I
On the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord, 1486, in the dark
of the night between two o'clock and four, the Young Lovell took the
Tower of Cullerford, setting fires all round it and beneath it and
driving out all its inhabitants. On the seventeenth, a little before
six in the morning, he stood on the height of the White Tower and looked
down into Castle Lovell. This was a very still dawn, the sun being
already risen, for it was near midsummer. The sea was a clear blue, and
in a sky as clear that sun hung, round and pale gold. To the eastward,
towards the seas called The Lowlands, were several monstrous grey
shapes, going up into the heavens like tall columns in a church and
twisting in a writhing manner as if they had been pallid serpents in an
agony. They advanced towards one another as if they had been dancers.
Separated again and so ran before the pale sun, that they appeared to be
sentient beings. But, waterspouts such as these, far out to sea, were
no very unfamiliar sight in those parts during hot weather and no man
heeded them very much.
The better to have a sight of this Castle of his--for the great
courtyard was occupied with many hovels, so that even from on high it
was difficult to see who there was moving--the Young Lovell mounted upon
the parapet of the battlements and stood looking down. He was all in
his light armour, for it would fall to him to be very active that day,
so that he had steel only upon his chest, his arms, and the forepart of
his thighs, shins, and feet. In such accoutrement he could spring very
easily over a wall five foot in height, and his round helmet was a very
light one of black iron surmounted by a small lion's head.
This Castle that he now looked down upon was a very fair great Castle.
The battlements which were a circle of nearly a quarter of a mile, had
in them three square towers of three stories each and two round ones of
two, the peaked roofs of all these towers being of slate. In the centre
of the space enclosed by the battlements rose up the keep, a building of
four stories, four round towers being at each corner that spread out at
the top with places for pouring down lead, Greek fire, or large stone
bullets upon any that should assault those towers. But, in between the
keep and the battlements, there had gradually grown up a congeries of
hovels like a dirty thatched town. The Young Lovell had never liked
this in his father's day, but then he had been the son and had had no
say in these matters.
This state of things had arisen, although the tenure of the lands
appertaining to the Lovells was as follows: that is to say, that in time
of war each of the outer towers should be manned by able-bodied fellows
from the one hundred and twenty-seven hamlets, villages, townships, and
parishes that the Lovells owned. Thus, giving on the average five
capable tenants to each of these, there should have been six hundred men
to hold the outer walls, being forty men to each of the towers in the
walls and two hundred and eighty for the battlements between. The inner
keep should in such a case be held by the best men-at-arms and the
knights and the squires that a Lord Lovell should have about him. And
the tenure of the six hundred bondsmen from those hamlets and parishes
was such that, by giving their services for indefinite periods during
times of war for the defence of that Castle, they were excused all
further services, or service in any other parts. For it was held, that
the defence of that Castle was very necessary for the protection of the
realm from the false Scots if they should take Berwick and so come down
into England by that way.
That had been the original tenure, but by little and little, when the
Percies had had those lands of the Vescis by the treachery of Bishop
Anthony Bek, they had begun to make changes in these tenures, desiring
to have men to accompany them upon journeys whether against the Kings of
England or Scotland, as suited their humour. So that in many townships
and parishes the Percies bargained with their bondsmen for so many days'
service in the year and rent-hens and other things. And this the
bondsmen had agreed to readily enough. For, on account of the perpetual
takings and re-takings of the town of Berwick by the Scots and the
English, there was never any knowing when they might not be called in to
defend that Castle for a year's space at a time, and so their farmings
would go to rack and ruin, and their towers, barnekyns and very parish
churches lie undefended at the mercy of the false Scots. And when the
Lovells had bought these lands of the Percies they had changed the
tenure still more, not so much because they desired to ride upon
journeys, for by comparison with the Percies, they were stay-at-homes,
but because, as a family, the Lovells were greedy of money and desired
rather the payments of rents and the service of men in their own fields
than much military doings.
So they had had to hire men-at-arms by the year or for life. Thus, in
that Castle, which had been meant to be defended by six hundred men upon
varying services, sleeping on the floors of the towers, or here and
there as they could, the Lovells would have a certain number of
men-at-arms, but seldom more than two hundred and fifty that dwelt there
in the Castle. And because these men-at-arms would have wives and
children and kith and kin, or they would not stay there, they could not
sleep to the number of many families in these towers, whether round or
square, that went along the battlements. Some of them, it is true, took
these towers for homes, making great disorder, keeping them very foul
and filthy, shutting up the meurtrieres, or slits for arrows, in order
to keep out draughts, and much unfitting that Castle for defence when
sieges came. For there, in those towers which should be places of
defence, there would be warrens of children crying out and shrieking
women. And other men-at-arms had built them hovels between the
battlements and the keep, building with mud and roofing with rushes, so
that all that space was like a disorderly town with little streets and
sties for pigs and middens and filthy water that ran never away.
Thus this place had become a source of manifest danger, but the Young
Lovell's father would not clear out all these places, because to him
they were a source of much profit, for he employed the women and
children and the hangers on and rabble to work in his fields all the
year round, and so he had much money by that means. But because he
recognized that his Castle was thus in some danger--for any enemy that
won on to the battlements might, by casting down a few torches, set all
these roofs on fire, and so the inner keep would stand in the midst of a
furnace and all those people within the battlements be burned and slain
like rats in a well--the old Lord Lovell had determined to make a safe
place for himself and for the money that he and his father had hoarded
up, being a very vast sum. So he had hired to come to him out of France
an esquire called La Rougerie, being the son of the man that the King
Louis XI of France used to build all his fortresses. So this La Rougerie
had considered very well the situation and extent of this Castle that
upon three faces was thundered upon by the seas at high tide. Then that
La Rougerie perceived at about ten yards from the North-east end of the
Castle, a crag of rock well in the sea even at high tide, in shape like
a dog's tooth and nothing useful except to gannets, and not even to them
of much use, for they would not build their nests so near the Castle.
So this La Rougerie had advised that Lord Lovell that he should build
upon that rock a great slender but very high tower, with walls of stone
six yards in thickness. For the first eighty feet of its height there
should be no openings at all, not so much as slits for the firing of
arrows. And in the windowless chambers there the Lord Lovell should
keep his treasure walled up. And above these there should be rooms for
the guards with arrow holes in the form of crosses, and above these
fairer rooms with somewhat larger windows, where the Lord Lovell and his
family might retire, if so be his Castle should be taken, and above
these dwelling rooms should be attics and granaries where gunpowder and
ammunition should be stored and arrows and the quarrels of cross-bows,
and there the sakers should be kept so that they should not rust upon
the battlements in time of peace. And there were pulleys for hauling up
these cannons on to the battlements above. Seven of these sakers there
were that could cast a bullet weighing thirty pounds of stone or fifty
of iron, in full flight into the furthest part of that Castle upon which
those battlements looked down as a church steeple looks into the
graveyard. For this tower was intended solely for the protection of
that lord and his people in case any enemy should take the Castle
itself. They would retreat there by a little narrow drawbridge giving
into a very little door at the foot of the tower, being thirty feet
long, and over a piece of sea that by nature of the currents, and by
reason that the Frenchman hollowed out the rocks, ran there almost
tempestuously if there were any wind at all, which happened on most days
in these parts. And once there, the Lord Lovell could thunder upon his
Castle thus taken by enemies with cannon balls of stone and iron, with
arrows and with iron bolts shot by arbalists. There could not any inch
of that Castle go unsearched, for the battlements were one hundred feet
above the keep itself.
This then was the White Tower upon which the Young Lovell stood. Up to
the seaward side of this tower he had come from a boat, just before
sunrise, climbing up iron spikes that were inserted in the mortar for
that purpose, and coming to a very small door in the guard room. This
tower had been held for him by Richard Bek, Robert Bulman, and Bertram
Bullock, who had been its captains, and dwelt there in his father's day,
being much trusted by the old Lord Lovell. These esquires, with ten
men, had held this tower very stoutly against them of the Castle that
could in no wise come to them. To them had resorted ten or fifteen
other stout fellows, that had slipped in over the drawbridge or came
there by climbing up the spikes of the seaward wall. They victualled
themselves how they could from the sea; but indeed they had food enough
within the tower of the old lord's storing, except that at first they
lacked of fresh meat, which in the summer time was a grievous thing.
What the Young Lovell could not tell was how many men they of the Castle
had, for some reported that they had as few as a hundred and eighty, and
others as many as three hundred. How that might be it was very
difficult to say, for there was a constant coming and going between
Castle Lovell and Cullerford and Haltwhistle, as well as Wallhouses,
where the evil knight, Henry Vesey, had his men. In short, if they had
withdrawn all their men into Castle Lovell they might have three hundred
well armed between them. And this the Young Lovell thought might be the
case, for when he had taken the tower of Cullerford there had been very
few men there, or none at all. So he judged that Sir Simonde Vesey
would have been forced by agreement to withdraw all his men from
Haltwhistle to the defence of that Castle if Sir Walter Limousin had
agreed to leave Cullerford defenceless. And without doubt, too, the
Vesey of Wallhouses would have his men there as well. Thus there might
be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the
adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any
more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting
men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven
esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and
one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of
the Lady Margaret of Glororem.
So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could
observe in that Castle. But because he could not very well see between
the openings in the battlements, he seized his chance and sprang on to
the very top of the stones. He had observed the watchman on the keep
below him. This man walked regularly from side to side, keeping his
watch, and at each turn he would be gone regularly for as long as you
could count ninety-eight. So, in the absence of that watchman, he stood
there and looked down.
But until he stood there many things had gone before; there were so many
people active about his affairs. There were the Bishop Palatine, Sir
Bertram of Lyonesse, the old Princess of Croy, the Lady Margaret, the
Earl of Northumberland, the bondsman Hugh Raket, and the people in the
Castle themselves. And all these ran up and down that county of
Northumberland upon the Young Lovell's affairs.
Let us consider them in that order.
First there was the Bishop Palatine, John Sherwood. He did not stir
himself much. Nevertheless he sent a messenger to the people of the
Castle--the Knights of Cullerford, Haltwhistle, and Wallhouses, as well
as the Decies. He warned them that he had given his full absolution to
the Young Lovell, and had accepted his homage as a tenant-in-chief of
the See of Durham. He commanded them, therefore, on pain of absolution,
to evacuate the Castle and lands of that lord. Those in the Castle
replied with an assurance of their ready and prompt obedience to the
Prince Bishop. They said that they would immediately set the Young
Lovell in possession of all such lands and emoluments as he held as
tenant-in-chief of the Palatine see. They would do it immediately upon
his producing to them the title deeds and charters of such lands of his.
