in the

fertile fields; the farmer and the trader were travelling with their

wains and pack-horses, from grange to market and from town to town,

without dread of being robbed, and seized, and castle-bound; skiffs and

barks were ascending and descending the river with good cargaisons, and

without having a single lance or sword among their crews; the trenches

cut in the churchyards were filled up, the unseemly engines of war were

taken down from the church towers, and the church bells, being

replaced, again filled the air with their holy and sanctifying sounds.

Even the wilderness and the solitary place partook of the spirit of this

universal peace and gladness: there was sunshine in every man's face,

whether bond or free. In summa, it seemed, in truth, a time when the

wolf dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lay down with the kid, and the

lion with the fatted calf; when the iron of the great engines of war was

turned into a ploughshare, the sword into a pruning-hook, and the lance

into a pastoral crook. I, who did well remember the sad state of things

only a few months agone, did much marvel that a country could so soon

recover from the horrors of war, and the depth of a universal anarchy

and havoc; and did, with a melting heart and moistened eye, offer up my

thanks to the Giver of all good things that it should be so.

It was at Wallingford that I did see, for the first time, our

far-renowned Thomas à Becket. There was no seeing him without discerning

the great heights to which he was destined to rise, even more by his

natural gifts than by the king's favour. At this time he numbered some

thirty-six or thirty-seven years; and from his childhood those years had

been years of study or of active business, as well of a secular as of an

ecclesiastical kind. A handsome man was he at that season, and blithe

and debonnaire, and, mayhap, a trifle too much given to state affairs,

and the pomps and vanities of this world, for a churchman: but, oh, John

the Evangelist, what a mind was his! what readiness of wit and reach of

thought! And what an eagerness was in him to raise his countrymen to

honour, to make his country happy and full of glory, and to raise the

church in power and dignity! "_Angli sumus_, we be Englishmen," said he

to our lord abbat, "and we must see to raise the value of that name."

Great and long experienced statesmen there were in this great council at

Wallingford, men that had travailed in negotiation at home and abroad,

and that had grown grey and bald in state offices; but verily they all

seemed children compared with the son of our London merchant, and they

one and all submitted their judgment to that of Thomas à Becket, who had

barely passed the middle space of human life. Numerous were the wise and

healing resolutions adopted in that great council, the most valuable of

all being, that the crown lands which King Stephen had alienated, in

order to satisfy his rapacious barons, should be resumed and re-annexed

to the crown; and that not one of the eleven hundred and more castles,

which the wicked castle-builders had made in Stephen's time, should be

allowed to stand as a place of arms. Some few were to remain to curb the

Welsh and Scots, or to guard the coast; but these were to be intrusted

to the keeping of the king's own castellans: of the rest, not a stone

was to be left upon another. This had been decreed before, but time had

not been allowed King Stephen to do the work; and so easy and over

indulgent was he, that it is possible the work would not have been done

for many a year if he had continued to live and reign.

Even in these sun-shining days there were some slight clouds raised by

the jealousies and ambitions and craving appetites of certain of our

great men, who sought to raise themselves at the cost of others.

Certain magnates whose names shall not soil this pure parchment--certain

self-seeking men who had been allied with Brian Fitzcount and Sir

Ingelric of Huntercombe, and who, like Sir Ingelric, had shifted from

side to side, tried hard to fill the ears of King Henry and his

secretarius Thomas à Becket with tales unfavourable to Sir Alain de

Bohun and his son Arthur; as that they had made war against the king's

mother, and had oppressed and plundered the lords that were favourable

to her cause, and had ever been the steadiest and most devoted of all

the partisans of the usurper Stephen. But neither the king nor à-Becket

was to be moved by these evil reports. "I do see," said the sharp and

short-dealing secretarius, "that all the good and quiet people of his

country bear testimony in favour of the Lord of Caversham and his brave

son: I do further see (and here à-Becket, with a light and quick thumb,

turned over great scrolls of parchment which had affixed to them the

name and seal of King Stephen) that in the nineteen years he so

faithfully served the late king, the said Sir Alain de Bohun hath not

added a single manor, nay, nor a single rood of land, to the estates

bequeathed unto him by his father or inherited through his wife; and

also do I see that he hath aspired after no new rank, or title, or

office, or honour whatsoever, but is now, save in the passage of time

and the wear of nineteen years' faithful and at times very hard service,

that which he was at the demise of Henricus Primus; and having all these

things in consideration, I do opine that the Lord of Caversham hath ever

followed the dictates of a pure conscience, and hath ever been and still

is a man to be trusted and honoured by our Lord the King Henricus

Secundus."

