heard a noise in the woodland upon our right--a child's voice
wailing--the voices of two children. Far away at first, then somewhat
nearer. Two wandering children, crying fit to burst their bosoms. Great
breathless, thirsty sobs, swelling every now and then to a despairing
roar.
The lady had sprung to her feet, and had broken through the nearest
bushes into the thicket beyond.
"Hither! hither!" she cried. "Come! Come! But where are ye? Weep no
more--here is help!"
We all followed her. She walked onward, calling; they shouted still,
and drew nearer and yet more near: at last they came forth, the little
mites, upon a bare plot whereon we had halted. Boy and girl they were;
five and seven years old they seemed: hand clasped in hand, cheeks
grimy with dust which their tears had furrowed, faces flushed and
seared by the mighty heat.
She ran to meet them, with outstretched arms. They ran to her, and
caught at her skirts. The girl, the younger, cried, "We were lost!" and
the boy said hoarsely, "Mother!... O mother, the world looks black....
Oh, my head, I cannot see!" and he had fallen flat at her feet before
she could stay him.
The girl said, "Lady, my head--great smart have I also!" and her breath
came thick and loud.
The Lady Edith gathered sorrel-leaves, and bound them about the heads
of the bairns.
"It is not enough," said she then. "They must have water."
"There is no water here," Anflete my servant answered. "We sought it
high and low before my lady's coming."
She wrung her hands in sharp woe.
"O Christ, have mercy!" she said. "O Mary, that art our mother,
hasten--help!"
Then her passion seemed to leave her, and she knelt, and began to speak
in still, low tones; but I heard her words.
"Father of all goodness," she prayed, "save these twain alive, who are
more to Thee than the wild sparrows! Strengthen then, Lord, I beseech
thee, the gift that Thou hast bestowed upon Thine handmaid!"
Having so said, she arose, and quickly bade her folk bear the children
with them, and shade the little ones' heads. It was high noon now, but
she flung her hood back, and her wimple fell away and hung down with
the hood, so that her bright hair was laid bare, and her shapely neck
and breast of ivory. Many a woman would have seemed light-minded, even
wanton, so; but our Edith was queen in everything she did. Although the
soil was burning, and scorched the feet through riding-boots, she began
to walk swiftly, glidingly, around and about. She held her
riding-switch, a toy with handle of gold and amber, bent bow-wise
between her two hands. Her lips were parted, as those of one who
breathes-in freshest air.
And we followed, a great awe upon us. We were once more in the lane
where we had rested, when a gleam awoke in her eyes, which had become
dark and shut off from earthly sight, and she sped ahead of us even
faster than at first. She came to where the bank overhung, and was
covered with sagging ferns, shrivelled and caked with dust. A shiver
shot through her whole body, and the switch that she carried started
and writhed as it had been a live snake.
"God be praised!" she exclaimed. "Here is water for them!" She stamped
her foot. "Dig! dig! Bring spades--Oh, dig! Quick! Would ye see them
die before your eyes?"
"Sebbe the charcoal-burner!" said Anflete. "I will fetch his spade."
Edith had snatched his war-axe from one of her men-at-arms and was
hewing at the bank whereunder she stood; I hacked away with my broad
knife; some of the others scratched with their hands. In a little while
Anflete was back from the charcoal-burner's with spade and pick, and we
got more skilfully to work. A homely croon was heard in the heart of
the earth. A spot of moisture darkened the bottom of the hollow that we
had made. One spadeful more, and up it bubbled--a little spring, but a
strong one. There were stones still within the hollow, and we put back
more to keep up the shifting sides; and into the bowl so made the water
flowed, thick and clotted, truly, with the dust and flakes of
sandstone, but how sweet to touch and taste! Oh, the happy noise of
water in a thirsty land!
The Lady Edith dipped a clout in the well and bathed the heads and
necks of the little ones, gave them to drink, and set them to lie in
the shade. Soon the girl-child stirred and wept, and Edith lifted her
up in her arms. A shrill cry made us all turn to behold a poorly-clad
woman, hot and unkempt, who stumbled towards us, tears in her eyes and
terror in her voice.
"Ye naughty ones!" she stormed at sight of the children. "Here have I
been...."
Then she stopped short, with open mouth, and stared at the slender,
bare-headed woman who held her younger child, until one whispered: "It
is the King's Lady!" when she louted down upon her knees.
"Hush! hush!" said Lady Edith to her sobbing burden. "Fear not,
sweetheart! Thou must go home now--go to thy mother indeed!" and she
laid her in the arms of the kneeling woman.
