Part 5 (2/2)
VIII.
The day before King Stephen marched from Oxenford to pursue the countess, our lord abbat, who grieved to see that his brother of Abingdon was influenced by the changes of the times and by the rumour of the great force which the Earl of Gloucester had brought with him, took his departure for his own abbey, and with us went Sir Alain de Bohun, who needs must restore his beloved son to his ladie and home ere he tried again the fortune of war or entered upon any new emprise. The lord of Caversham took with him a score of retainers, so that we were now sixty-two well-armed men. The young Lord Arthur sometimes rode before his father, and sometimes a maneged horse by himself, for the boy was now in his tenth year, and had been taught by times to do that which befits a knight. A proud and happy man I wis was Sir Alain as he looked upon his only son and thought of the great joy their return would give to the Ladie Alfgiva. Much also did I converse with the young Lord Arthur on the road, and he did tell me how much he had grieved when Sir Ingelric had carried away from him his little playmate who had travelled with him so many days in horse litters, and who had abided with him in so many castles that he could not tell the names of half of them. A shrewd brave boy was the young Lord Arthur, and for his age marvellously advanced in letters; and I, Felix, had at times given him instruction before that Sir Ingelric did steal him away from his home so feloniously. Again, though through no fear, since our party was so strong and warlike, we shunned the towns.h.i.+ps and castles that lay near our road. Also did we choose another ford whereby to cross the river Ock without pa.s.sing near the walls of that uncivil castellum that lay in the swamps; for we were all anxious to be home and had no tools for trying a siege; nay, had we not among us so much as a single scaling ladder. Yet when we came to our poor house at Pangbourne we heard that which did put us in heart to undertake the storming of a castle. It was dark night when we arrived there, and the day had been a day of heavy snow with rain, and I was sitting with a few others by the kitchen fire in the chimney nook drying myself, when a little boy of the village came in and tugged me by the sleeve, and said that there was one without who would speak with me. Such message liked me not, nor did the time of night, for I thought of Urswick and his h.e.l.l-horse; nevertheless I soon followed the boy to the house porch, and thereby I found a lonely man, sitting on a cold wet stone, with his face m.u.f.fled, and his body bent to the earth like one sore afflicted. Started I not back with the thought that the form that I saw was but the spectrum of Urswick! It spake not, nor did it move. I turned me round to grasp my conductor by the arm, but the boy was gone; and I stood alone with that lone and dolorous figure which I could but faintly see, for there was no moon, and the stars were overcast with black clouds, and verily my fears or my exceeding great awe did not aid my eyesight. But at last the figure rose from the cold stone and said, ”Is it thou, oh Felix? Is it thou, my once friend?”
The voice was that of John-a-Blount from Maple-Durham; and before I could say ”It is even I,” that erring novice clasped me by the hand and peered into my face, and turned me towards the faint uncertain light, and then fell upon my neck, and wept aloud. I led him farther from the house-door, and when he grew calmer I communed with him where none might overhear his words; but I took not this step until he vowed to me that his soul was penitent, and that he had come unto Pangbourne only to do a good deed. He confessed unto me that the love of woman had been his undoing, that one of the countess's foreign damsels had practised upon him and bewitched him, and that he had done many deadly sins on her account in battles and nightly surprisals, and the burning and storming of towns. But after a season the young c.o.c.katrice had scorned his love, and had told him that she must mate with a great lord, and not with a runagate shaveling, who had neither house nor lands: and at her own prayer her mistress, the Countess Matilda, had sent poor John-a-Blount away to serve with Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe, and Sir Ingelric had for a long time left him in his castle with a gang of robbers and cut-throats.
”Oh, John-a-Blount!” said I, ”these foreign women be worse than painted sepulchres. I doubt not that Urswick was entreated in like manner by his leman.”
”He was, and worse,” quoth John; ”and it did drive him into a boiling madness, and into the doing of the most savage deeds.”
”Urswick had ever a wild heart and volage thoughts; Urswick perished in his guilt,” said I: ”but thou are more fortunate in that thou livest to repent.”
”I know his fate,” said John, ”and may the saints now spare us the sight of him on his infernal steed! By all the saints that preside over our house at Reading, I was penitent before; but the tale of these nightly visitings of my comrade Urswick did complete my guerison, and make me resolve to do that which I have now come hither to propose.”
”What good and expiatory deed is that?”
”The delivering up of Sir Ingelric's detestable castle,” replied John-a-Blount.
”That were a good deed if thou couldest do it.”
”I can,” said John, ”if a few will march thitherward with me; for there be those within that will help me, captives that I can release from their chains, and unwilling va.s.sals of Sir Ingelric. Dost comprehend me, Felix?”
I then asked whether the little Alice were safe within the castle, and whether Sir Ingelric's second wife were a mate worthy of such a husband, for fame reported her to be so, and it was hard to think well of one who had married the slayer of the husband of her youth. John gave me a.s.surance that Alice was there, and harshly used by her step-mother, and that the said dame was well nigh as merciless and rapacious as her present lord, keeping prisoners in the donjon and putting them to the torture for their money.