"And I," quoth the right royal Plantagenet, "I who am come hither to

make up differences, to reconcile factions, to heal the wounds which are

yet bleeding, and to give peace to this good and patient and generous

English people, will give heed to no tales told about the bygone times.

The faith and affection which Sir Alain de Bohun did bear unto my

unhappy predecessor, in bad fortune as well as in good, are proofs of

the fidelity he will bear unto me when I have once his oath. My lords,

there be some among ye that cannot show so clean a scutcheon! What with

the turnings from this side to that and from that to this, and the

castle-buildings and other doings of some of ye, I should have had a

wilderness for a kingdom! But these things will I bury in oblivion, and

this present mention of them is only provoked by ill-advised discourses,

and the whisperings and murmurings of a few. But let that faction look

to this--I am Henry Plantagenet, and not Stephen of Blois! With the laws

to my aid I will be sole king in this land, and be obeyed as such! The

reign of the eleven hundred kings is over! Let me hear no more of this.

By all the saints in heaven and all their shrines on earth! I will hold

that man mine enemy, and an enemy to the peace of this kingdom, that

saith another word against Sir Alain de Bohun, or his son, or any lord

or knight that hath done as they have done in the times that be past."

And so it was that our good Lord of Caversham was received by the king,

not as an old enemy but as an old friend, and was admitted to sit with

the greatest of the lords in consultation in Wallingford Castle, and

there to give his advice as to the best means of improving the condition

of his country. And a few days after this, when Sir Alain and his son

Arthur had taken the oaths of allegiance and fidelity unto King Henry

and his infant son, the king with his own hands made our young Lord

Arthur knight, giving him on that great occasion the sword which he had

worn at his own side, and a splendid horse which had been brought for

his own use from Apulia in Italie, out of the stables of the great Count

of Conversano, who hath long bred the best horses in all Christendom, to

his no small profit and glory.

Upon the breaking up of the council of Wallingford our great Plantagenet

prepared to march into the west with a well furnished army, in order to

reduce by siege the castles of Hugh Mortimer and a few other arrogant

barons who had the madness to defy him. Before quitting Brian

Fitzcount's great house, the king said to Sir Alain de Bohun, "For forty

days, and not longer, I may have my young knight Sir Arthur with me.

Unto thee, in the meantime, I give commission to level every castle

whatsoever that hath been left standing in this fair country of

Berkshire."

Seeing our lord abbat start a little at these words, the king said, in

his sweetest voice, "Aye, my lord abbat, even Reading Castle must down

with the rest; but ye will not feel the want of it, for with God's help

none shall trouble thy house, or cause the least mischief to thy lands

or vassals while I am king of England; and as a slight token of my trust

and esteem, thy good and near neighbour Sir Alain shall keep his

battlements standing. It were a task worthy of thee, good my lord, that

thou shouldest even go with Sir Alain on his present mission, and

sprinkle some holy water on the ground where these accursed castles have

stood, and build here and there a chapel upon the spots."

Our abbat, who ever much affected the society of Sir Alain, and who

loved the good work in hand, said he would perform this task; and for

this the king gave him thanks.

"Before I go hence," said the king to the Lord of Caversham, "is there

no grace or guerdon that thou wouldest ask of me?"

Sir Alain responded that he and his son had had grace and guerdon enow.

"By our Ladie of Fontevraud," quoth the king, "I have given thee

nothing, and have only given thy son a horse and a sword and his

knighthood. Bethink thee, good Sir Alain, is there no thing that thou

canst ask, and that I ought to give?"

Sir Alain smiled and shook his head, and said that there was nothing he

could ask for.

"By the bones of my grandfather," quoth the king, "thou art the first

man I ever found in Anjou, Normandie, or England, of this temper of

mind! But I have a wish to give if thou hast none to take; I charge thee

with a service that is important to me and the people, and that must

cost thee somewhat ere thou shalt have finished it; and, therefore,

would I give thee beforehand some suitable reward.... What, still dumb

and wantless?"