For, as matters were, they did not know which of his lands and townships
he held of the Prince Bishop and which of the King, their most dread
lord. As for his holdings from the King, those they could not, nay,
they dare not, surrender; for these had been adjudged to them by a writ
fouled in the court of the Warden of the Eastern Marches. That might be
a small matter in itself, but, in addition to the assigning of the lands
to themselves, there went certain huge fines to the King, as was fit and
proper. At that moment they were very ready to surrender their own
holding of the Castle, but they could not themselves pay the fine to the
King, for they had not so much money amongst them. Supposing,
therefore, that the Young Lovell held that Castle of the King, they
would be guilty of high treason if they surrendered it without paying
those fines, and they could not pay themselves, neither could they have
any security that the Young Lovell would do so.
So they said they would very willingly surrender all the lands that that
lord held of the Palatine see as the Young Lovell should produce to them
his charters and show which was which.
This was a very cunning answer, for by professing to be so ready to
surrender at the command of the Bishop that prelate was precluded from
proceeding to their instant excommunication which he would have done.
That would have caused at least half of their men, if not a greater
proportion, to fall away from them, for there was a sufficiency of piety
left in the North parts. Moreover, as against that answer, the Bishop
was advised that he could not, as he would willingly have done, send his
own forces with the Young Lovell against the Castle. For it was true
enough that, until the Young Lovell could appeal against that judgment
of the Lord Percy's, those false knights held a certain part of his
lands in the interests of the King, so that the Prince Bishop could not
well war upon them.
As for the Young Lovell's deeds and charters they were hidden up by the
Knight of Haltwhistle in his tower at that place, so that, for the
moment, he could by no means come at them and it was difficult for the
Bishop's advisers to say how he might have them again. For they had not
even any certain evidence that those muniments were at Haltwhistle. The
Young Lovell had the news of Elizabeth Campstones, his old nurse, and
she was a prisoner in the Castle. It was true that the lawyer Stone had
by that time come round to the side of the Young Lovell, and he was
assured that those charters and deeds had been removed to the tower at
Haltwhistle. Still he had not seen this done, for they had gone at dead
of night.
Therefore the Bishop wrote another letter to them of the Castle, saying
he was assured that they and no others held all those deeds and
summoning them immediately to surrender. To this the Decies answered
that he had not those deeds and papers: that they were very certainly
not in that fortress as far as he commanded it: that he would very
willingly surrender them, but he did not know where they were. He
imagined that they might be in the White Tower over which he had no
control.
The lawyer Stone said that that might very well be the truth that was in
the Decies' mind. For that ignorant fool was mostly heavy with wine.
The evil Knight of Wallhouses had counselled the others that they should
make the Decies commander in name of that Castle at the very first, so
that if any penalties should fall on any heads for the seizure it should
be on the Decies'. Moreover, they had removed the muniments without
telling the Decies, so that they might the more easily be rid of him
when it served their turn.
Thus the Bishop's advisers said that here was a very difficult and
lengthy matter to deal with. For if the Bishop should write to any one
of those cunning people for those deeds he would immediately, or
beforehand, pass them on to the other and say he could not surrender
them since he had them not. If on the other hand he wrote to them all
at once they would give the deeds to their wives or to some safe person
and so make the same answer. So they must issue writs against all the
county at the same moment.
So far the Bishop had got in those fourteen days. In the meantime it was
the turn of the Knight of Lyonesse.
This Sir Bertram rode well attended to the Castle of Warkworth to talk
with the Earl of Northumberland and to lay before him all the truth of
that matter, and how the King did not wish that the North parts should
be enraged against him. And at first the Earl treated this Cornish
knight with little courtesy. But very soon that Sir Bertram showed to
the Earl a paper that he had of the King to empower Sir Bertram to
remove the Earl from the wardenship of the Eastern Marches if the Earl
would not do all that Sir Bertram bade him. And Sir Bertram proved to
the Earl how necessary it was, the King's purse being at that time in no
good condition, to win the goodwill of the great lords of the North. He
said that the Earl might take all that he could get from the poorer
people, but the nobles he must keep his claws from.
Then the Earl agreed with Sir Bertram upon that matter and they set
their heads together to see what they might do. And here again it was
no easy matter to act by course of law. For there was no doubt that the
Earl had given his judgment against the Young Lovell, and there was no
process that he knew of by which he could reverse a judgment that he had
once given. The Young Lovell must make an appeal to the King in Council
and that was a long process. The Earl was willing--though not
over-willing--to call out his own ban and arriere ban and to take Castle
Lovell by due course of siege. But, if he did that, he must kill
utterly the Decies, the two other knights, Sir Henry Vesey of
Wallhouses, and the two sisters of the Young Lovell. Moreover, to do as
much, the Earl must draw off a great number of his men, and he did not
trust some of his neighbours over much. Also, if any one of those
persons escaped he or she would have cause to begin endless lawsuits
against the Percy for slaying the others or even for taking the Castle
from them. For they had his own writ for holding it. Moreover, the
Young Lovell would by no means hear of the Percy's laying siege to his
Castle. For all that Sir Bertram could say, he declared that if the
Percy did this he would fall upon the Percy's forces with his own men.
He said that, in the first place it would be black shame to him; in the
second, the Percy must needs bang Castle Lovell about more than he
himself would care to see, before ever he came in; and finally the Young
Lovell shrewdly doubted whether the Percy would ever come out again once
he was in.
In the same way the Young Lovell would have no men of the Percy to help
him in the attack on his Castle, for he would not trust the Earl of
Northumberland. Thus the Knight of Lyonesse did very little of what he
was most minded to do. For he wished not only to help the Young Lovell
and so make him a friend to the King, but he desired to reconcile him
with the Earl of Northumberland that there might be peace in the North
parts. However, Sir Bertram achieved this much, that the Young Lovell
would let the Lord of Alnwick be in peace if the Lord of Alnwick would
let him be, and that was something gained, for at first the Young Lovell
had declared that he would try it out with the Percy as soon as he had
achieved his first enterprise. But the Percy sent him a very courteous
apology, saying that he had delivered his judgment against the Young
Lovell only because he must do so as a justice according to the law as
the lawyers advised him and that now he was very sorry that he had done
it.
For now the raider Gib Elliott was boasting in all the market towns that
he had access to, saying that he had held the Young Armstrong prisoner
for three months and had ransomed him in Edinburgh. This Elizabeth
Campstones, his foster-cousin, had got him to do, sending him word by a
little boy and the promise of fifty French crowns. And indeed he was
very glad to do it, since it might not only cause strong fellows to
resort to him for the renown of it, but it might gain him the friendship
of the Young Lovell, which would be a good thing for his widow when he
came to be hanged at Carlisle.
And everybody was very glad of that rumour--the Bishop Palatine because
it was more to the credit of the Young Lovell whom he supported; the
Earl of Northumberland and Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, because it afforded
them an excuse for writing broad letters to the King and his Council,
asking that the former judgment given by the Earl might be reversed
because of the perjury by which it was obtained. The Young Lovell was
glad of it too. He thought that it was better for his bondsmen that
they should not believe that their lord had spent three months gazing on
a fairy woman. For that otherwise they would believe and that it was
some make of sorcery, for all that the Bishop had given him absolution.
The Young Lovell considered that it is not always good for the lower
orders, set in their places by God, to know truths apart from the truths
of Holy Church. For the lower orders have weak brains wherein too much
truth is like new wine in feeble bottles.
But the Knight of Lyonesse, who had been bidden by King Henry, if he
could, to establish himself in the North parts with lands and worship,
and to do it, if possible, without calling upon the King to pay for it,
went upon another enterprise before June was fourteen days old. For on
all hands he heard that the Lady Rohtraut of Castle Lovell was the
richest dowager for lands in all Northumberland, and by the disposition
of his mind he was not desirous of marrying a young girl that might make
a mock of him or worse. Moreover, he heard that the Lady Rohtraut was a
fair enough woman of forty-three, with a good temper if she were
well-used and not dishonoured, and that he thought he could do well
enough. So he was doubly anxious to be of service to the Young Lovell,
for, the more he heard of it, the more he was certain that this lady
would make a good match for him, and that so he would please King Henry.
For her lands were broad and mostly fertile for the North; her Castle at
Cramlin would be a very strong Castle after the Young Lovell had
finished the repairs to it at his own expense and it stood very handy at
the entrance into Northumberland, so that with help in men from the
King, he might very easily work against troubles in that part, whether
they came from the North or the South.
So, being in that mind, he went after ten days to pay his devoirs to the
old Princess of Croy, for, after he had dwelt with her for one day, he
had considered that she desired to charge him too much for his lodging
and that he could do better for himself at an inn, where he could send
out for his meat and have it cooked by his own man at the common fire.
He had enquired of the prices of meat in that town and found that that
was so.
But now he wished that he had not done that, since he might have gained
more of the old Princess's favour by paying her exorbitant prices.
However, he found that that was not the case, for that Princess had so
great a respect for money that she esteemed a man the more for being
careful of his purse strings, even though it hurt her own pocket. So
she greeted him with pleasure and said that she wished her son, Lord
Dacre, had been another such.
Sir Bertram had observed a great white mule--the largest he had ever
seen--to stand before her door, and she told him that she was just about
to set out upon a journey. For, said she, and her face bore every sign
of fury, the Young Lovell, as Sir Bertram had heard, had treated her
with lewd disrespect and she was minded to read him a lesson. "Madam
and my Granddam and gentle Princess," he had said to her--and she
mimicked his tones with so much anger that she spat on each side of her,
"my mother has languished in prison during half a year and all that time
you have done nothing for her."
And now, the old woman said, she was going to do something for her
daughter that the Young Lovell would never dare to do. For upon a
pillion on that mule, behind her old steward, she was about to ride to
Castle Lovell. No guards she would take and no bowman, and there was no
other Christian in the City of Durham that dare do as much in those
dangerous lands. And being come to Castle Lovell, she would release her
daughter with her own hands and all alone, and what make of a boasting
fool would that Young Lovell appear then!
The Knight of Cornwall, when he heard those words, bent one knee on the
ground and begged that that Princess would take him with her, for he
would gladly do so much for that fair lady as well as witness the
Princess doing these things. The Princess looked at him sideways in a
queer glance and said that he might do if he would bring no men-at-arms
to spoil the fame of her feat. He answered that he had the courage for
that, but he said gravely that it might be for the comfort of the Lady
Rohtraut, who had not the courage of her mother and would fear to travel
alone, if his men-at-arms to the number of forty followed behind them,
and so, meeting them at Belford or somewhere in that neighbourhood,
guarded them on the homeward road. The Princess said that he might do
that.
