sadly unbridled, folk of Ludford. Hear the truth from me. There are
surely many foreigners, Normans of the King's mother's people, who do
craftily suck the wealth of England, and who bear not themselves truly
towards blessed Edward our King; and Godwin and his Great Gemot have
decreed that such shall go forth whither they came and leave the sway
of England to Englishmen. But are there not some Normans, worthy
fellows, whom no man could wish ill? Richard who dwells at Overton--has
he not lived fifteen years among you, in good repute? In all
Herefordshire is there no better dealer in corn and cattle: from
Shrewsbury to Hereford is none more learned in the laws of English and
of Welsh--none who can write a fairer hand--none of readier wit or
smoother tongue: he hath been great help to me; how shall I spare him?
Shall they bereave me of Ricardus? said I. I knelt before the King; I
reasoned with stern Godwin; and ere I left London both had promised me
my will. Yesterday the sheriff sent to me anent the outgoing of the
French; and I have ridden since dawn, seeking Ricardus, that I might
show him how Holy Church rewardeth goodwill for goodwill. Hugolin
bideth about King Edward, they tell me, and Robert the Staller--they
are faithful servants; as for the others, one Dumfrey--some outlandish
name!... Hah! I have the sheriff's writing.... 'Banished be they all
beyond seas, but Humfrey's Cocksfoot and Richard the Scrob.'"
Richard bent to kiss the Abbot's ring.
"Children, go your ways," the prelate continued, "with our blessing
upon you. I rede you repent of your rashness. Ye are not robbers and
rioters--no, but law-abiding English. Ricardus, come to me to-morrow
morning: I have much to talk over with thee." So saving, he signed to
his attendants, and ambled away.
"My blessing, also, upon thee, worthy friend," a low voice said in
Richard's ear.
It was the blue-clad woman. Ulwin, with gashed forehead and scratched
neck, was shepherding his kinsfolk in the direction of his abode.
"Ashford shall be mine, O mighty Norman," said he with an exultant
sneer. "Thy star is set, though abbots smile on thee."
"Oh, Ulwin, brother!" exclaimed Alftrude--"oh, where is my silver
bodkin? It is gone, Ulwin! And it was my mother's own! Can one have
snatched it from me?"
"Have ye seen it lying?" asked Richard of a group of persons lately
come from the green.
"What wouldst thou?" said Ulwin to Alftrude. "I bade thee leave the
thing at home! Come on, thou spitfire--I will not wait."
Old Ingelric hobbled up, and laid his hand upon Richard's arm.
"Have no fear," he said. "Thou art not without friends. Though likely
thou wilt not see thine oxen again, and who shall trace the coins----"
Richard shook himself free.
"The rogue who stole her pin!" he cried--"I will split his head also!"
The grey cob plodded and splashed through the stream of slushy mud and
half-thawed snow which represented the descending track from Ulwin's
dwelling of the Moor to the highway between Ludford and Leominster.
Upon him was Alftrude, closely muffled in a grey felt mantle, and
beside him, holding the bridle, splashed and floundered a bare-legged
boy, the bondman's son, with alder-clogs upon his feet. Alftrude rode
in some discomfort, perched astride upon a man's saddle: her right arm
supported a big wicker basket. The December sun shone out
self-assertively: nevertheless the child slapped his free hand
continually against his thigh, and often blew ruefully upon the fingers
that clasped the reins. The widow, however, paid no heed to the moist
chill of the morning air. Every now and again she glanced behind her.
Once, in the shelter of the grove of hollies, she stopped for a moment
to listen. There was no sound but the purring of a brook beneath its
perforated covering of ice. She urged on her stolid steed.
As they reached the heath, they heard the scrunch of a horse's hooves
upon the ground they had just traversed. Alftrude turned her head
nonchalantly; then she smote the cob such a sudden blow with her whip
that the boy stumbled, and stared up into his mistress's face, aghast.
About twenty paces more, and the Norman came up with her, riding alone.
He would have passed her with "Good day to you, lady!" but she called:
"Friend, stay awhile!" and he reined in his horse and proceeded beside
her.
"Master Richard," said she, "I would thank you meetly, if I could, for
your great and neighbourly kindness, and beg forgiveness of you for
that I have not myself done so until now. My mother's pin is the
dearest of all my few possessions. Tell me, how came it into your
hands?"
"If ye be content, madame, I am honoured," said Richard. "It was no
matter. The maltman's dunderhead son passed it about the ale-house that
night. They gave it up when I did call for it."
(This was not true. When Richard had seized the trinket from the thief,
the ale-house company had fallen on him to a man, and had rolled
ten-deep upon him about the floor, until their sense of fair-play had
obliged them to draw off.)