Never had she been more lovely than in that moment, her face shining
like a rose, her eyes most tender and brightly-beaming. When, a short
while after, she turned from mother and child and came seeking me, a
huge pity rushed up within me, and I think that she read that pity in
my look.
"Dread lady," said I, being a little mazed, and all soft with ruth,
"how goes it with our Lord the King?"
"Whenas I left my lord, all was right well with him," she answered. "He
had some sickness in the spring, but it irked him little, truly, for
his years. Such an holy life he leads, and yet he is so long-enduring
towards them of worldly mind! It is great joy to me that I may see him
sometimes, and be somewhat near him."
She crossed herself, and the fair light faded from her.
"Wherefore do I murmur?" said she. "Is not Jordan flood better than all
the rivers of Damascus?"
And so saying, she folded her meek hands above her heart, and went her
way.
I never saw her again. The well that she found for us abideth for her
memorial: clear and cool in every weather--the freshest in all the
countryside. I have often thought of her since that day; and I think of
her more often now than ever in the long night hours that are not the
drowsy hours when one has grown old. Dreams, Gundred, dreams--waking
dreams, but idle things none the less! But sometimes meseemeth that her
very self is near me, standing as I best knew her, arms outheld, face
aglow. She lived and died childless; the old King had made an oath,
they say, for fear he might fall short of heaven. Once or twice evil
tongues have made free to slander her fame! She was staunch, I know,
and flawless; and yet her heart was quick and warm. Girl, I have ever
recked little of the greater deal of the saints to whom prelates bid us
pray. Of God and of his goodness I reck much; and this is the saint
whom I worship before all others, crowned in this world or
uncrowned--Edith the well-beloved Lady, whom all her people honoured
and pitied.
Richard the Scrob
"Better than mine, Kenric--better than thine!" said Grim. "Ever his are
taken, and ours are left. Who will look at our sheep and our oxen when
the Scrob's are by?"
Kenric withdrew the straw that he had been chewing from between his
teeth, and ceased to stare at the white-limbed, red-spotted cattle in
the pen before him.
"Eh! he buyeth for the Bishop," he mumbled. "And he buyeth for the folk
of Hereford town. And for the Abbot of Leominster. And for the Prior of
Wenlock. His salted meat is rowed upon Wye and upon Severn to feed the
merchantmen of Bristol. Grim, this Frenchman is a worker of spells."
"And even so the beasts of his own breeding are such as thou wilt not
meet with on any other man's land within the two shires. Heavier!
Fatter! Sleeker! I would that his lord the devil would fly away with
him soon! Hast thou but seen his woolsacks yonder? What other has such
great store to sell? True, he can have little spinning at home, with no
women."
"I have not seen him--Richard the Scrob," said vague Kenric, returning
to his straw-munching. "Are not these sold already----"
"Kenric, stand not and grumble, with blind eyes," cried Munulf the
maltman, who now accosted these two. "Here is a sight not often
seen--the little widow, Kenric, the plump widow. Look up and behold the
light of thine eyes, where she cometh, girt about with her husband's
stalwart kinsfold."
"Hey? who?" Kenric rejoined. "Who cometh yonder? Alftrude the widow of
Winge? Oh, aye, it is a pretty woman enough----"
"And should be rich woman enough," said Grim. "They are watchdogs
indeed, the brethren of the Moor. I wonder that they let her show her
nose at Ludford fair--so little and straight is it that many a man will
love it, by heaven! My good wife pities Alftrude greatly. She will be
widow to the end of her days, they ward her about so wilily."
"I know it, I know it!" wheezed Kenric. "And Ulwin, Alward, and
Ednoth--they are three ill men to deal withal. Alack! no hope have I!"
He summoned up a faint sigh of good-humoured resignation. "If but now
thou found me grumbling," he explained, "it was at French Richard."
Munulf raked his fingers through his long yellow hair, and looked
mysterious.
"I have heard cunning talk of late," said he "Men say that these
outland folk that swarm about our King shall soon be outlanders
twofold; for shall they not be bundled off, beyond the seas, whither
they came? Earl Godwin called together his Mickle Gemot seven weeks
ago. I would we knew how that has sped. Godwin is wont to bring about
his will!"
"Why, my lords, he hath brought it about, the good Earl!" sounded in an
excited cackle behind them. Hildred the ale-wife hastened to join the
three speakers, her red face unusually resplendent with pride in being
foremost retailer of news for that day. "A man of Worcester brought
great tidings yestereve. Godwin is driving out the accursed Normans,
every one--man, woman, child, and priest. Even Ralf our Earl, the
King's nephew, shall go, though his mother were English Godgifu!"