So they rode out and in four days' time they came to Castle Lovell. The
Princess was on the white mule behind her steward and Sir Bertram was on
a little horse. For, although he would have presented a more splendid
appearance to the Lady Rohtraut upon a charger, he did not wish to be at
the charges for horsefeed for such a great animal, whereas the galloway
could subsist off the grass and herbs that it found by the roadway,
though all green things were by that time much withered by the drought.
Such weather had never been known in the North parts.
They met with no robbers; only, as they went near the sea to avoid the
town of Morpeth so that the Young Lovell should not hear of this
adventure, he being at Cramlin all this time--near High Clibburn and
just north of Widdrington Castle there met with them Adam Swinburn, a
broken gentleman with ten fellows and would have robbed them. But when
he heard how they were going to rescue the Lady Rohtraut that all the
world was talking of he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. For
he had never had such cause for amusement as to see this fat old woman
holding on behind a lean old servingman, with a man all in silks and
colours with a great brown beard upon a little horse beside her, his
feet brushing the ground. And these three were going to storm a mighty
Castle that no forces before ever had sufficed to take. So, when he had
done laughing, he rode with them a great piece of the way, even as far
as Lesbury and past Warkworth. For he said that if the Earl of
Northumberland saw them he would certainly rob them and so deprive that
countryside of a great jest. Sir Bertram found this Adam--who was
red-headed like all the Swinburns--very pleasant company, and when they
parted Sir Bertram swore that when it came to hanging that Adam he would
pray the King, if he could not save his life, at least to let it be done
with a silken rope.
So, on the fourteenth day of June, at eleven in the morning--and that
was seven hours after the Young Lovell took and burned the tower of
Cullerford--the mule being very tired and the galloway none too fresh,
that company of five, men and beasts, climbed wearily up the hill to
Castle Lovell. The captain of the tower called Wanshot where the gate
was, let them pass, for he could not see any danger from this old woman
and the man in silks. At the door of the keep the Princess slid down
from her mule, and pushing the guards there in the chest with her
crutch, she went past them into the great hall and the guards let Sir
Bertram follow her. In the hall, and crossing it, they found Sir Henry
Vesey devising beside a pillar with his sister-in-law Douce that was a
little woman. The Princess with a furious voice bade this Lady Douce
fall upon her knees, for this was her granddam. That the Lady Douce
did, for she could think of no reason to excuse her from it.
Then the Princess Rohtraut began to call out for the keys of her
daughter's room, and various men came running in as well as the Lady
Isopel, that was the other grand-daughter. There was a great noise, and
so Sir Bertram of Lyonesse drew Sir Henry Vesey behind a pillar, and in
a low voice strongly enjoined on him to let the Lady Rohtraut go. For
he said that he was the King's commissioner and that all that were in
that Castle were in a very evil case, for very likely it would soon be
taken and all the men there hanged. And he said that Sir Henry was in a
different case from the other leaders and that he, Sir Bertram, promised
to save his life and gain favour for him with the King if he would let
the Lady Rohtraut go. Moreover, he whispered that, Sir Symonde his
brother being dead, Sir Henry might have his lands and be free to love
his sister-in-law as he listed. For the rumour went that this evil
knight was over-fond of the Lady Douce, and it was in that way Elizabeth
Campstones saved her life. For, when there was talk of hanging her for
having talked to the Young Lovell, she told the Lady Douce that she
would inform against her to her husband--which well she could do. So the
Lady Douce begged her life of the others.
And after Sir Bertram had talked for a time to Sir Henry Vesey, making
him those fair promises, Sir Henry sent a boy for the keys of Wanshot
Tower. When he had them he begged that Princess very courteously to
follow him, saying that he would take her to her daughter and so set her
free. Then began a great clamour between the Ladies Douce and Isopel.
The Lady Isopel said that Sir Henry should not do this, the Lady Douce
that he should, for she was in all things the slave of Sir Henry, and
that the Lady Isopel told her very loudly. But the Knights of
Cullerford and Haltwhistle had ridden out to see if they could have news
of the Young Lovell, for they knew that he was gathering his forces to
come against them.
So Sir Henry did not at all heed the clamour of the Lady Isopel, but
walked very grandly before the Princess Rohtraut to Wanshot Tower, and
sparks of triumph came from that hobbling old woman's eyes. So when he
was come to the door on the inner side of the wall Sir Henry gave into
the hands of the Princess the two keys, one of that door and one of the
room where the Lady Rohtraut was. Then the Princess went into that
tower, and after a space down she came again, and with her were the Lady
Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones. The Lady Rohtraut took nothing away
with her but the clothes she had on her back. Only in her great sleeves
she had her little lapdog called Butterfly.
They went as fast as they could up the Belford road, for they were
afraid of meeting with Cullerfurd or Haltwhistle. But they had only
been gone a little way--the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones
riding on Sir Bertram's galloway--when they came upon Sir Bertram's men
that were riding over the lea to find him.
That was the first sight Sir Bertram had of that lady whom afterwards,
to the scandal of all the North parts, he married. For he was accounted
a man of very mean birth and she a very noble lady. But he made her a
very good husband, doing her proper honour and very ably conducting her
lawsuits, so that she had never a word to say against him.
As for Sir Henry Vesey, when the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle
came back, the Lady Isopel cried out against him, calling him a false
traitor. But Sir Henry said that the King's commissioner had given him
very good reasons why they should let the Lady Rohtraut go. As thus:
The Young Lovell, as they had known for a week, held that lady's Castle
of Cramlin as well as her houses of Plessey and Killingworth and all her
lands. They, on the other hand, held her title deeds, so that was all
they could have. If they could have known of the taking of Castle
Cramlin earlier, they might have taken it again, by going there in a
hurry, but now the Young Lovell sat there, and he was a very difficult
commander, and every day more men came in to his orders. They could
never get him out of that Castle.
But they held that lady only in order to force her willingly to resign
those very lands to them. What, then, would it avail them to hold her
any longer, since, if she resigned them twenty times over, the Young
Lovell would never let them go? As for threatening to slay that lady if
the Young Lovell did not give them her lands, that was more than they
dare, so it would enrage all that countryside against them. Even as it
was, some that they had counted on as being their friends had fallen
away and, if that went further, they would never be able to have fresh
meat from their towers.
So Sir Henry gave them many excellent reasons for his action. The
Knight of Cullerford would have grumbled against him, for his wife, the
Lady Isopel, set him to it. But his brother, Sir Symonde, said he had
done very well, for his wife made him say that. The Decies was drunk and
took no part in that council. Moreover, they were all afraid of Sir
Henry Vesey, and he treated them like children that must do his bidding.
II
Indeed they had few of them much joy in that Castle where at first they
had thought to have had great mirth. Only three days before Adam
Swinburn, that had sworn to stand their friend, had ridden to a knoll
near at hand and had asked to have speech with Sir Symonde Vesey, who
was more his friend than the others. So Sir Symonde had gone to a
little window that was near the ground in the tower called Constance,
and from there had spoken with him. And Adam Swinburn had said that in
no way could he any longer promise to aid them, for it was grown too
dangerous. He preferred to rob upon the roads. And he counselled them
very strongly to make a peace with the Young Lovell who was gathering
many men, all the countryside being his friends, and had sworn to hang
every man of them that was a leader from the White Tower, and to put his
sisters into nunneries. And he said that John of Rokehope and James
Cra'ster the younger, as well as Haggerston and Lame Cresswell, who
desired to make their peace with King Henry, were all of like mind with
him.
It was upon his homeward journey from saying this that Adam Swinburn had
come upon the Princess Rohtraut and Bertram of Lyonesse.
All these people, Cra'ster, Haggerston, Lame Cresswell, Adam Swinburn,
and others had, in the earlier days of their being at Castle Lovell,
held high revel there with them. They were mostly rude and boisterous
gentry of very good family who, having been ruined fighting for or
against King Edward IV, King Richard or King Henry, were outlawed and
lived by robbery, which was also the case with Sir Henry Vesey, of
Wallhouses. And when those of the Castle had at first seemed to be
triumphing these raiders had made great cause with them. They hoped
that thus they might get their lands again of the King. So they had
feasted there and drunk and slept in one tower or another along the
walls, and had sworn to hold those towers if ever Castle Lovell was
attacked.
But, by little and little, all of these gentry had wanted money, and of
that those of that Castle had very little or none at all to give them.
All the old Lord Lovell's money was in the White Tower, and the bondsmen
and other feudal debtors of Castle Lovell refused them their dues.
These things were very sore blows to those of the Castle. They had
hoped that Richard Bek, the captain of the White Tower, would surrender
that money to them so that they would have been able to give some of it
to those boon companions. But Richard Bek would not even answer their
summonses; and when they had begged the outlaws to aid them to take the
White Tower, James Cra'ster had answered courteously for the rest that
they would very willingly have done it had they had wings, but they were
not gannets nor yet the angels of God, and so they could not. It was
the same thing when those of the Castle asked the outlaws to ride down
among the bondsmen that would not pay their rent-hens. None of them
would do it.
For the truth of the matter was that Adam Swinburn and the rest were too
good friends of Hugh Raket, Barty of the Comb, Corbit Jock, the Widow
Taylor with her seven able sons, and the rest. They were the most
capable rievers that they could find to ride under their leadership into
Scotland or elsewhere. Even Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, had their
aid and company at times.
For the matter of that, Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, was not so very
eager to aid them of the Castle; as the time went on he grew less keen
about it. For what they got out of it beyond the shelter of the stone
walls he could not tell.
At the first his brother and Sir Walter Limousin had promised him his
share of the plunder in the Castle and the money in the White Tower.
But the plunder in the Castle had been a small matter. It was not much
they had got for the armour sold to Morpeth, though he had taken some of
the best pieces and sent them for safety to Wallhouses; they had got
very little for such furnishings and carpets as they had sold to the
German at Sunderland, and the jewels, as has been told, they could not
sell at all.
They had the Castle, but in it not much more than two hundred men, which
was little to hold so so great a place with. Thus they could not hold
it, as castles are held, as a place from which to ride out and rob in
the Borders; they could not spare the men.