Here our lord abbat, bethinking himself of sundry things, whispered to

his neighbour, "Sir Alain, say a word for Sir Arthur's marriage with

the gentle Alice, and ask the king's grace for a free gift of the

forfeited lands which once appertained to Sir Ingelric."

"Beshrew me," quoth the Lord of Caversham, "I never thought of the

king's consent being necessary to my son's marriage. I thank thee, lord

abbat, and will speak to that point." Yet when he spake, all that he

told was the simple story of the nurture which had been given in his own

house by his sweet wife to the fair daughter of Sir Ingelric, and of the

long and constant love which had been between that maiden and his only

son, and all that he asked was that the king, as natural guardian of all

noble orphans, would allow the marriage.

The eyebrows of the Plantagenet kept arching and rising in amazement,

until Abbat Reginald thought that they would get to the top of his

forehead, high as it was. When he spake again, which he did not do for a

space, he said, "And is this formula, that costs me nothing, all that

thou hast to ask from the King of England, Duke of Normandie, and Earl

of Anjou, Poictou, and Aquitaine?"

"Verily," replied Sir Alain, "'tis all that I can think of, and for that

one favour I will ever be your bedesman."

"Sir Alain," said our abbat, tugging him by the skirt, "thou hast said

no one word touching the lands of Sir Ingelric."

"We need them not," said the high-minded old knight, "we be rich enow

without. If Sir Ingelric were alive and penitent, I might, in this happy

time of reconciliation and oblivion of past wrongs, ask the fiefs for

him; but as it is, let them go, or let the king keep them--he may need

them more than I."

"Well!" quoth the Plantagenet, "I see thou hast taken counsel. So now,

my trusty Sir Alain, tell me what guerdon I shall give thee for the

services with which thou art charged."

"My liege lord," quoth the lord of Caversham, "I, who in the times that

are past have so often done that which liked me not for no fee or

reward, but only in discharge of the oaths I had sworn, would not now

ask a guerdon for the performance of a task so grateful unto me. Let my

son espouse the fair Alice, and I am more than content."

But the king, who had been turning things over in his mind while our

abbat had been counselling Sir Alain, now called in Sir Arthur de Bohun,

and said to him thus:--"Sir Knight of mine own making, I, the king, do

give unto thee the hand of that little ladie Alice thou wottest of; and

I do confer as a dower upon the said ladie Alice all the manors,

honours, and lands whatsoever that were by her mother conveyed to Sir

Ingelric of Huntercombe. It were not well that so noble a damsel should

go portionless to her husband. Ye may be people of that rare sort that

would care not for the fiefs, but the noble maiden might feel it. The

less we say of her unnatural sire Sir Ingelric the better for him and

for us. Whether he be dead or alive, the lands which were his through

his two marriages are confiscated. It were but a common act of justice

to give back to the maiden that which was her mother's, and I would as

my free gift add the lands of the second marriage. À-Becket shall see to

it, and draw up the grant before we go hence. Sir Arthur, I hail thee

lord of Speen, and wish thee joy with thy bride. These forty days of war

will soon be over, and with thy ladie's prayers to help us, we may

finish with this mad Hugh de Mortimer in much less time."

Arthur knelt at the feet of the Plantagenet, and kissed his royal hand,

and said it was too much grace and over much greatness; and both father

and son joined in telling the king that the lands of the mother of Alice

would be more than enough without the inheritance of the dark ladie.

"Of a truth," said Sir Alain, "I should fear that that evil heritage

would come to us burthened with a curse; for it was ill acquired by the

father of the dark ladie, and was ever by her misused."

"Well," quoth the king, "we will keep part of those lands in our own

hands, and give a part to the abbat and monks of Reading, who will know

how to remove the curse with masses and prayer, and almsgiving to the

poor."

It was now the turn of our lord abbat to give thanks, which he did like

the noble and learned churchman that he was. And all these things being

pre-arranged, Thomas-à-Becket penned the royal grant for the fair Alice,

and a new charter for our house; and the king signed and sealed the

twain. By the charter he confirmed all preceding charters and donations.