"Bless the work!" exclaimed Grim. "These Normans have a knack of
drawing to themselves the wealth that should be ours. There should be
pickings, eh? for all true Englishmen!" He nudged Kenric, and
whispered:
"H'st! see where Richard comes!"
Richard the Norman came up to his cattle-pen. He was a small man,
slightly built, and of upright carriage, and he moved with a spring in
his gait. He had an aquiline nose, a persistent chin, and a strong,
exceedingly well-formed mouth; his eyes were dark and deeply-set
beneath the fine straight line of brow, and they looked straight into
the eyes of others. His face was clean-shaven like a cleric's, and more
than ordinarily wrinkled about mouth, eyes, and brow for his age, which
was a little over thirty; the black hair of his head was cut short at
the nape of the neck and the top of the forehead. He wore a short tunic
of dull-coloured cloth, and leather boots, and from his waistbelt hung
a small, shabby leather bag. Behind him walked his two servants, Howel
the Welshman, and his own countryman Perot.
"Good day, Thane Kenric," said Richard the Scrob. "Good day, lords
both, and to you, worshipful Munulf."
"Ah! Good day, Richard Scrob's son."
"Warm weather for November. A very Martin's summer," said Richard.
"Aye," from Grim. "Oh, aye, right warm, this weather. It may become
hot. It shall soon be hot for all Frenchmen!" he concluded savagely.
Richard seemed unconscious of Grim's words and of their tone. He
unfastened the bag from his belt, opened it, and surveyed the contents
complacently. Oswin, the maltman's son, a weak-kneed, loose-lipped
youth, gave a laboured imitation of the Norman's air of detachment, a
few yards away.
"Why, son," said Munulf, when he had finished guffawing at this
specimen of his offspring's wit, "what bearest in thy bosom?" pointing
to the opening at the neck of the lad's jerkin, where a small, dark
head was seen to writhe.
"Oh, it is my weasel," Oswin replied. "He harms me not, for I feed him,
but others he biteth. There are some shall feel his fangs before Holy
Martin's fair is out, I warrant you, my father!"
"Here are the Moor folk at last. I shall sit down," Kenric announced
portentously. He withdrew to the customary resort of thanes and great
men on market-days, on holidays, and at all public functions held upon
Ludford green--the huge elm whose boughs cast their shadow as far as
the cattle-pen of Richard the Scrob. There he subsided upon a bench,
and sent a serving-woman of the ale-wife's for beer.
The green was now crowded with buyers and sellers of every degree. Grim
and Munulf, who leant upon the hurdles surrounding Richard's exhibits,
saw the throng before them part to release a procession of two thralls,
four lean oxen, four women in riding-mantles, and three corpulent men
who wore the grimy remains of once-fine garments, and had pretentiously
heavy gold ornaments at their necks and about their wrists and fingers.
Three of the women were comely and commonplace: the pleasant person of
the fourth could not have failed to command attention in any
surroundings. She was young, of moderate height, and generously built;
she was small-featured, white skinned, blue-eyed, and her lips were
full and wholesomely red. Over her head and the greater part of her
figure was a hooded cloak, evidently new, of periwinkle-blue cloth; and
upon her breast lay her hair in long plaits of that soft shade which is
not golden, nor brown, nor chestnut, but all three, and has yet an
ashen-silver haze upon its surface when the sun shines behind it. Her
gown was black, and much the worse for wear, and at the base of her
throat gleamed a bunch of the spindle-tree's pink berries, fastened in
place with a silver pin.
"Good day, or else good morrow, Ulwin," said Grim, scarcely attempting
to veil the sneer in his voice. "Ye are late with your stock."
"Late--aye!" panted the eldest, fattest, most showily-dressed of the
newly arrived men. "Aye--late! All for women--hindered by women! I ask
you, fellows, what should women do at fair or market, if they bring not
wares to sell? Squander good money! Bedizen themselves to the nines!
Would God that I had let thee from coming forth in thy prideful gear!"
he snarled at her of the blue mantle. "Did I not say that thou wouldst
seem no better than a tumbling-girl in the eyes of the folk? Dost thou
mind that my brother lies in his grave?"
Richard the Scrob's right hand closed upon the hurdle in a convulsive
grasp.
"It is five years since he died," said the woman.
"Get behind me, and stay behind me, out of our way," said Ulwin. "See
here, Alftrude, thou shalt not stir whence I now bid thee stand. I will
not have thee waste our goods on womanish nothings. Geegaws and sweet
foodstuffs, forsooth! What lacks the woman? Will she tell the world
that we clothe her not nor board her?"