So, when Adam Swinburn and the others understood how that case really
was, they went, one after the other, away from the towers in the wall
where they had slept with their men. They went with courtesy, saying
that they would come again and defend those towers if there were need of
it. But the truth of the matter was that all of the fresh meat was
eaten, which is a thing very unbearable in summer; the best wine was all
drunk, for they had pressed heavily on the liquors in the early days;
they had tired of all the serving maids that there were in the Castle;
the Lady Douce was occupied with Sir Henry Vesey; the Lady Isopel was
ugly and a shrew. So they had neither desirable wine nor women; not
much prospect of meat nor gold, and what else should keep them?
Therefore they rode away.
Then those of the Castle sat down there to wait until Richard Bek, the
captain of the White Tower, should surrender, so that they might take
the gold. But that was a long matter. For Richard Bek and his men had
at their command a great store of the best commodities that had belonged
to the late lord. He had stored them in that strong place that was made
for it. Sugar even they had and pepper and pippins, and the best wine
and figs in honey. They of the Castle had not even fish for Fridays or
none but salted cod. But they could see Richard Bek and his men
catching fish from the sea with long lines. The water did not come up
far enough to let those in the Castle catch fish even at high tides; but
to the foot of the White Tower which was further out it came at all
times, and the Lord Lovell, under the directions of the French
castle-builder, had had the rocks there hollowed away so that a boat
could ride there very comfortably when the weather was not too rough.
Nevertheless, over that sort of boat-house a machicolation jutted out,
so that the boats of any enemy could be swamped with great stones or set
burning by means of Greek fire.
Thus those in the Castle could perceive those of the Tower receiving
from the sea the carcases of sheep, goats, and small bullocks, so that
those men lived very well and comfortably, and there seemed little
reason for their ever rendering up that place which the Lord Lovell had
built very cunningly for just such an occasion. Of wheat in the Castle
they had a sufficient store, and also of salt meat and stock fish.
For two of the towers in the outer wall, that called Constance and that
called de Insula, after the Bishop of that name, were nothing less than
the one a wheat pit and the other a brine cistern. Those towers
contained a chamber each, in the upper story, but all beneath it, to the
ground, was windowless space. In the brine that filled thus the tower
Constance there floated the carcases of two thousand sheep, one thousand
swine, five hundred goats, and five hundred oxen.
Thus they had enough of that sort of food, and in addition they had a
great quantity of peas in a barn. But of fresh meat they had none at
all. When they wished for it they must send for beasts to Cullerford or
Haltwhistle, and on the second occasion that they did this they lost
fourteen steers and a quantity of sheep and goats. For, as their men
drove these beasts along by the Roman Wall, in a very lonely spot, there
came springing down upon them a great number of men well armed, but with
their faces blacked. These killed two of the Castle Lovell men and
drove away all their cattle through a gap in the Wall towards the North.
Those in the Castle thought that this had been done by Haggerston and
Lame Cresswell, who were fast friends, and by Barty of the Comb and his
fellows. But they had no proof of this, so they could not even fyle a
bill against them in the Warden's Court. Moreover, three weeks before
they had heard that a vessel was come to Hartlepool that had a number of
cannon on board and more than she needed for her defence. These they
desired to buy so as to try conclusions with the White Tower. They had
with them at that season a Ridley of Willimoteswick as a guest. He was
going by sea into Holland, and to this Ridley they confided the buying
of such cannon as he could get for them from that ship as well as a
great store of gunpowder, for this Ridley was a very honourable man and
they could well trust him. So they gave him a hundred and fifty pounds.
One or other of those knights might have gone on this errand, but by
this time they were all grown very irritable and suspicious, and
believed each of them that the others would work him some mischief if he
went away even for a little time. For there they were kicking their
heels in that fine summer weather, without comfort or occupation. They
hardly dared to ride hunting without such a troop of men-at-arms as
scared all the deer out of the woods, and at that season of the year
they should have been riding into Scotland for their profit and to do
feats of arms. Yet there they sat.
A week after that they had a letter from that Ridley of Willimoteswick
to say that he had not bought their cannon and should not. For he had
heard from his cousin Ridley, that was the monk Francis of Belford, how
the Young Lovell was alive that they had sworn to him to be dead.
Moreover, that lord had done no sorcery at all, but all that was false
witnessing. Therefore Ridley of Willimoteswick counselled them very
earnestly to give up that Castle to its rightful lord or he would never
be their friend again. Moreover, he said that the monk Francis advised
him that the hundred and fifty pounds they had given him for the
purchase of cannon was no money of theirs but belonged of right to the
Young Lovell. How that might be he did not know, but he was determined
to buy them no cannon and to hold that money in his own hands until the
rightful ownership should be determined.
Then those of the Castle cried out on the evil that there was in their
world and time, and that there was neither faith nor truth in man. The
heat blazed down upon them; the Castle stank, and now terror began to
come into their souls so that the women wakening in the night or walking
round the corners of the stony corridors would scream out suddenly. For
on all hands they heard how the Young Lovell's men resorted to him and
how Richard Bek had sent him basketsful of gold from the White Tower,
lowering them to boats that came on his behalf in the dawn. And knowing
him as well as they did, they knew that he was a very fierce and cruel
man to evil-doers and destroyers of order in his lands.
Then there came those letters from the Bishop and spread dismay amongst
them, for the Lady Isopel had a great dread of priests and raised
perpetual outcry in the Castle, asking that it should be given up to the
Bishop. So they answered those letters as best they could. Then came
other letters from the Earl of Northumberland in which he reded them
very strongly to give up that Castle and sue for mercy. For, said the
Earl, he must now withdraw from them all his countenance and he had
written a broad letter to the King in his Council praying him to reverse
the judgment that that Earl had given, on false witness brought before
him, against the Young Lovell.
So, upon that, they sent for all the armed men they had from Cullerford
and Haltwhistle and Wallhouses, and kept men continually on the walls in
arms, for they could not tell at what moment the Young Lovell might not
break in upon them like a raging wolf. And at last Sir Henry Vesey said
that the moment was come for them to make the best terms that they could
with their kinsman, and that if they would not he would get him gone
from that Castle with all his men, for who could tell at what moment
that lord might not burn down Wallhouses itself? Therefore they sent a
letter to the Young Lovell at Cramlin Castle where they heard that he
was, saying that if he would surrender to them half his mother's lands
and ten thousand pounds in gold they would give up to him that his
Castle and go to live in their own houses and towers, and as for the
Decies the Young Lovell might deal with him how he would.
To that letter no answer came and their messenger that bore it never
came back. Fear fell still more upon them because of this silence, in
which they seemed to read better than in any letter the menacing nature
of their kinsman's fell spirit. And at that time they began to talk of
running each to his own home, and this they would have done but that
they feared that in that way the Young Lovell would fall upon them the
more easily, each one in his little tower. Moreover, their own men
would by no means suffer this.
These men were of several minds. Some had been promised great sums of
money to come into that Castle, and they would by no means let the
Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle go unless they had their pay, but
proposed to hold them prisoners there in the hope of receiving pay from
the Young Lovell. Others thought that they could very well hold that
strong Castle, beat off the Young Lovell and take the White Tower, if
one of their number were elected their captain instead of these
irresolute knights. Others desired to murder those knights and their
ladies, and to take the jewels that they had and so to scatter about the
country each to his own intent.
The men of Sir Henry Vesey were, however, faithful enough to him. He
made the others pay them at least, though they could not pay their own,
and even without it they would have been his very good servants, for he
was always a fortunate commander in raids, being as cunning as a fox and
very brave. So he knew himself to be very safe, and he assured the Lady
Douce that she need have no fear, for his men would protect her as well
as him. Of late he had thought much of the Lady Margaret Glororem in
the way of love--more particularly when he had considered the Young
Lovell to be dead. And indeed that lady had no hatred for him, since
she considered him to be cunning and humorous and brave. And possibly
she would have married him, for marry somebody a rich young maiden must,
be her heart never so broken, in the North.
So, in that time, Sir Henry Vesey and the Lady Douce had quarrelled
bitterly, for she was most jealous. But since the Young Lovell had come
again they were once more friends.
So there they all sat and waited, the Knights of Cullerford and
Haltwhistle riding out daily a little way to see what news they might
get. They heard that there was a great gathering of Eures, Ridleys,
Widdringtons and others at Glororem, and at the neighbouring Castle of
Bamborough where the King's captain gave them shelter. But of where the
Young Lovell might be they could get no news; only they heard that he
had left Cramlin, having with him nearly a hundred men.
Of when he would come against them they could not tell at all; they
could not even tell whether their own men would fight for them. Only
they thought they might; for the men of the North parts of those days
were great fighters and would seldom miss an opportunity of a tulzie,
unless there was a great football match to go to, and even for that
generally they would contrive to leave off a fight for the time being,
to resume it after the game was over. And they would do as much for a
horse-race, though they preferred football, as being the more dangerous.
III
In the meantime the Young Lovell had dwelt at Cramlin. There was
nothing that had not prospered with him, or that by diligence, cunning
or swiftness he had not made to prosper. Daily men resorted to him and
sought his service, coming in from the hills and moors and Debateable
Lands, all strong and hardy men so that it was difficult to make a
choice.
In a week's time it was known what his terms were. To every man that he
took with him he would give three pounds English, for there would be
little booty; such prisoners as they took he would ransom himself, for
he wished to have them at his disposal to spare or to slay as seemed
best to him. Such cattle as they took they might keep for themselves, or
he would buy them at a fair price, for he understood that there were
none left at Castle Lovell, where he would need them when he was the
lord settled in that place. These terms he would make with every man,
whether of his own men-at-arms, those he hired especially, or those that
were the men of his friends. In the meantime he would find them in
wine, meat, beer, bread and shelter.
In that way he had soon four hundred picked men--being one hundred and
fifty archers, two hundred men-at-arms, and fifty of his bondsmen or
bondsmen of his friends, men that were notable, light and swift-moving
rievers.
There had joined him at Cramlin five young knights and eleven esquires
that had been his friends before. These were Eures, Ridleys,
Widdringtons, Riddells of Felton, Greys and Roddams, all being young men
of his own generation. At first those of them that had fathers, uncles,
or guardians found it a hard thing to get the consent of these to their
going. For the days were past then of riding upon knight errantry,
crusades, chevauchees, and other enterprises more splendid than
profitable, and most fathers would not very willingly let their young
men go fighting unless the gain in money much outweighed the costs.