And he gave to the abbey two good manors which had belonged to the dark

ladie, together with permission to enclose a park, in the place called

Cumba, for the use of the sick, whether monks or strangers. And very

soon after, upon his returning out of the west country, the king, by a

particular charter, gave the monks of Reading licence to hold a fair

every year on the day of St. James and the three following days, and

confirmed our old right to a Sunday market at Thatcham, commanding the

inhabitants of the country to attend the said market, and the jealous

men of Newbury not to hinder them or molest them. He also made us a

grant of forty marks of silver, to be paid annually out of his exchequer

until he should be enabled to secure unto us a revenue of the same value

in lands. Verily, we the monks of Reading did no more suffer for that

which we had done in the past time than did our noble neighbours of

Caversham. When that the great men saw in what high esteem Sir Alain and

Sir Arthur were held by the king, they spake to them cap in hand, and

vexed their wit to make them fine flattering speeches; yea, the very

lords who had essayed to work their ruin did now make them big

professions of friendship.

So the Plantagenet departed and went unto Gloucester and Bridgenorth

with his great battalia and engines of war, and the lord abbat and I,

Father Felix, went with Sir Alain de Bohun to perambulate and

perlustrate the country of Barkshire, bearing with us the royal mandate

to all heads of boroughs and townships and all good men to assist in

rooting out the foul donjons which disfigured the fair country like

blots of ink let fall upon a pure skin of parchment. Expeditive and very

complete was the work we made; for even as at Speen the country people

of their own free will came flocking to us with their pickaxes and

mattocks on their shoulders; and so soon as a castle was levelled, our

lord abbat, in pontificalibus, did sprinkle holy water upon the spot to

drive away the evil spirits that had so long reigned there; and did, in

the tongue of the people, as well as in Latin, put up a prayer that such

wickednesses might not be again known in the land. Divers strange

things and many recondite holes and corners, and most secret and

undiscoverable chambers, were brought to light in the course of these

demolishings; but it was not until we broke down and took to pieces a

castle near Shrivenham, on the confines of Barks, an outlying and little

known place, that we laid open to the light of day a very tragic

spectacle, which was in itself a conclusion to a part of this my

narration. Upon our coming to it, this castellum, like all the rest, was

deserted, the draw-bridge being down, and the portcullis and all other

gates removed by the serfs of the neighbouring manors, who had made

themselves good winter fires of the wood thereof. Nay, some poor

houseless men had for a season dwelt within the keep, and penned their

swine in the courtyard; but they had been terrified thence by

unaccountable and horrible noises at midnight; and these men and their

neighbours declared that it was the most accursed place in all the

country. It was a wonderful thing to see how fast those walls toppled

down, and how soon the deep moat was filled up. When the thick southern

wall of the square keep was all but levelled, Sir Alain de Bohun's

people came suddenly upon a secret chamber which had been contrived with

much art and cunning within the said wall. The men reached it by

demolishing the masonry above, but the access to it had been through a

crooked passage which mounted from a cell underground, and then through

a low narrow doorway, the door of which contained more iron than oak,

and closed inward with certain hidden springs, the secret whereof was

not to be apprehended by any of us until the door was knocked down and

taken to pieces. Within this dark and narrow chamber was revealed a

great heap of gold and silver, being well nigh as much as we had found

at Speen; and, prone upon this heap, with the face buried among the gold

and silver pieces, and with the arms stretched out as though he had died

in the act of clutching the heap, was seen the body of a knight in black

mail. At the first glance Sir Alain's people and the serfs that were

helping them cried out joyously, "Gold! gold!" but then they took the

knight in his armour for some scaled dragon or demon that was guarding

the treasure, and they ran away, crying "Diabolus! It is the devil!"

As it especially concerned monks to deal with the great dragon, and lay

evil spirits, Abbat Reginald and I, Father Felix, with an acolyte, who

was but of tender age, and truth to say, sorely afeared, hastened with

Sir Alain to that pit within the wall.

"By the blessed rood!" said the Lord of Caversham, as he looked down

into the hollow space--"That is no living devil, but the dead body of

Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe! I know him by that black mail of Milan, and

by the rare hilt of that sword, which I did give him when we were sworn

friends and brothers."