She made no reply. For a moment she looked him full in the face: there
was no reproach in her gaze, but only contempt and a spice of derision;
then she turned and walked calmly, with unflushed cheeks, to join the
other women in the background, and stood with them. The market-crowd
surged all about them.
"These are thine?" growled Ulwin to Richard, indicating the penned
oxen.
"Mine they were," answered Richard. "I sold them to Edmund the flesher
of Worcester this morning, when the fair was but new-begun. But I have
others, Ulwin Ednoth's son, if ye wish to buy."
"Buy! Pah! no, not I! It is not of buying that I have to speak with
thee, Richard."
"Of what then, worthy thane?"
"Indeed, it is not of buying that I have to speak with thee, Richard.
Thou art learned in the law: because thou art so learned, the Lord
Abbot deems thee worthy of his trust; but all thy cleverness could not
teach thee.... How can I say, all-wise one, that thou didst not know?
Well, the Lord Abbot knew not--aye, even I myself knew not--that
Ashford, which thou callest thine, was not holden by us and by our
father of the Abbot of Leominster, and that therefore neither the Abbot
nor I might make over this land of Ashford to thee in exchange for ...
such and so much cattle and silver ... two years ago."
"Ashford is mine. I have set up a mill there, with the Abbot's
licence."
"Not thine, Richard the Scrob. I am Turstin of Wigmore's man for
Ashford, and I may not go with it to any other lord;[15] and Turstin is
wishful to uphold his right. As for thy mill ... well, thou hast made
it, and there will be the tolls for me."
[15] He could not sell or convey it.
"If there be any flaw in our dealings, then is it matter for the moot."
"Now, understand me, thou!" shouted Ulwin, with a pompous gesture of
the arms and an outward thrust of his swollen underlip. "That which
thou hast tricked of me I will have again, yea, this day and this hour!
Ulwin of the Moor is unwonted to waiting!"
"Then, Ulwin, understand thou that Richard of Overton is unwonted to
brook such words from any. At the bidding of none do I yield up mine
own."
Scarcely had Richard proclaimed his defiance than a thrill such as some
much-desired presence imparts forced him to glance past the wrathful
bully's left shoulder. The widow Alftrude was now close behind her
brother-in-law, and studied the Scrob from head to foot with wide,
wondering blue eyes.
"I have nowise tricked you, Ednoth's son," said he, his countenance
once more unperturbed. "Ye did chaffer with me for silver. This is
matter for the hundredmen. They shall hear and try it."
"Hearken, good neighbours, to the high and mighty words!" Ulwin jeered.
"How will he speed when Englishmen are met together? Does he dream that
their dooms are for the French?"
"Come from here, now, master!" cried the high-pitched voice of
Richard's servant Howel, in which agitation was patent. Ednoth, Ulwin's
brother, pushed past Howel and jostled him roughly, in order to draw
nearer to the two disputants. Howel flung up his head, his eyes
kindling, and hissed an imprecation under his breath.
"Hey? what hast thou there?" said Ulwin.
"Nought, nought," Ednoth answered. "It is but a Welshman who bars my
way."
"No Welshman am I!" cried Howel the servant of Richard. "I am a man of
Irchenfield--as good an Englishman as any of you here--and a better
Englishman, too, than ye clumsy boors that think yourselves noblemen!
When the King of the English marches with his army into Wales, we men
of Irchenfield do go the foremost, that we may be the first to deal
death, and----"
"Do they dance in Irchenfield?" piped the maltman's son, as he shambled
out of the crowd and swiftly inserted a furry object between the collar
of Howel's jerkin and the back of his neck.
"We shall soon see. Oh, merrily, right merrily--merrier and higher than
in all Herefordshire else! On, on, brave Welshman! None here can hope
to beat thee!"
Loud was the spectators' laughter as the victim bounced up and down,
shaking and tossing his limbs, and twisting his head and his body. When
Richard had succeeded in dragging the weasel from out of his
serving-man's garments, Howel rushed forward, bent on reprisal. Ednoth,
the primary cause of the trouble, happened to be the person nearest: in
a second Howel had him by the throat, and his short knife gleamed bare.
Half a dozen bystanders instantly joined in the fray, most of them for
the purpose of overwhelming the impudent Welshman of Irchenfield: in
the midst of the turbulent knot were Ulwin, tugging at Ednoth's
shoulders, and Richard, who held on to Howel by the arms and so
compelled him to desist from stabbing at the Englishman.