They would ride very well into Scotland if they were a great many
together, so that it was a safe journey; but at that day France was lost
to England. Most fathers would have gladly let their sons ride into
France; such an enterprise as that of the Black Prince was still talked
of. In that chevauchee he had ridden through France from north to
south, from Calais to Marseilles, and had sacked more than six hundred
towns and slain more than sixty thousand men, meeting with very little
resistance. That had been a very chivalrous, gentle, joyous, and
splendid raid. But since then France was gone; no Prince should ever
make such a chevauchee again across that pleasant land; and the wars
between King Henry VI and King Edward IV, and later between King Richard
III and him that was then King Henry had impoverished and embittered all
the older men of the North that knew things by hard facts rather than
books of faicts of arms. These men were rather bitter, cynical, and
perforce mercenary, than loyal, pious, and chivalric. They viewed with
disfavour this enterprise that meant the attacking of a strong Castle,
strongly held, with only a few men, no cannon, and not so much as a
mangonel, a catapult, or such old-fashioned things. On the other hand,
if their sons went to such a siege, they must go, richly caparisoned, in
the best armour that they or their fathers had, and at great cost, for
the Young Lovell was a great lord, and they could not let their sons and
nephews come before him in ill harness. Yet, in such a desperate siege,
such armour must at least be battered and dinted, the silken housings
torn, the great chargers lamed, even if the young men were not killed or
held for ransom in black mail or white. And even if that Castle should
be taken there would be no great rewards--they could not sack it, for it
would be their friend's. They would have nothing for it but praise,
renown, the love of God, and the approval of Holy Church, as well as
some plenary indulgences. But these were all things that filled no
bellies and brought no cattle home.
Nevertheless, as from the first news of Young Lovell's home-coming the
days went on, there came every day fresh news of how blind Fortune held
her wheel still and favoured that lord. Those elders heard how, as it
seemed, miraculously, he had taken Cramlin and held his mother's broad
lands; how the Bishop had blessed and knighted him; how the King's
commissioner hastened to do him service, and bent before him, and the
Earl of Northumberland at his side. Then they heard of men-at-arms
flocking to him, and, at last, how the White Tower was held for him that
had in it one hundred and forty thousand pounds in gold and many rich
stores. And they heard how, in boats, during four days at dawn, Richard
Bek had sent him six thousand pounds, so that he could very sumptuously
entertain any knights that came to him. Then, indeed, it seemed to
these elder men that it might be profitable then, and in the future, to
aid this favourite of the blind goddess--for some of them had learning
enough to have heard that Fortune is blind, though many had not.
And all this while their sons and nephews and bastards pressed them
unceasingly for leave to go on this enterprise, saying that it was not
easy to have experience in the taking of strong castles, and that the
Young Lovell was a leader that it would be great glory to serve under.
So the elders yielded under these considerations, doing what they would
not for the love of God at the bidding of Holy Church, or for the sake
of oppressed chivalry. Therefore, the monk Francis, who heard of many
of these discussions, and took part in one or two where the lords were
in easy reach, said that those were very evil times where no thought was
of anything but money, and God so nearly forgotten. And he said that
before long a great calamity should fall upon England; nay, that the
saints of God must soon leave hovering over a country so vile.
Nevertheless, afterwards he somewhat changed his note when he saw how
many young knights of good family came to join the Young Lovell. These
were, as has been said, five knights and eleven esquires of the families
of Eures, Ridleys, Widdringtons, Riddells of Felton, Greys and Roddams.
Amongst them was one older than the others, being Sir Matthew Grey, that
had seen the French wars under Edward IV. Of him the Young Lovell was
very glad, for he intended to divide his forces into two camps, and
needed a commander.
So, on the flat ground around the Castle of Cramlin arose many tents,
and it was like a fair in the sunshine on the short and baked grass.
The Lady Margaret of Glororem had had made in the city of Durham a great
tent all of fair silk, in the green and vermeil colours of the house of
Lovell, and from that city the Young Lovell had had brought many vessels
of silver, salt-cellars and great dishes and goblets that he had bought
of a Canon of Durham, having more than he needed. A silversmith had
wrought on them very swiftly the arms of that lord, and it was his
intention to leave those furnishings in Castle Cramlin, that his mother
might be fairly served when she came there.
They set up that tent on the eleventh of June, and were two days
arranging the banquet that there was given by the Young Lovell. Many
fair ladies came from Durham and Morpeth and the Castles around, and
cooks came, and scullions and servers, for those knights and esquires
lent to the Young Lovell their pages, that they might go to all the
places around and deliver his invitations. Those ladies might all sleep
in that Castle, for by that time he had bought for it, out of the gold
that Richard Bek had sent him, furniture, hangings, beds a many and all
such silken stuffs as should make it fair. This he did to be an honour
to his mother when she came there.
So all those esquires and knights, and the ladies and the Lady Margaret,
and the Young Lovell sat to take their dinner in the silken tent. That
banquet began at noon, and at seven in the evening they still sat at the
board. Five courses that meal had, each of sixty dishes, each dish
being different, so that it was agreed that such a banquet had never
been given in those parts, unless it was one that the Earl of Warwick
gave upon the occasion of the marriage of his daughter. The sides of
that tent were held up upon gilded staves, for it was very hot and
breathless weather, so that many men said a storm must soon come. The
haze of heat ran all across that champaign country; the high banks of
the river were all clothed with green and whitened here and there with
elder. The men-at-arms marched before them in shining steel; the bowmen
in green, each with the badge of the esquire or knight that he served
upon his shoulder; and the bondsmen, having each a little target, a
great sword, and a very tall pike with a hook at its end. Upon these
pikes they could set torches the better to put fire upon roofs or in at
the upper windows of peel towers. So, before their eyes, the bowmen set
up targets and shot at them for their entertainment, and they passed
these hot hours very joyously. When the cool of the evening was come,
the Young Lovell took Sir Matthew Grey apart into a grove beside the
river.
He told that knight very carefully how he would have him dispose the men
that should be under his command, for he should not see those men again
before they met victoriously in the Castle. Sir Matthew Grey listened
to him and said that that was a very good scheme and he would observe it
carefully. So, just as the young moon set, Sir Matthew Grey with all
the men-at-arms, all the bowmen and fifty of the rievers, making in all
two hundred and fifty men, having with him all the knights and esquires
as well as the Young Lovell's most trusted esquire, Cressingham, that
knew very well the ways into Castle Lovell--all rode over the whiteness
of the river at the ford and were lost beneath the light of the stars.
Then such of the ladies as would sleep at Castle Cramlin went into it;
the others had already ridden away with their attendants. The cooks and
scullions and serving men began to take down that great silken tent, and
the men-at-arms that remained struck those that had sheltered their
former comrades. The Young Lovell begged the Lady Margaret very
courteously that she would walk with him in the grove of the river where
he had talked with Sir Matthew Grey. The white small moon looked in on
them through the branches; the river ran very swiftly.
There walking, he told once more to that lady very carefully his plan
for the taking of Castle Lovell, for it was such things that she heard
of more willingly than of any others. Sieges, tourneys, journeys, feats
of arms and dangerous quests, of these she was never tired of talking;
she loved them better than putting on the newest hood made after a
Queen's model of France.
This plan for the taking of Castle Lovell was as follows, and it was to
get under way at the hour of five on the sixteenth day of June ---- that
was to say, in three days' time. There were three entries to be made
into that Castle within five minutes, one through the great gate that
was beneath the tower called Wanshot: one through the passage coming up
beneath the flagstones in the men's kitchen that was built into the wall
between the towers Constance and de Insula; the third was to take place
from the White Tower over the little drawbridge that connected that hold
with the Castle.
The first entry, that through the great gate, was to be conducted by the
Young Lovell's esquire Cressingham that well knew the ways into the
Castle. This was a very dangerous enterprise, or one with no danger at
all as it turned out. Besides the esquire Cressingham there were to be
engaged upon it four young knights greedy of glory--Sir Michael Ridley,
Sir Thomas Eure, the Lady Margaret's cousin, Sir Hugh Widdrington, and
Sir Edward Riddell of Felton. It was in this way. There were usually
five guards at that great gate, four to man the meurtrieres and one to
go to the grille; the space there was scarcely sufficient for more, nor
were more necessary, so strongly was the gate protected from above by
machicolations, stone balls and bowmen. So there were usually no more
than five men there. Now those four knights, under the command of the
esquire Cressingham, covering their armour completely with peasants'
clothes and cloaks, should go up to that gate in the quiet of the
morning with sacks on their backs. In these sacks they should have a
good store of last year's walnuts and apples--though it was difficult
enough to find these in June, yet some they had found that had ripened
very late the year before. So these pretending peasants should say that
they had heard that there was a great dearth of agreeable meats in that
Castle, and that they were come with some fruits for sale from the
neighbourhood of Sunderland. Then, very surely, those guards would
desire to see those fruits, for it was certain that they all in the
Castle were thirsting for such things. The false peasants should make
to open a sack, and it would be a very easy thing to let the contents of
one whole one fall to the ground and run rolling here and there. Very
surely, too, then those guards would bend down to pick up those fruits
and nuts, for it is not in human nature to withstand such a temptation.
The four knights and the esquire Cressingham should have their daggers
privily ready under their cloaks and so they might very easily stab each
of those guards in the back of the neck, and if they did that with skill
they might slay them so peaceably that they would speak never a word.
It was in that way that the Spaniards won the city of Amiens from the
French a little later.
If then those guards died without tumult the esquire Cressingham should
go quietly to the within-side of the gateway and wave a little cloth up
to those on the White Tower. If, on the other hand, they make a noise,
that outcry in itself should serve for a signal. The danger of this
enterprise was this, that if the Castle was at all diligently guarded
there would be in the chamber above that gate a great company of archers
under a captain, and if those guards should make an outcry the archers
might very easily come down and work some mischief to those knights.
Moreover, the herse or portcullis was worked from that upper chamber by
means of pulleys and chains. Thus the archers there if they knew what
was passing below might let down that portcullis and thus not only
should they catch those knights like rats in a trap, but they should
prevent others entering in.
To guard against this the Young Lovell gave the following directions: In
the first place, as soon as those guards were over-mastered or slain,
one of the knights should close the door that let men down from the
upper chamber. A very strong door it was, at the bottom of narrow
steps, so that it would be no easy task to break through it. Thus, if
those archers desired to come at those knights they must run along the
battlements and down by the steps of the tower called de Insula, and
that would take time. As for the portcullis, there was across the great
gate a very strong and stout balk of wood, running in bolts. This they
should take out and set upwards in the slots down through which the
herse descended. Once that was there there should be no closing that
way. This the Young Lovell knew very well, for once when he had been a
boy he had done it out of devilment to plague the captain of the
archers.