"This is wonderful, and I see the finger of Heaven in it," said our

abbat, crossing himself: and we all crossed ourselves for the amazement

and horror that was upon us. The meaner sort, who had fled from the dead

knight, now bethought themselves of the glittering gold, and came back

to the edge of that narrow pit; and when we, the monks, had thrown some

holy water therein, and caused our acolyte to hold the cross over the

gap, two of Sir Alain's men-at-arms descended, and re-ascending,

brought forth the body and laid it at our feet upon its back, and with

its face turned towards the heavens. Jesu Maria! but it was a ghostly

sight! From the little air that had been in that narrow cell, and from

the great siccity or dryness of the place, betwixt stones, flint, and

mortar, the body had not wasted away, or undergone the rapid corruption

of the damp grave; and albeit the face was all shrivelled and shrunk, it

was not hard to trace some of the lineaments of the unhappy Sir

Ingelric. Within the cavity of the mouth were pieces of coined gold, as

tho' he had set his famishing teeth in them; and within his clenched

hands, clenched by the last agony and convulsion of death, were pieces

of gold and silver. On the brow was the well-known mark of a wound which

that unhappy knight had gotten in his early days in fighting for King

Stephen; the Agnus Dei, and the little cross at the breast, were those

of Sir Ingelric, and were marked with his name; and the blade of the

sword bore the conjoined names of Sir Ingelric and Sir Alain. Having

noted and pointed out all these things, Abbat Reginald, after another

and more copious aspersion of the blessed water, which is holier than

the stream which now floweth in Jordan, raised his right hand and said,

"My children, there is a dread lesson and example in that which lieth

before us! Crooked courses ever lead to evil ends, albeit not always in

this nether world. But here is one that hath reaped upon earth the fruit

of his crimes, and that hath perished by the demon that first led him

astray--aye, perished upon a heap of gold and silver, and of

famine, the cruellest of deaths, and in a miser's hole--a robber's

hiding-place--unpitied, unheeded, unconfessed, with the fiend mocking

him, and bidding him eat his gold, and with the interdict of holy mother

church and the curses of ruined men pressing upon his sinful soul. And

was it for this, oh Sir Ingelric, that thou didst soil thy faith, and

betray thy king and friends, and waste the fair land of thy birth, and

rack and torture the poor? Take hence the excommunicate body and bury it

deep in unconsecrated earth; but remember, oh my children, all that

which ye have this day seen!"

The gold and silver we removed and put into strong coffers, in order

that we might use them with the same justice and regard to the poor that

we had used with the treasure found in Sir Ingelric's own castle at

Speen.

When we came to make inquiries among the people of those parts, and to

put their several reports together, we made a good key to the awful

enigma and mystery of Sir Ingelric's death. That castle by Shrivenham

had been made by one of the very worst of the castle-building robbers,

who had never raised any standard but his own over his donjon keep. In

the autumnal season of the year preceding that in which we came to

destroy the place, and at the time when the joint orders of King Stephen

and Henry Plantagenet were sent forth against the castle-holders, there

suddenly appeared at Shrivenham a band that came from the westward, and

that were headed by a knight in black mail, and with a black plume to

his casque; and by some of those reaches of treachery which were common

among these evil doers, the new-comers got possession of this castellum,

and made a slaughter of the builder of it, and of the men that were true

to him. But the new comers had not been a day in possession of the

castle when intelligence was brought them by a scout that a force of

King Stephen, which had tracked them from the westward, was approaching

Shrivenham; and thereupon, and for that the castle was too unfurnished

with victual to withstand any beleaguer, the strangers fled from it more

suddenly than they had come to it. As the vicinage was almost deserted,

and as the few people fled and hid themselves, the black band had no

communications with them during their brief stay; but two poor serfs who

had watched their departure had described it as being full of panic,

terror, and of a dread of other things besides that of the close

approach of the king's force (which force never came at all); for they

had heard the band bewailing that they had no longer a leader, that

their chief had disappeared in the castellum, and that the devil must

have carried him off bodily: and the serfs did well mark that the knight

in the black mail was not among them, nor at their head, as they had

seen him at their first coming. And as Sir Alain's people, in finishing

their good work at the castellum, threw open the subterrain winding

passage, of which mention hath been made, they found the body of an old

man with a bundle of great keys at his girdle, and a long dagger

sticking in his left side; and his head lay close to the strong door of

the treasure chamber, and between the body and the door were picked up a

strong bag and part of a long extinguished torch.