"Peace, thou fool!" cried Richard. "Leave be, now, Howel my man! I will
not be embroiled for idle pride of thine. God's death! put up thy
dagger!"
Sullenly but promptly, Howel allowed his master to lead him out of the
clutches of his assailants.
"Peace, I beg of you, good men," the Norman continued. "We do but
hinder the many that care not for our meaning. See, yon lady would come
by!"
The crowd had borne Alftrude away from her brother-in-law's side during
the scuffle: she stood by the booth of a seller of gilded gingerbread,
the nearest stall to the thanes' elmtree, a coin in one hand and two
shining half-moons of cake in the other. Distaste and hesitancy were in
the look she cast upon the brawlers.
"Lady, fear not," said Richard. "If ye would but lean upon my arm----"
Eagerly she moved towards him, in bland acceptance of his offer;
however, before he could approach her, Ulwin had interposed himself,
thundering:
"Lay by yon nasty trash! Straight shalt thou wend thee homeward!
Spendthrift! Shameless woman! Is this a widow's mourning? Is this
modesty? Come home, I say!"
He seized her by the arm, and in so doing trod heavily upon her toes.
Alftrude's lips contracted, and her eyelids flickered with the pain,
and she steadied herself against the gingerbread stall. Richard the
Scrob was now beside them: with the first missile to hand, his own
money-bag, he struck at the head of Ulwin; and Ulwin reeled and sat
down upon the ground with a curse and a roar.
"Foul clot of dirt!" said Richard. "I will not have thee deal so with
her!"
His money-bag was still in his right hand; but why was it no heavier
than a strip of pigskin? Where was the reassuring weight to which he
had grown used throughout that day?
"Look, look!" the ale-wife screamed. "His ill-gotten silver of itself
runs from him! Gather, gather, I say--it is his no more! All these
French are to be driven forth. Shall he hoard king's coin in our land?"
The well-worn bag had burst its seams, and pieces of money strewed the
muddy ground.
Thralls, boys, and children hurled themselves upon them; they
struggled, fought, kicked and clawed up the mud, laughed ecstatically,
and rushed about the green, each hugging what he had secured.
The crimson faded from Richard's countenance, and he stood white as
death and still as a stone. Alftrude hid her face in her hands.
"Up, Ulwin!" exclaimed Ednoth. "Let us drive his cattle to Worcester
for him--to Hereford--or to hell! Down with the Frenchman! Long life to
Earl Godwin!"
From under the elm stepped Ingelric the aged thane of Caynham, his
beard half-covering his flowing moss-green robe.
"No, no, it is unseemly!" he said. "Richard is my friend; he saved me
once from debt and loss. If any man befriend me----"
"Good folk," stuttered Kenric behind him, "this is more than a game! We
are not thieves."
But Ednoth and Grim had torn down the hurdles of the pen; the crowd had
once more concentrated on that spot, and in another instant, shouting
and shrieking, babbling and cheering, they chased and pelted the cattle
of Richard the Scrob down Ludford street and out into the open country
beyond.
Alftrude had flung her arms about Ulwin. She seemed in a swoon: no, she
was not fainting; her cheeks were aglow, and her finger-nails were
embedded in her brother-in-law's neck.
"Perot! Howel!" called Richard. "Come on, come on! To me!"
The English, in their zeal for the dispersal of his cattle, had
forgotten him. He ran between the outlying houses, followed by his
servants, and upon the outskirts of the town they came face to face
with the main body of the rabble, and drew their short swords.
"Ere ye farther go," said Richard, "ye shall slay me and my men!"
They bombarded the three with stones and dirt; a woman threw an egg,
another hurled her market-basket with uncertain aim.
"Tear him limb from limb!" snarled someone. "Surer rid of him so than
by banishment!"
Ednoth was advancing upon Richard, sword in hand.... There was a sudden
hush, an awestruck murmur.
"Lord Abbot! Lord Abbot!"
"Hold your hands, in the Name of God and of His holy Church!" cried an
imperious voice.
Ednoth lowered his sword; the thanes uncovered their heads; many
cowered, some stared resentfully; some slipped away in the tracks of
the vanished cattle; the women fell on their knees. From the
market-place came the Abbot of Leominster upon his fat white nag, with
his chaplains and his retinue of men-at-arms riding behind him.
"Ednoth of Moor, what would ye?" he demanded, flourishing the parchment
roll that he carried in his bejewelled right hand.
"Wherefore is the market all-to-wrecked? Would ye work murder upon
harmless Ricardus here?"
"Lord," said Ednoth, "here is a Frenchman who by craft sucketh the
wealth from our land. Witanagemot is for putting an end to all such."