Alftrude was smiling her slow, comfortable smile. Could she--the gleam
in her eyes seemed one of admiration--could she have heard what had
really befallen?
"I was like to weep when I saw it again," said she.
They had reached the steepest slope of the hill. Richard the Scrob
dismounted.
"I will carry the basket," said he. "And I will lead your horse
heredown. Let yon lad take mine. Whither make ye?" he continued, when
the boy had fallen behind with his new charge. "Madame, I think ye
should not fare abroad by such a slippery road and in such fickle
weather."
"I must to Ludford," she answered. "What think ye of this? There are
seven young children at home, and in the house no spices nor dried
grapes to make them Yuletide broth or Yuletide cake, and the housewife
will not send any for these! Yet our bairns must have their Christmas
fare like other bairns! so I am for Hildred the ale-wife, who has such
sweet stuffs to sell." But even as she enlarged upon her purpose, her
cheeks blushed red.
"It is shameful!" said he, and his tone was full of warmth. "I like not
their dealings with you, these kinsmen of your former lord!"
"Good friend," said Alftrude, "how wilt thou do now? Thy cattle--thy
money--the best of all thy gear! Great thy loss that evil market-day!
Indeed I am abashed by the folk with whom I dwell!"
"Why, I must stint and save, that is all. It will be no new thing--so
have I done all the days of my life. When I first came over to join the
train of Ralf the Earl, I had nothing but two silver pieces, my pen and
inkhorn, and my wits. That was fifteen years ago.... They have been
lonely years in England since Idonea died."
"She was your wife?"
"Idonea was my wife. She was of Bayeux--daughter of Robert the deacon.
I had her but two years in this misty island. A short sickness bore her
off."
"Alack, alack! that is piteous!"
"She fretted ever for Normandy. I think it was as well she died."
Alftrude eyed him gravely, reflectively. Suddenly she shook with silent
laughter.
"Oh! oh!" she cried when she had recovered her voice, in answer to his
manifest surprise, "ye would have laughed, Son of Scrob, had ye seen a
sight that mine eyes beheld three nights ago. Know that Ulwin will ever
have the swine and the fowls to wander in and out of the house, as they
were mankind, that they may eat up the scraps of food which he throweth
by among the rushes. Upon that night, my husband's mother and I had
gone aloft with the maidens, when a mad hubbub arose--Ulwin shouting,
threatening, praying--with such grunts and shrieks besides, ye would
have thought the Fiend himself was there. We hurried down, and there
stood my good brother, smiting upon his bed with a flail as strongly as
his quaking hand would let him--and the fattest pig tangled in the
covering of fat Ulwin's bed!"
"Oh, gladsome sight!" exclaimed Richard. "Ye did work havoc upon that
same Ulwin that day at the fair? Indeed I think I owe my life to a
lady's finger-nails!"
"Ye had avenged his roughness with me," she answered. "And I saw him
rise to fall upon you."
By this time they had emerged upon the highroad; and now there passed
them two nuns riding sleek mules, and two serving-men, mounted also.
"There goes Burghild of Caynham," said Alftrude. "It is now five years
since she took her holy oaths. I would not be she for all the
world--though, heaven wot! a nun's life is a peaceful life!"
"There is peace to be found where no nuns are, lady."
"Know ye her story, Richard Scrob's son? She is the thane of Caynham's
daughter, and Godric the brother of Athelstane of Berrington loved her
dearly, and she him. But his lands were small and barren, and he could
offer her no fitting home, or so he thought. He would take service with
some great lord, and store what wealth the saints might send him, that
he might make yon maiden his wife. They met twice or thrice in the
year, and I am sure each read the other's mind; but he never told her
of his love and of his hopes. And she pined for him, and grew pale, and
tart of mood. Godric went out with Earl Sweyn against the Welsh king,
and was slain by the Welshmen. When Burghild heard these tidings, she
fell sick of sorrow, even nigh unto death; but she is brave; she clung
to life, and now she is the Church's bride. Oh, sad that lack of goods
should sunder two true hearts!"
"How could he speak, being a man without wealth?" said Richard. "He
might not speak." He would not look at her.
"He should have spoken," said Alftrude softly.
"Now, as for these swine indeed, thy kinsmen----" cried he.... "Pardon
my rough speech, Lady Alftrude; but I have marked how they treat
you--you who were their brother's wife--better born than they, and
better nurtured. As the dirt underfoot! Must ye abide beneath their
roof? Is there none other with whom ye might dwell?"
"My brother is a thane about the King's court. I have not set eyes on
him for many a year. I have no other brother and no sister."