"By Saint Lucia, who presideth over man's blessed organ of sight and the

glorious light of day," quoth our abbat; "by sweet Saint Lucia, I do see

daylight through that dark passage. The bait of that gold drew Sir

Ingelric hither, to be taken as in a trap. He was eager to have the

first hanselling and most precious bits of the treasure, or mayhap to

carry off the whole, or conceal it for his own use, counting upon more

time than heaven allowed him. That old unshriven traitor was, doubtless,

one of the men of the castle-builder, that betrayed their master, and

him Sir Ingelric slew so soon as he had led him to the chamber and

opened the door, with the intent that he should not divulge unto others

the secret of the hiding place. Peradventure, the old man in his

death-struggles dashed out the light and pulled to the open door; or Sir

Ingelric, being left in darkness, and uninformed of the fastenings, did

in his great haste kick the door and so cause it to fly to, and shut for

ever upon him."

We did all think that the riddle was well read by Abbat Reginald, and

that this was a natural conclusion to the other and better known

incidents of Sir Ingelric's dark story.

By the time we had finished with the wicked castles of Barkshire, our

great and ever victorious King Henry had finished with that perverse man

Hugh de Mortimer; and as we came to our house at Pangbourne on our way

back to Reading, we there met the young Lord of Caversham, Sir Arthur de

Bohun, who had been dismissed to his home by the king, and not without

some further proof of the royal friendship, for, as it was ever in his

nature to do, Sir Arthur had done manfully in the king's sieges and

other emprises. It was a happy meeting to all of us, and there was no

longer any public calamity to cloud or reproach our private happiness.

The donjons were all down, or in good keeping; and, from end to end and

in all its breadth England was at peace, and none of the baronage were

so daring as to resist the king and the law. _Dulce mihi nomen

pacis!_--ever sweet unto me was the name of peace, and now we had both

the name and the substance of it. It was therefore resolved at

Pangbourne that the marriage of Sir Arthur and the Lady Alice should be

celebrated on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, which was now near

at hand.

Upon coming to Caversham Sir Alain de Bohun hung his shield upon the

wall, intending to go forth to no more wars. Then he put into the hands

of the gentle Alice the king's charter which conferred upon her the

domains of her mother, telling her, in his jocose way, that as she had

now so goodly an inheritance she might be minded to quit the humble

house and poor people at Caversham, and get her to court to match with

some great earl. And at this that fairest of maidens placed the king's

charter in the hands of Sir Arthur, and with a blushing cheek and

without words spoken, went out of the hall. Sir Arthur did afterwards

inform her, in the gentlest manner, of the sure death of Sir Ingelric

many months agone; and, albeit he had been so unnatural a father, Alice

shed many tears, and made a vow to give money to the church and poor,

that his sinful soul might be prayed for. The dreadful manner of Sir

Ingelric's death was carefully concealed from the young bride, and hath

never been fully made known unto her. She was united to Sir Arthur in

our abbey church, on the happiest festival of St. Michael that our house

had ever known, for the season was mild and beautiful, the harvest had

been abundant, we had gotten in all our crops without hindrance, our

granaries were filled with corn and our hearts with joy; and as all of

us, from the lord abbat down to the obscurest lay brother, had a

surpassing affection as well for the gentle bride as for her noble mate,

who had in a manner been our son and pupil, and an old reverence and

love for Sir Alain and his ladie, we could not but rejoice at the great

joy we saw in them. But all good people, gentle or simple, bond or free,

did jubilate on this happy day; and when the bride and bridegroom

returned homeward, the procession which followed them, shouting and

singing, and calling down blessings upon their young heads, was so long

as to run in an unbroken line from the midst of the King's mead to the

end of Caversham-bridge; for our good vassals of Reading town had all

put on their holiday clothes and shut up their houses, and all the

people of Caversham were afoot, and Tilehurst, and Sulham, and Charlton,

and Purley, and Sunning, and Speen, and Pangbourne, and every other

township and village for miles round-about had poured out their

inhabitants; and not a franklin or serf, not a man, woman, or child

among them all, but was feasted either by Sir Alain or Sir Arthur, or by

us the monks of Reading. Methinks the sun never rose and set upon so

beautiful a day! The air and the earth rejoiced, and the flowing waters;