”But we lose time,” said John; ”the deed in hand must be done to-night, or some within the h.e.l.lish cavern will be racked to-morrow morning. So lead me to the prior--to the new lord abbat I would say--that I may propound my plan unto him or unto Sir Alain de Bohun. When the deed shall be done they will throw me into the abbey prison; but I am past caring for that, and have not long to live.”
I told him that our new abbat, the Lord Reginald, was the most indulgent of men, and Sir Alain the most generous, but he would not be comforted.
While walking back to the porch of the Pangbourne house I did inquire of him how he so well knew about our coming and our party; and to this he made answer that Sir Ingelric's castellan, who had gotten by his stealthy movements and savage a.s.saults the name of the Wolf, did constantly keep in his pay some wretched serfs who acted as scouts and spies, and ofttimes lured heedless men to their destruction. ”Ye were watched,” said John, ”at your going unto Oxenford, and would have been attacked if you had not been so well provided; and ye have been tracked and watched on the return, and I, upon the report of those espials, and upon a feigned show of great zeal, have been sent hither by Sir Ingelric's fit mate to see whether an attack might not be made during the darkness of the night upon my lord abbat's horses and baggage.”
”May the foul fiend reward that same unwomanly ladie for the impious intention,” said I.
”He will,” quoth John, ”if the good lords will but take counsel of so lowly and miserable a man as I am.”
When we came near unto the porch, the heart of my sad companion failed him, and he said that he could not face the lord abbat so suddenly, and that it were better I went in to prepare the way for him. I had no suspicion of his penitence or his present good faith, but my short experience in war had made me wary, and I called to some men-at-arms that were tending their horses in the stable, and bade them look to the stranger. My lord abbat and Sir Alain were already at their supper, and savoury was the smell of the fried fish of Thamesis and the roasted meats that were spread on the table before them; but before he heard half of that which I had to say, the abbat thrust aside his platter and gave thanks to Heaven as for the return of a prodigal son, and thanked the patron saints of our abbey for so good a prospect of destroying a nest of robbers; and Sir Alain gave thanks for the same, and for so fair a hope of recovering the gentle little Alice; and the young Lord Arthur, who was eating at a side table placed near the fire, started to his feet and said that he would go with sword and pike to break open the wicked castle and recover his playmate; and they all three bade me hasten to the porch and bring in John-a-Blount. Many a hardened sinner would have been brought to repentance if he could but have seen in how kindly a manner the lord abbat received the penitent stray sheep of his flock. He raised John from the earth, he told him that his sins would be forgiven him, he bade him be of good cheer, and to put some little present cheer into the haggard trembling young man he gave him a cup of wine in his own silver cup. Although he had been straitened by no siege and had undergone no compulsory fast, the face of that black-eyed damsel that wore a green kirtle was not more changed than that of John-a-Blount: and I almost shuddered as I looked upon it in the bright light of that room.
The abbat and Sir Alain listened with eager attention to the unhappy youth; and when they had heard him out his plan was speedily agreed. He would hasten back to the foul den he had left, and tell Sir Ingelric's people that the weary travellers were buried in sleep, and that there was the fittest opportunity in the world for seizing their cattle and baggage, and bringing off a rich booty. The entire garrison of the castle was barely two-score men. One half of these would sally to make the booty, and these might all be seized on their march by an ambuscade of my lord abbat's followers. Of those that would remain within the castle sundry were ready to revolt, and John-a-Blount would release the many prisoners, and slay the castellan, that ravenous wolf, in the den.
”My son,” said the abbat, as John was taking his hasty departure, ”do what thou wilt with the Wolf, but spare Sir Ingelric's wife.”
”And,” said Sir Alain, ”as thou valuest thine own life, or the future health of thy repentant soul, have a care of the little Alice in the affray.”
John laid his right hand upon his breast, and bowed lowly. Following him almost to the door of the room our kind-hearted lord abbat said, ”Still there is one thought that doth spoil my present hope and joy: thou mayest fail in thine enterprise, and if thou art but suspected thou wilt be murthered by that b.l.o.o.d.y Wolf. Bethink thee, my son! Peradventure it may be better that thou stayest in safety where thou art, and that we leave this vile castellum to be reduced by regular siege at some future day.”
”My lord and father,” said John, dropping on his knee, and kissing the abbat's hand, ”should I die in the attempt to perform a good deed, thou wilt have prayers and ma.s.ses said for me. But I shall not die to-night, and I see no chance of miscarriage. I could wish that for me the danger were greater, that it might the better stand as an atonement for my many transgressions.”
”Go then, my son, and G.o.d speed thee! And then will we ourselves shrieve thee, and absolve thee after some due penitence, and make thee sound in conscience, and heart-whole and happy again.”
John-a-Blount kissed the abbat's hand once more, and prayed the saints to bless him: but as he rushed out at the door we saw big tears in his eyes, and heard him mutter that he should never be happy again in this world.
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