"It is many a day since I have wondered how ye bore with them."
"Since ye press me, Richard, I will own that my lot is hard. I have
been widowed these five years. Since Winge my husband died, the land
and goods with which he left me--aye, and mine own goods which I
brought him--I may not call mine own. The first they till and order as
they will, and the yield thereof they put with the yield of their land.
As for the goods, they all lay hands upon them with never a 'by your
leave' to me! Ulwin would have sold my mirror of steel last week, but I
hid it.... Richard Scrob's son, there are two of thine oxen among the
cattle at the Moor. At least, I am sure I saw them at Martin's Fair
within thy pen."
"Let them be. I have enemies enough at this time. To claim your goods!
To sell your mirror!"
"They grudge me this my new cloak," Alftrude continued, drawing a fold
of periwinkle blue from beneath her winter wrapping. "True, it is not
of my weaving; but mine own corn did I sell to buy the cloth. I believe
they grudge me my mother's own jewels! Ulwin, and Alward, and Ednoth,
and their mother, and the wives of the three. There would be no
pleasure for any but Ulwin, if he could have his way: others must
scrape and lack for him. A bad husbandman, too, is Ulwin. Men will give
him but little for his crops and cattle. And that little leaves his
poke that he may feast and game, and bet on sparring-cocks. But I think
the women are the worst to dwell with."
"And the housewife--your husband's mother? Has she no kindness for
thee, who wert wife to her son?"
"We were childless, Winge and I."
"By holy Stephen! it is a weary life ye tell me of!"
"I am well wonted to such weariness. I am four and twenty. A great age,
Richard."
"Madame, I am thirty-two, and I think that the sweetest of my life is
yet before me."
"Here is Ludford. Now, God speed you, lord," said she, holding out her
hand to him. The next instant she withdrew it in confusion, exclaiming:
"I know not why I clepe you lord!"
"I know," said Richard, and took her hand. "Alftrude, I will see to it
that thou become a very great lady."
From the thicket bordering the pathway proceeded gasping, panting,
maudlin complaints, and thickly-uttered curses; then came the sound of
a feeble struggle as though a heavy body strove vainly to extricate
itself from glutinous, liquescent soil. Richard the Scrob got down from
his horse, handed the reins to Perot, who walked beside him, and strode
in among the alders. The light of the sinking moon revealed a man lying
face downwards, his legs submerged in a marshy pool, his hands clinging
to a tuft of rushes. Having chosen a firm foothold, Richard seized the
unfortunate by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him on to more or
less solid ground. The bloated visage, streaming with mud, was just
recognizable as that of Ulwin of the Moor.
"Oh, oh--ah--oh!" he blubbered. "I am a dead man! Drowned dead--frozen
to the inwards! One had bewitched the accursed nag that she might throw
me!"
Richard heard a horse cropping the wet fern a little distance away. He
captured the offending animal without difficulty, and gave it into the
care of his servant. Then he approached Ulwin once more, and took him
by the arm in order to help him to his feet.
"Dost thou dare?" cried the Englishman, striking aimlessly in the
direction of his rescuer's chin. "I have no gold upon me--nought upon
me! Murder! Murder by our lord the King's highway! Fellow, I am a
thane, and my wergild a thane's wergild--twelve hundred shillings
worth!"
"No robber am I. Ulwin, I am Richard of Overton. Ye have known me this
many a year--I am Richard the Scrob."
"Scrob? Scrob? Eh, what is Scrob?" said the thane of the Moor. "Oh,
aye--I mind--thou art the Frenchman--Richard--neighbour Richard. Well,
Richard, my old nag tossed me off--bewitched is she, the jade! And
Alward and Ednoth and the others--to hell with them for selfish churls!
they rode on and left me here--would not wait for me--rode on and left
me lying here.... I called--I called! Wending home from Wigmore....
Cakes and ale had we--good eating and drinking at Wigmore, Richard....
Left me here to drown! What think ye of that?"
"Belike they missed thee not!" replied the other grimly. "Here is your
horse. Try to get upon her. I think your bones are whole."
Ulwin remained sitting in the mud.
"Wa--la! wa--la!" He was weeping again now. "Wa-la-la and woe the day!
Beggared am I and all undone! They set two worthy cocks to fight....
Oh, a fair sight to see them at war! When all around would wager upon
them, how might I not do likewise? One hundred shillings have I lost to
the men of Wigmore! And, Richard, I am burdened with debt: one hundred
and forty shillings in all do I owe among my neighbours. I must sell
myself into thralldom--my wife--my hapless bairns! Let me flee the
shire...."