the full Thamesis and our own quick and resonant Kennet made music and

thanksgiving together; and seemed it to me that I had never so loved the

country of my birth, and the fair scenes in which my life had been past

from infancy to ripe manhood; and yet had I ever loved that fair country

above all that mine eyes had seen in much travelling. _Natale solum

dulcedine cunctos mulcet._ Oh native soil, thou softenest man's heart,

and fillest it with love of thee!

Now did the Ladie Alice more than verify the happy prediction which our

good Abbat Edward put forth in the stormy time, to wit, that the little

maiden which came to our house in the basket, and which I, Felix the

novice, and Philip the lay-brother did convey by night unto Caversham,

would make amends for the ingratitude and treasons and other wicked

doings of her father. Betwixt that merry wedding-day and the day that

now is, there have been nine long years, and they have all been years of

peace and happiness to the good house at Caversham, with that increase

and multiplication which God willed when the world was in its infancy

and all unpeopled.

Happy, too, hath been our house at Reading, and great the increase of

the abbey in beauty and splendour. Some few griefs and trials we have

had; for earth, at the happiest, was never meant to be heaven; and we

all live to die, and must die to live again. The good and bountiful Lord

Abbat Reginald deceased on the fourth of the kalends of February, in the

year of grace eleven hundred and fifty-eight; but he died full of years

and honour, and verily, the Lord Abbat Roger that now is, hath been

approved his very worthy successor. As our wealth increased under the

blessed peace, and the sage government of our great king, and the favour

of our Lord Thomas à Becket, for some while chancellor of the kingdom,

and now and for the two years last past, by the grace of God, Archbishop

of Canterbury and Primate of England, we of the chapter did begin to

think that our church was not sufficiently lofty and spacious, and that

wondrous improvements might be made in it, if we devoted to the task

some of our superfluous wealth. And six years agone, when our Lord

Reginald was in the twelfth year of his government over us (may our

Ladie the Virgin, and St. John and St. James ever have him in their holy

keeping), we made a beginning; and the year last past, being the year of

our redemption eleven hundred and sixty-four, we finished our great

church, which hath been so much enlarged and altered that it may be

called a new church; and Rex Henricus Secundus being present with ten

suffragan bishops, and great lay barons too many to count, our Lord

Archbishop Thomas did consecrate it with that solemnity and magnificence

which he puts into all his doings: and on the very day on which the

archbishop consecrated our church, the king, keeping his royal promise,

granted us a land revenue of forty marks of silver out of the manor of

Hoo in Kent, by assignment of Sir Robert Bardolph, the lord of that

manor.

And our mighty and ever victorious king, who is no less a friend to

learning and learned men, nor less a patron of the church than was his

grandfather the Beauclerc, hath ordered books to be bought for the

enriching of our library, and hath given us another charter confirming

our liberties and immunities, and enjoining all the kings that may come

after him to observe the same, and calling upon the Lord to snatch them

out of the land of the living, together with their posterity, if they or

any one of them should seek to infringe our charter, or lessen our

rights and properties. "_Quam qui infringere vel minuere presumpserit,

extrahat eum dominus et evertat de terra viventium cum omni posteritate

sua._" These be the king's very words in the second great charter he

hath given us.

Here I surcease from the pleasant labours which have amused the few

lonely hours that my various duties left me. There cannot be a better

time to stop and say _vale_! Henricus Secundus is king; Thomas à Becket

is primate; Roger is lord abbat of Reading; and I, Felix the Sunningite,

and novice that was, am poor sub-prior; and every monk of the house is a

man of English birth. It hath been noted of late, that our prior

declineth apace; and there hath been a talk among the cloister monks

that I best merit that succession, which would place me next in dignity

and greatness to the mitred lord abbat of this royal abbey. But, alas!

what is increase of dignity but increase of care! I do hope that our

good prior may live all through this winter; albeit, it is a very sharp

one, and old men be falling fast around us.--_Vale et semper Vale!_