Upon the sign from the esquire Cressingham, or upon hearing a tumult in
the gate house, the Young Lovell, from the top of the White Tower,
should fire cannon shots into that Castle, and the firing of those shots
should serve a double purpose. In the first place they should be for a
signal to all the others to go forward; in the second, they should serve
to frighten and distract the archers in that upper chamber if that were
necessary.
Upon those sounds at once the men in the tunnel should issue out into
the kitchen and fall upon the hovels that were around the keep and slay
all that would not yield and afterwards set fire to the hovels
themselves, for that would make not enough flame to burn down the keep
but enough to smoke out all that were in it. Those that were in that
tunnel were to be the Castle Lovell bondsmen, Hugh Raket, Barty of the
Comb, and others. They should have introduced themselves secretly and
under cover of the night into Corbit Jock's Barn that stood, as had been
said, against the Castle wall, not fourteen feet from where that tunnel
came into the grassy mound. Under cover of that same darkness Sir
Matthew Grey, the elder knight, should have hidden himself with one
hundred men-at-arms and esquires, all mounted, and one hundred bowmen in
the houses of the township of Castle Lovell and in the barns, some of
which were not twenty yards from the Castle gate. And upon the firing,
those bowmen from behind the middens and the hillocks should rain arrows
at those that were on the battlements, and Sir Matthew Grey with his
men-at-arms should ride furiously up to the gate that should be kept
open for him by those five knights, and a little afterwards those bowmen
should follow, putting up their bows and drawing their hangers and
dirks.
Then, when all these engaged the attention of those of the Castle, the
Young Lovell, giving up his firing of artillery, should issue fiercely
from the White Tower over the drawbridge with the twenty or thirty men
that that tower held, and he could not well doubt that that should be
the coup de grace to those of the Castle. Then he would hang the
Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle and Henry Vesey. His sisters he
would put into nunneries, and the Decies send beyond the seas if the
monk Francis did not claim him for the courts ecclesiastical to be
broken on the wheel. But this the Young Lovell did not wish, for the
Decies was his father's son.
The Lady Margaret said that that was the very properest scheme she had
ever heard for the taking of a castle, part by stratagem and part by
force. And they walked, devising of that scheme for a long time,
beneath the night-black boughs, with the thin white moon that peeped
between and the swiftness of the river below their feet. And ever the
Lady Margaret was aware of a bitter grief in his tones, spake he never
so hotly. Ever the Young Lovell was aware that the thought of marrying
with this woman was an intolerable weariness to him, though she was
gallant and fair and loving. He looked upon her face in the moonlight
and saw how fair it was with the shadows of the hazel wands across it.
That place was called the banks of Cramlin, and bitter banks they were
to him. For there was no mark against that lady and none in those parts
could be a fitting mate for him but she. And he considered how she had
cherished him and helped him, and that he had no grief against her.
Ever he sighed deeply and yet talked of the joy they would have in
pleasaunces and in the wilderness hawking, in devising, in the stables,
picking the wild flowers in spring, watching their husbandmen with the
ploughs, sitting in the little chambers before the fire in winter, and
at bed and board. And ever the Lady Margaret put aside the talking of
those things and talked of firing cannon into Castle Lovell with the
bitter tears on her lids. She knew him so well she read his heart.
So with a heavy sigh he kissed her on the cheek her that had been used
to lie in his arms, and her tears were wet upon his lips, and in the
darkness, amidst the waternoises of those Cramlin banks--for the miller
had let down his sluices whilst they talked--amidst the glimmer of the
birch trunks that grew with the hazels, he left her that he should never
see again for many weary years. Then, with his fifty bondsmen, he rode
north into the black night beyond the ford.
It was three in the morning when the Young Lovell came to Cullerford
Tower, and it was very dark. By daylight that baleful place upon the
open moor was smoking to the sky, and that was not much more difficult
to do than cracking a walnut, though a very great and square tower it
was, more like the keep of a castle than a peel, though it followed
those lines. Forty-seven paces it was in length and twenty across, the
walls being three yards deep in solid stone. It was entered from the
ground by a door like that of a barn, and indeed the lowest story was no
more than such a barn, containing no rooms nor partitions, and serving,
in dangerous times, to store wheat, cattle or whatever the Knights of
Cullerford had that was of value. No staircase led from this story to
the rooms above, but only a ladder going to a trap hatch, so that when
that ladder was drawn up there was no coming to them of the tower. At
that time there were no men-at-arms there at all, only several old
fellows under the command of an old man called Hogarth, together with a
few women and several children, and the cattle were all in the barn
below them. The hay that they had lately got stood in stacks round
about that tower, and a hundred yards away were nearly three hundred
lambs that should have been driven to market the next day, and filled
the night with their bleatings, for they were but newly taken from their
mothers. But so sorely did Sir Walter Limousin need money that he
wished to sell them before they were ready.
The Young Lovell had with him fifty rievers mounted on little horses and
fifty men-at-arms that he had taken from Cramlin, where he had left one
hundred men under the command of the esquire La Rougerie, and that
bleating of lambs aided those rievers to creep up to that tower door.
They had the door half burst down before ever those above were aware
that they had come. Then a great wail went up from those women and
children in the tower, for they thought it had been the false Scots and
that their deaths were near. Some old men came running up on to the
battlements on the top of the tower, intending to cast down rocks and
other things on the rievers that were at work upon that stout door. But
the Young Lovell bade shoot so many arrows up that that handful of old
men could not stay there, and very loudly he called out to them his name
and titles. So an old man came to a window and said that his name was
Adam Hogarth and that he had command there. So the Young Lovell bade
him render up that tower, for he was in a hurry and could not stay to be
gentle with them, which was the greater pity, for the number of women
and children that he could hear were there by their cries. Adam Hogarth
said that he would not render up that place until they had fought well
for it, not to the brother of his lady and mistress or to any man. Then
the Young Lovell said that he was sorry for it.
It was very dark then, but those rievers were skilful men, and whilst
the Young Lovell spoke with Adam Hogarth they had that great door open
and began to drive out the cattle that came willingly enough in the
darkness, but it was dangerous work because of the horns. One hundred
and forty-seven steers were there and nineteen cows with calves, as well
as over a dozen heifers. Whilst these came out an old man at a window
above that door came with a crock of boiling water and poured it out.
It fell on no man, but on the backs of several bullocks that stampeded
into the night and came amongst the men-at-arms that were upon
horseback. This caused some confusion and the Young Lovell bade light a
torch or two, and indeed there were some torches lit in that lower barn
so that it showed like an illuminated caravan beneath the black shape of
the tower. The stars were very fine and it was very dark just before the
dawn. All the while cries went up from the women and children in the
tower; so that the night was unquiet.
Then that old man came again to the window to pour out boiling water,
but there was a little light behind him from the fire that he had used
for the heating. The Young Lovell had a bowman ready and that man
loosed an arrow. It sped invisible through the night and went in that
old man's mouth and killed him there, so that he never poured any more
water. The Young Lovell said that was very well shot, considering the
darkness of the night, and he gave that bowman two French crowns for
having done it.
Then Adam Hogarth loosed off a demi-saker that he had in an upper room.
He aimed it at the Young Lovell who stood upon a little mound with a
torch flaring near him. But that bullet went a shade wide, nevertheless
it killed a steer, striking that beast on the cheek beside the eye.
Then the Young Lovell bade put out the torches and commanded his bowmen
to direct a stream of arrows against all the windows that were on that
side of the tower, so that though that demi-saker sent out once more its
stream of flame and spoke hoarsely, that was the last of it. For the
rest of that work they could see well enough without torches; it
consisted in taking mounds of hay into that barn, and when it was half
filled they poured water and fat upon it so as to damp it, and a little
tar. Then into that mass they cast three or four torches and so they
watched it smoulder. Of flame there was very little, but the smoke and
stench in verity were insupportable, and that filtered into the upper
part of the tower.
Then the dawn began to point over the Roman wall and grey things
appeared, and fat smoke curling up all around the doomed tower in the
still air of the morning. It grew a little cold so that they must slap
their arms around them, and said that that waiting was slow work. As
soon as it was light enough, the Young Lovell began to count those
cattle. He sent men also to drive up the hurdled lambs that had cried
all night, and others to find their dams that were in charge of a
shepherd in the fields beyond the Wall. The Wall began to show clear on
top of a rise, running over the tops of hills and down into hollows,
grey, into invisibility. Then after a time, those men brought in the
sheep. They had caught that shepherd where he slept, and drove him
before them, pricking him with lances so that he commanded his dogs to
drive those sheep where they should go. Thus then were all the flocks
and herds of Cullerford collected together in a goodly concourse, and
when the Young Lovell knew that he had them all, he ordered the
men-at-arms that he had brought from Castle Cramlin to drive them to
that place, for he had no more need of men-at-arms.
So they went away over the moors to the north and east, going through a
gap in the wall just after they were out of sight. Those sheep and
cattle the Young Lovell meant for the provisioning of his mother. He
thought that his sister would not need them when her husband was hanged
and herself in a nunnery. So, whilst he stood and watched that fatly
smoking tower from which there came a strong odour of burning grease, a
great sadness fell upon him at the thought that all this profited him
nothing, for he desired none of these things for his intimate pleasure.
It was all for decency and good order in his lands that he did it, and
to punish evildoers. So his head hung down and he sat his horse like a
dying man.
It was these moods in him that the monk Francis dreaded. But the monk
Francis thought he had him safe for two days or three, for he himself
had urgent business in his monastery of Belford, more particularly over
the affair of the hermitage of Castle Lovell. For it was reported to
him that that pious hermit was really dead. During ten days he had
spoken words none at all and the stench that came out of the little hole
where they put in his bread and water was truly unbearable and such as
it had never been before. So the monk Francis had gone to Belford to
see how that might be. The Young Lovell he thought he might well leave.
For with the banquet and the sending off of his troops he would be well
occupied, and he had made the Lady Margaret promise to be a zealous
lieutenant and see that that lord was never unoccupied till he rode on
that raid. For the monk Francis considered that whilst he was upon a
raid, that emissary of Satan or whatever she was would have no power
over him, so ardent a soldier was this young lord.