Richard brought a leather wallet from beneath his mantle.
"No need," said he. "See here," and he unfastened the string which
closed the wallet.
"What?" shouted Ulwin, scrambling to his knees. "Money? Money? How
comest thou by money? Art surely a sorcerer--a warlock--leagued with
Satan and all his devils! Why, it is not three years since we--since
thy cattle was driven loose and thy silver scattered and lost beneath
the feet of Ludford folk!... Richard Scrob's son--good neighbour----"
"Now, cease thy whimpering of a dog, Ulwin of Moor, if man thou be,"
said Richard. "Shalt not sell thyself for debt. One hundred and forty
shillings--such shalt thou borrow of me.... Nay, not now. At thine own
dwelling, in the afternoon.... Give me Alftrude thy brother's widow to
wife: that she will have me I know well. Half thy brother's
morning-gift to her of land shalt thou keep; and if within ten years
from this day thou owe me still that which I do pledge me here and now
to lend thee, I will take again Ashford and its mill. They were truly
holden of the Abbot, all the time."
"So they have crowned French William at Westminster?" said Ulwin.
"Aye, so was I told by one of Harold's men who came alive through
Senlac slaughter," Grim replied. "This William is a stark man, they
say; but he has sworn to abide by our old laws."
The men of mark were gathered about Ludford elm. It was a warm, misty
day in February. There was a fair upon the green for the sale of
chickens, ducks, and geese.
"I do think that these be lying tidings," said Tori the priest of
Ludford. "Two kings dead within a year, and English and Welsh at peace
in Herefordshire! I will believe there is such a William when I have
set eyes upon him, and in the deaths of kings when I see kings lying
dead. I am a stickler for the good old ways: I do not waste my prayers
upon an unknown outlander, but beseech heaven for Edward and for his
Lady as I have been wont all the days of my life!"
"Under seven kings have I dwelt," Ingelric the ancient murmured
dreamily. "First Ethelred, then Sweyn, then Canute. Canute was a Dane,
but a better man than Ethelred. Then Harefoot, then Hardicanute, then
Edward whom they call the Blessed. Well, well, peace to his soul! There
were no more righteous folk in England after his crowning than before.
And so the son of Godwin is cast down and slain! It is a little thing,
children, where or of whom a king be born, if so be he govern strongly
and wisely."
"Now, Childe Edric, what say ye to this?" cried Ulwin of the Moor.
"Father Ingelric, ye know that my mind is quite other," said a hoarse,
far-carrying voice. The speaker, a weather-tanned young man, with
bright grey eyes and a resolute chin, bent towards Ulwin and whispered:
"The poor old man--he doteth!"
"A fair tide for the ploughing," Kenric's elephantine tact prompted him
to observe. "I think there will be no more frost nor snow."
"We have one Norman here," said Ulwin to Edric. "Spared when the others
were banished, through the might of the greedy Abbot. He has the
Fiend's own luck. Frost and snow! I would the earth were ice-bound for
his sake! I would the frost would shatter his plough-shares! I would he
might drop dead as doth a sparrow!"
"Richard is a good fellow," Ingelric interjected stubbornly. "And one
king is much as another king."
"Is it nothing to you all," cried Edric the Wild, "that England shall
be no more England, but Normandy? What of Harold, our King and our Earl
of late, and his bloody end? Must we all bow to the robber, because the
men of the South loved their harvest-beer better than their
motherland?"
"We are free English!" said one; and another: "What shall we do?"
"We have our hills and our woodlands," Edric continued. "When William
sends his warriors amongst us, we will lead them jack-o'-lantern's
dance, and utterly undo them. My men are all armed and ready to come
forth whensoever I bid them; and I have the word of the Welsh lords
that they will give us help."
"If Howel of Irchenfield were here," Kenric remarked ruminatively, "he
would tell you to put no trust in the word of a Welshman. And Howel is
right: they do never cleave to us, though time and again have they
sworn faith and truth unto our kings. And I have not seen Howel this
day...."
"Howel, Richard's man, say ye?" panted the ale-wife, as she deposited
mugs of beer before two of her customers. "Howel passed the ford three
weeks ago, or nearer four. I know not whither he went."
"Richard also crossed over this day at dawn," said Munulf the maltman,
"and with him his firstborn boy. They took the road to Stretton."
"Hey? it is not like Richard to miss the fair," said Ulwin. "I see
bondmen of his who watch his wares."
"But not the goodwife?" said Kenric. "How not? She loves the mirth of
the market."
"Why, he liketh not that Alftrude bestir herself overmuch, or rub
shoulders with all and sundry," answered Ulwin contemptuously. "Treats
her as she were the Mother of God herself, or a queen at the least. And
they have been wed eleven years!"
"I met some of his men yesterday upon the heath," said Grim, "all
mud-bespattered and outworn. What hath he now in hand, Ulwin?"
"Pah! who can tell? He hath fetched a swarm of accursed
foreigners--smiths and wrights--from overseas, and he must keep them
busy. There is ever some new-fangled hewing or digging. He set a
yew-hedge in the fall, ye know; and they say he will have a fish-pond."
"Here is friend Richard," said Ingelric, "and the little lad also."
Richard appeared upon the green, on horseback, accompanied by his son
Osbern, aged ten, who rode a pony. Having tethered their mounts to two
of a row of posts beside the ale-house door, they made their way to the
elm-tree. The years had been generous towards Richard the Scrob. He was
better clothed and shod than formerly, more serene, less spare. Osbern,
the eldest of his children, had his father's firm mouth and his
mother's clear blue eyes.
"Greeting," said Ulwin, with an uneasy leer. "We talk of thee,
neighbour, as a great man and a wealthy. Shouldst thank me for Alftrude
and what she brought thee, which latter did surely set thee on thy
feet."
"Nay, Ulwin, surely I did set thee once upon thy feet, with timely
loan. Hast thou forgotten, also, that I have had no answer from thee to
a question I put to thee above a year and four months ago?"
"What mean ye? Say all that ye mean aloud, in the ears of these thanes,
and let them judge between thee and me!" Ulwin's brain was slow, but he
rightly guessed that an explicit reply would follow, for Richard's love
of litigation was notorious.
"Thou knowest that I speak of Ashford, which wrongfully thou keepest
from me, and of the hundred and forty shillings which thou borrowedst."
"Thou knowest, and all here know, that Ashford is mine, holden of
Turstin as lord," said Ulwin.
"Turstin is not lord of that land; the Abbot is lord thereof indeed,
and by the Abbot's leave did it pass from thee to me. And I did pay thy
gaming-losses; and thou gavest me Alftrude my dear wife, and half of
the land she had as thy brother's widow. I did swear to let thee be in
Ashford for ten years, and thou to give it up to me when ten years were
run, or to repay me the sum of my lending in gold."
"Not so," said Ulwin. "I agreed with thee for Alftrude and half of her
morning-gift from Winge. Why should she take more with her when she
went from us to wed a needy foreigner?"
"I have thy mark which thou settedst to the bond I wrote."
"I made no mark. I saw no bond."
"There is Ednoth's mark thereon, beneath thine own."
"Say, brother Ednoth, have I pledged all this to Richard the Scrob by
tongue or by pen?"
"I know nought of it," answered Ednoth.
Richard thrust his hands into his belt. The faintest possible shadow of
a smile lurked at the corners of his lips. For a second his glance
wandered absently to the rocky hill of Lude[16] which towered above
Ludford on the farther bank of the Teme where that river turned
northward to join the Corve, and for a fraction of a second rested upon
the narrow track straggling round the southern side of the hill and
descending steeply to the ford.
[16] Now Ludlow.
"Bring witnesses to my mark and Ednoth's!" cried Ulwin with a gobbling
laugh. "Bring witnesses to the Abbot's right! The hundredmen will laugh
thee to scorn. This Richard is a liar, friends: guilt hath sapped his
boldness, or wealth and good-living, belike; he who was wont to be so
ready with his fists now quails before an Englishman. What, dost thou
smile? Aha, thou thinkest on the Frenchman at Westminster! What deemest
thou we shall make of thy Duke?"
"What ye will, I doubt not," said Richard. "I am for law and order." He
seated himself upon a root of the elm, and leant against the trunk.
Every now and again he scanned what could be seen of the winding road
about the hill of Lude.
"Hear me once more," said Edric the Wild. "Ye should make ready against
aught that may befall while these your fruitful acres are your own and
all unscathed. The tyrant hath left his spoor of fire and steel from
the South Saxon land to London town.... Why, Gunwert of Mereston! What
tidings? Steady, man--drink first, speak after!"
A weary, speechless man dropped from his horse to Edric's feet.
"They come!" he gasped, when he had swallowed a mouthful of beer.
"Sighted beyond Stretton.... From Shrewsbury ... in their
hundreds--fully armed!"
Richard, deep in the shadow of the tree, took the boy Osbern's hand and
drew him down beside him.
"Hasten, all!" shouted Edric, quivering with eagerness. "To every
homestead where be weapons--tools--what ye can find! Hasten, hasten!
Ride--gather your men together! We will beat them back at the ford."