But here he had reckoned without the obstinacy of Adam Hogarth who kept
all those aged men and the women and children stifling in that fat
smoke. The Young Lovell was never in greater danger. He looked down
upon the ground and sighed heavily. He had it in him to ride into a far
country and leave all those monotonies. But at last on the top of the
tower he perceived Adam Hogarth, who held up his hands. So he knew that
that tower had surrendered. Then he called out that all those in the
tower might come down a ladder that they might set down from an upper
window, and that they might bring down their clothes and gear and take
it away with them where they would--all except Adam Hogarth, with whom
he had some business. As for that Tower he meant to burn it out.
So down the ladder came thirty or forty poor people with ten or a dozen
children. Their eyes were red and wept grimy tears, and they were all
in rags of grey homespun, such as the poor wear, for Sir Walter Limousin
and his wife were very bad paymasters, and such a collection of clouts
the Young Lovell thought he had never seen in the grey of the morning.
Nay, he was moved to pity at the thought that this dishonoured his kin,
and to each of those poor people he gave a shilling that they might have
wherewithal to live till they found other masters, and to women that had
children he gave four groats. Some carried pots, some pans, and all of
that ragged company filed away over the moorlands beneath the Wall,
making mostly for Haltwhistle, and showing no curiosity at all, except
two or three old women that had to do with Adam Hogarth.
Then the Young Lovell took Adam Hogarth down to a little grove of trees
that was near the ford and asked that blear-eyed old man where his
master, Cullerford, had hidden the charters and muniments of his mother
the Lady Rohtraut; for he knew that there they were. Adam Hogarth said
that he did not know and set his teeth. Without more words the Young
Lovell had a rope brought and a slip-noose made. He sent a man up a
great elm to drop the noose over a stout branch and Adam Hogarth watched
him dumbly. Then the Young Lovell had that noose set round Adam
Hogarth, beneath the arm-pits and three men hauled him up till he hung
thirty feet high, looking down with the tears dripping out of his red
eyes. So when the Young Lovell had watched him for a minute or two and
he spoke no word, the lording walked away to where the womenkind of that
pendard were, and asked which of them were his kinswomen. One red-eyed
crone was his sister, another his wife. So the Young Lovell took that
sister to where Adam Hogarth hung and pointed him out. He bade her tell
him where those charters were, but she would not. Then he had Adam
Hogarth let down. The rope was set about his neck and the Young Lovell
bade his men haul slowly. Adam Hogarth choked in his throat and rose up
to his tip-toes, but he would make no sign with his hand and his sister
would not speak. Then that man was let down again and the Young Lovell
said it was the greater pity, for he must bring the wife. So the other
old woman was brought, and when Adam Hogarth swung the height of a man's
thigh with his feet off the ground, and his legs were working like those
of a frog and his face purple with the hempen collar round his neck and
the knot beneath his ear so that he should not die very quickly, that
old woman fell on her knees and cried out that she would tell the Young
Lovell that news. So the Young Lovell cut through that rope with his
sword to do Adam Hogarth greater honour, and he fell to the ground very
little the worse for wear.
The old woman took the Young Lovell to a haystack where, beneath the
trampled hay around it, there was a well-head locked with a great
padlock. This padlock a man with a hammer knocked off, and a chain went
down into that well, the well being dry. So they pulled up that chain,
and at the end of it was the muniment-box of the Lady Rohtraut that the
Young Lovell well knew. So when he had had the iron lid prised open
with a lance-head--for without doubt the Lady Isopel wore the little
gold key of it round her neck--the Young Lovell recognised that the
deeds were there, for, though he had no time to read them, he knew them
by their seals. Then he was well content for his mother's sake, for,
though it is a good thing to have lands in actual possession, it is
twice as well to have the muniments appertaining to them.
Then he bade his men get together what balks of timber and wood they
could find and cast them into the hay that still burned in that lower
story so that the fire might spring up, and also to take torches and
cast them through the upper windows so that that tower might well burn
in all parts where it was wooden. After that he called before him that
Adam Hogarth and commended him for his faith to his master and commended
his sister as well. And he said that that man and his sister might have
for their own, to divide between them, such steers as had escaped during
the stampede of the night before, as well as three bulls that were upon
the upper pastures with several sheep, and some pigs and hens that were
in a barn by the river and had escaped observation. And he said that
Adam and his sister might dwell in that tower, after the fire had well
burned it so that it could not be held as a fortress, but it would
shelter them very well until he should decide whether he would hold that
tower himself or till the heirs of Sir Walter Limousin should compound
with him for his sister's dower. For Sir Walter, he said, was as good
as a dead man. As for Adam Hogarth's wife, they might do what they
liked for her, but he would give her nothing, for he held that she had
not done well in betraying her master's secret, to keep which should be
the first duty of a servant, man or woman. And as for his reward to
Adam Hogarth, he gave him those things which would make him richer than
he had ever been in his life before in order to encourage such faith as
he had shown. And if he husbanded those cattle well they would increase
and multiply. But Adam Hogarth said no more than "Least said is soonest
mended," for he was a crabbed old man of few words.
Then the Young Lovell and his men made a breakfast of some small beer
and bread that they found in that tower, and so they rode away
northwards through the Wall, for it was five o'clock with the sun high
and they had far to go, but their little horses would carry them well.
He left two or three men to see that Adam Hogarth and his wife and
sister did not seek to quench that burning. But he did not think they
would, for when he looked back he could see against the pale sky the
pale flames rise over the hill.
But as soon as he was gone that Adam Hogarth fell upon his wife and beat
her very furiously. He said that he knew very well that that Young
Lovell would never have hung him, for there was no priest there to
confess him, and that never would he have betrayed that secret until
after the Young Lovell had let him be shriven. So the Young Lovell must
have paid him much money. Besides, he could have borne with hanging for
a quarter of an hour longer and come to no harm. So he beat that woman
and she screamed out, and the men that the Young Lovell had left behind
roared with laughter and the tower burned.
So, when those men caught up with the Young Lovell, which they did near
Fontoreen, west of Morpeth, they told him of the cunning of that
husbandman. So the Young Lovell did not know whether to be more vexed
with that peasant, because it was not so much love for his master as
greed that made him be half-hanged, or whether to marvel that such a low
fellow should have read his mind so well, for surely he would never have
hanged him unshriven.
They rode on all that day until they came to Sea Houses by North
Sunderland, having covered nearly sixty miles of rough country, for they
went by the South Forest and past Rothbury and the high moors so that
they might not be observed. Four miles from Sea Houses, it being then
ten o'clock at night, the Young Lovell sent his men forward towards
Castle Lovell, and in a fisherman's hut on the sounding pebbles of the
sea he found the monk Francis, who was very glad to see him and glad of
his news. The monk had been that day in the village of Castle Lovell
and had found that the hermit was indeed dead. So he had appointed the
day following at six in the evening for skilled masons to come and
disinter that holy man to give him holy burial. For he thought that by
that hour the Young Lovell would be well established in his Castle.
So when they had exchanged their news the lord and the monk lay down to
sleep a little on a pile of nets that the fisherman heaped up for them
in a corner of his hut, he himself lying outside upon seaweed with his
wife. At a quarter to three he waked them and they set out upon their
voyage to the White Tower. There was a good following breeze from the
due south, so that they might well come to Castle Lovell in an hour or a
little under. But the dancing motion of that little boat made that monk
Francis very ill, which was great pity for the Young Lovell. With
fasting, prayer and vigil that good monk was become very weak, though he
had once been a very strong knight. He lay on the bottom-boards of that
boat, and so deeply had he fainted that when they had come to the little
harbourage beneath the White Tower he was insensible and they could not
tell that he was not dead. So there was no getting him up the ladder of
iron spikes that was all the way there was into that tower from the sea.
The Young Lovell would not trust those spikes to bear the two of them or
he would have carried the monk up. So he climbed up alone, and Richard
Bek and the others were awaiting. But the fisherman rowed that monk
straight to the shore and carried him over the sand to the township.
Here in a hut he found the Lady Margaret of Glororem, who had ridden all
that day and night before to come there. So she tended that monk and in
about an hour he could stand again. But then there was no way of coming
into that tower.
Therefore the monk Francis and the Lady Margaret went up to the little
mound on which was the chapel the Young Lovell had first watched his
harness in. This was so near the Castle that half of the bowmen under
Sir Matthew Grey had been appointed to spend the night in it so that
they might come out when the gun fired and shoot their arrows against
the battlements between de Insula and Wanshot Towers. So that monk and
that lady knelt in that porch, and between their prayers for the success
of their dear lording they watched the dawn pointing over the sea, which
came with the grey forms of waterspouts. These moved silently, here and
there upon the horizon. So they saw the sun come up white and fiercely
shining between those monstrous appearances. The monk Francis said that
that pale sunrise was a certain sign that the weather was breaking, and
he thanked God that all their hay was in. Then they saw the Young
Lovell spring up on to the coping of the White Tower. So clear the
weather and the light were that they could mark the little lion's head
that was carved on the peak of his helmet like the handle of a curling
stone.
So he went down out of sight again and they prayed very fiercely,
holding each other's hands for comfort. The bowmen whispered from the
door behind to know if it were not near time. White smoke flew out from
the top of that tower, and the monk cried out so loudly that they never
heard the sound of the shot, for he knew that the great gateway was
taken. Out ran the archers with their bows bent and stood on the green
sward. They shot arrows high so that they fell over the
battlements--long arrows with great feathers of the grey goose that
journeyed intently through the air. So that gun sounded again and
again, and they saw the Young Lovell once more upon that coping. The
bowmen in the Castle were sending arrows up against him, but they
glanced off his armour because of their slanting flight. He stood there
looking down and behind him were the grey waterspouts.
Now as for such as dwelt within the Castle:
A little before the exact minute of sunrise such of them that slept were
awakened by the firing of cannon shot, two following. A stone ball came
into the window of the Lady Douce and broke a chest. Then from many
quarters there came cries, sharp but short like gun shots. And then one
scream so high and dreadful that all men stood deaf and amazed. Such a
cry had never before been heard in all Northumberland amidst the rain of
arrows. There were men bursting in at the great gate of the Castle and
others with their swords high coming from the men's kitchen that was
between the tower called Constance and that called Wanshot. The men
upon the battlements had their bows bent or held up beams and bolts of
iron, or were setting iron poles under great stones to roll them down
through the machicolations. And the Knight of Wallhouses was whispering
to the Lady Douce, who had run down into the great hall, that there were
no men coming against the little postern nearest the sea, and that he
and she and his men would make their way out of the Castle by the gate.
That tide of dreadful war had come upon them so quickly that it seemed
as if, before Henry Vesey's eyes could see, men were bursting in at the
great gate and from other places in the Castle. Then he knew that the
Young Lovell must be aware of secret ways in that none of them had heard
of, and before that fray was two minutes gone he knew that they were
lost. Therefore he made ready to get himself gone by the postern.
But when that most dreadful cry was heard all those people stood still;
the men with bows, balks, and levers, the men running in with swords;
Sir Henry whispering; the Lady Isopel calling from her window; the
Decies turning in his bed, and Sir Symonde running along the
battlements. That cry deprived them of the powers of motion and made
their bones quiver within their flesh like shaken reeds. Some that then
heard it said afterwards that it was no more than the voice of the
elements.
The monk Francis deemed to the end of his life that he had heard the cry
of fear of a false goddess, for, when he went, a broken man, to commune
of these things with the Bishop Palatine, that Bishop told him that so
that false goddess whom they most dreaded and who is the bane of all
Christendom, since in quiet hearts she setteth carnal desire--so that
false goddess had cried out when, in the form of a cloud of mist or may
be of a rainspout, she had hastened to the rescue of the hero Paris.
That had been at the siege of a strong Castle called Troy. That Paris
of Troy she had carried away to the top of a high hill near the town, as
it might have been Spindleston Crags, and there she had kept him till
that battle was done. And part of the cry had been for fear, and partly
it was from pain because an arrow had struck her, she being vulnerable,
though her blood would turn to jewels.
So the monk Francis was very certain that he had heard at least the cry
of fear of a false goddess wailing for her love, and that in the
waterspout that bore the Young Lovell away he had seen her twisting and
writhing form. Whether she were wounded or not he did not know, but he
hoped she was, and well she might have been, for arrows a many were
glancing round the form of the Young Lovell where he stood upon the
battlements, and all around him and below people stood rigid like
figures seen in a flash of lightning whose hearts had ceased to beat,
and it fell as black as in the hour before the dawn.
Sir Symonde Vesey, who had been running along the battlements looking
up, perceived, so near his hand could touch them, millions of little
black clouds twisting in an agony like snakes. Then all that water fell
upon him and hurled him from that height into the inner court, where he
lay senseless a long while, and so was drowned in a gutter. There was
no man there could stand up against that torrent of rain twisting round.
Four waterspouts struck that Castle one after the other, and for ten
hours so it rained that most of the hovels in the courtyard were washed
down, and the mud there was so deep it was up to a man's thighs.
Men fought a little in the corridors, and some three or four were killed
in the great kitchen where some had taken refuge. But they could find
none of their leaders for a long time, and most of them gave over.
IV
At seven of that night the monk Francis with his masons had opened the
hermitage, and lay brothers from the little monastery had borne the
hermit's rotten corpse in a sheet into the church where a coffin was.
So, because of the terrible smell, they carried the coffin itself out
from that church and set it in the grave, though that was so full of
rain-water that the coffin floated in it and the funeral rites were
inaudible in the heavy gusts of rain. Though it was no more than eight
o'clock in July the sky lowered, so that in the shadow of the church it
was night.
The monk Francis staggered as he walked; his face was like alabaster
where no mud was on it, and mud was over all his habit, splashed above
the shoulder as if he had torn through brakes above water-courses. All
that while he groaned and beat his chest and looked fearfully, now up
the hills, now out to sea, now towards Scotland. Once whilst the masons
worked he had fallen on his face in the water that ran round the church
end.
But he had that hermitage for his charge and he would let no man lead
him away. So, in that darkness, whilst the wind sighed furiously in the
trees and the rain was in all their faces, they buried that holy man as
best they might, saying that they would hold a fairer ceremony upon
another day, for they were all affrighted and cast down by the events of
that day and the heavy disasters that might follow. Then, as the lay
brothers were bearing away the stretcher upon which they had carried
that coffin, one of them cried out like a scream. Against the steely
light of the North he had perceived a great cloak tossing out, over the
churchyard wall. Then all heard a voice calling to them to send a
religious there. So the abbot bade an old monk go, for that might be
some sinner that desired to become an eremite in place of that holy man
now dead. For thus God works in His wondrous way.
And so indeed it proved. They all stood there in the rain whilst the
old monk talked to that form of darkness. The monk Francis was on his
knees. Then that old monk came back to them and said that here indeed
was come one that desired to go into that little hermit's kennel and
there end his days. He was one that had been a good knight, but had
sinned so grievously that until he was shriven he would not come upon
the holy ground of that churchyard, and he desired the monk Francis to
come to him and shrive him! Then that monk cried out with fear, but
afterwards he went without the wall and stayed there. The tossing form
had disappeared; for the man had kneeled down for his confession.
In the thick darkness the monk Francis came back to those that stayed
and said that he approved that that man should be the eremite.
It all passed in the black night. That shape passed in at the little
hole the masons had made, and an old mason, so skilled that he could do
his work in the dark, put again those stones in their places. Then
those monks sang as best they could the canticle "Ad te clamavi," and
all men went away to talk under their beaten roofs of these fearful
things. Upon all that place the black night came down, whipped by the
fell and chilly rain, and all over that churchyard the water gurgled and
washed, for it lay very low and all the gutters of the church poured
down their invisible floods.
In a very high valley of Corsica the mistress of the world sate upon a
throne of white marble in a little round temple that would not hold more
than two or three people. A round roof it had, like a pie-dish, and
little columns of white marble. All up the green grass of that valley
amongst the asphodels walked her women, devising and sporting, in gowns
of white and playing at ball with a sphere of gold. Down the valley ran
a fierce stream with great and vari-coloured rocks, and in that warm
place the sound of its torrent was agreeable to the ear. Agreeable too
was the sight of the dazzling snows upon the Golden Mountain; they shone
in the sun and the sky was more blue than can be imagined. At the feet
of the goddess sat a large woman and extremely fair. Beside her, so that
he held her hand, sitting on a couch of rosemary, was a dark shepherd
very limber in his bronzed limbs, wearing a tunic of goat skins, a chain
of gold that supported a gourd, a Phrygian cap of scarlet woollen work
that was entwined with the leaves of the vine upon his black locks. He
had in his hand a bow of ivory with tips of gold.
So they sate at ease and looked out of that temple. In his shining
armour a young knight that sat upon his steel horse was devising with a
hero of the gentle feats of arms. This hero was lithe rather than huge
of form. His face was stern and commanding at the same time that it was
open and courteous and attentive. He was naked, and whilst he gazed
with attention upon the young knight's arms, he rested his harmonious
limbs, leaning upon a round shield of triple-plated bronze. Upon his
head was his helmet of shining bronze with a great plume of horsehair
that nodded far forward over his brows; in his right hand was a very
heavy spear tipped with bronze, and upon his bare legs he had bronze
greaves. And they were talking of the respective fitnesses of the arms
that they bore. Just where they stood was a level sward that might be a
quarter of a mile across.
Then that hero signed with his spear and there came out from a thicket a
chariot of ivory drawn by four white horses driven by a helmeted
charioteer. So that hero mounted into the chariot and covered the
charioteer and himself with the great shield and took from the
charioteer three casting spears that were very heavy in the beam, and so
they went at it for the entertainment of the onlookers. Here and there
over that little plain darted the ivory chariot with the white horses.
That hero was seeking to get to the hindward of the young knight to cast
his spears, for he considered that the war-horse was not limber. But he
was limber enough, and always the shield with the chequers of green and
scarlet faced the white chariot. So they went at it.
At the last the hero cast his three spears, one upon the horse, one upon
the shield, and one upon the helmet of the good knight. But the bronze
bent upon the steel; it would not enter in though it were thrown with
never such a force. The young knight reeled in his saddle, and his
steed upon his feet. Yet, as that hero drove the chariot in, to cast the
last spear, the young knight spurred his horse suddenly in upon them,
and though the charioteer was very agile with his car, nevertheless the
young lord's spear met the great shield of bronze and pierced it
through; between the hero and the other the point went, and the ivory
wheels of the chariot broke and the white horses fell one upon the
other, being taken upon the side by that steel-clad horse. Then that
hero sprang from the chariot and ran more swiftly than the young lord
could follow to a great rock that was in the grass by the streamside.
So he had up the great rock of marble before ever Hamewarts was upon
him, and cast that rock upon horse and rider so that both fell down
among the asphodels. Then that knight in armour drew himself from under
his horse, for the ground there was soft and marshy, and he was but
little crushed. And so he stood up upon his feet, having in one hand his
bright dagger that was the length of his fore-arm. And that hero had
had no time to cast himself upon the knight, for he was for the moment
out of breath with the exertion of casting that great rock.
So all there were well pleased and declared that that was a drawn
battle. They had off their harness and their clothes and went all
a-bathing in the foam of that rapid stream. And, as each one would have
it, so those bright waters were warmed by the heat of the sunlight
through which they had passed, or icy with the snows that had been their
origin.
And afterwards, the women of the goddess anointed the limbs of those
combatants with juices and oils so that all their wounds were healed
whether of the horses or the heroes. And those women took the harness,
both of the bright steel and of the sounding bronze, and rubbing upon
the dents with their smooth fingers, soon they had all marks of that
combat erased so that the armours shone like waters reflecting the blue
sky or like the beaten gold of a bride's girdle. Then all lay them down
upon couches of rosemary, heather or asphodel, that were covered with
the white fleeces of rams, each person being with whom he would. And
they fell to devising from couch to couch, some of times past, some of
times to come, and others upon what should have been the issue of that
late combat had it been fought upon the wearisome fields known to mortal
man. Some said the hero would have won it though arms he had none, for
he could run the more swiftly, and might make shift with rocks and
stones to pelt that knight until his armour broke. But others said that
soon that horse would have revived and the knight, mounting there upon
and recovering his great spear would spit that naked hero as he ran,
through the back.
Through the opening of that valley the goddess showed them the blue sea
with triremes upon it, the white foam going away from their oars as they
had fought at Actium. The galleys of Venice she showed them too, all
gilded and with the embroidered sails bellying before the soft winds.
The cities of the plains they saw, and Rome and Delphi and Tyre, and
cities to come that appeared like clouds of smoke, with tall columns
rising up and glittering. So, courteously, they devised upon all things,
and that knight thought never upon the weariness of Northumberland or
upon how his mortal body lived in the little hermitage not much bigger
than a hound's kennel that was builded against the wall of the
church....
No, there they lay or walked in lemon groves devising of this or that
whilst the butterflies settled upon their arms. And when they would
have it night, so there was the cool of the evening and a great moon and
huge stars and dimness fit for the gentle pleasures of love.
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.