Volume I Part 5 (1/2)
”Bring in the woman!”
The command was followed by the entrance of Cicely. Leaning on her crutch, she bent lowly before the chief.
”Hast thou any suit or accusation to prefer against these men, as touching thy boy?”
”Oh, my lord!” said the dame, weeping, ”I never aforetime knew him missing; and he has slept i' the Killer Dane, where the great battle was fought below the castle. He has watched i' the 'Thrutch,' where the black dog haunts from sunset till c.o.c.k-crow. He has leapt over the fairies' ring and run through the old house at Gozlewood, and no harm has befallen him; but he is now ta'en from me,--cast out, maybe, into some noisome pit. The timbers and stones are leapt on to the hill again, but my boy is not there!”
She wept and wrung her withered hands.
”Hast thou any witness against these men?”
”Oh! my lord, they bribed me with their gifts that I should suffer the boy to watch; and I am poor, and I thought he wore a charmed life, and the little h.o.a.rd would be a comfort and a stay in my old age.”
”Thou hast done wickedly in this,” said the lord. ”Howbeit, I will keep them in the stocks; peradventure it may quicken the wits of their outdoor friends to find out the mover of these scurvy pranks. The post and timbers would not go up hill unless some knave had holpen to lift them.”
Nicholas was departing to the indulgence of his favourite pastime, when a loud hubbub was heard without, and presently a fellow was pushed in by the pressure of the crowd upon his shoulders; but they drew back, on finding the immediate presence of their chief.
This man was accounted the most notorious idler in the neighbourhood, hight ”Barnulf with the nose.” His eyes looked red and swollen, and his senses had become muddled and obtuse with long steeping. Silence was immediately enforced, while the a.s.sembly anxiously awaited the interrogation of this intolerable coveter of barley-drink.
”Art thou again at thy freaks?” said the Thane, angrily: ”thou hast soon forgotten the stocks and the whipping-post on Easter-day. It were well that Nicholas should refresh thy memory in this matter.”
At this dreaded name the poor wretch fell on his face.
”Please ye, my lord,” said he, hardly raising his head from the floor, ”I am here but for a witness beliken. I am breeding of no broil, save an' my gossip o' yesternight drew me into a tussle with old Split-Feet and his company.”
He groaned, but not without considerable effort, and his face puckered in a heap at the recollection.
”What!--the foul fiend helped thee to thy liquor, I trow?” said Gamel, hastily. ”Think not to foist thy fooleries upon me. Should I find thee with a lie on thy tongue, the hide were as well off thy shoulders. To thy speech--quick, what sawest thou?”
”I will give it all, withouten a word but what the blessed saints would avouch,” said the terrified supplicant, whose once fiery face was now blanched, or rather dyed of a dull and various blue.
”I was wending home from Merland, where I had been helping Dan the smith to his luckpenny, when as I took the path-road down yonder unlucky hill to the ford, not thinking of the de'il's workmen that had flown off with the church the night before, I was whistling, or, it mayhap, singing,--or--or--I am not just particular to know how it was, for the matter of it; but at any rate I was getting up, having tumbled down the steep almost nigh to the bottom, and I thought my eyes had strucken fire, for I saw lights frisking and frolicking up and down the hill.
Then I sat down to watch, and, sure enough, such a puck-fisted rabble, without cloak or hosen, I never beheld--all hurry-scurry up the hill, and some of the like were on the gallop down again. They were shouting, and mocking, and laughing, like so many stark-mad fools at a May-feast.
They strid twenty paces at a jump, with burdens that two of the best oxen about the manor had not s.h.i.+fted the length of my thumbnail. 'Tis some unlucky dream, said I, rubbing the corners of my eyes, and trying to pinch myself awake. Just then I saw a crowd of the busiest of 'em running up from the river, and making directly towards the steep bank below where I sat. They were hurrying a great log of timber, which they threw down close beside me, as if to rest ere they mounted. 'My friends,'--what should ail me to talk to 'em I cannot tell,--'My friends, but ye seem to have more work in your hands than wit in your noddles--ye might have spared yourselves the labour, I trow.' With that the whole rout turned upon me with a shout and a chattering that would have dumbfounded the shrillest tongue in the whole hundred--the mill-wheel was nothing to it. I would have escaped, but my feet were holden like as they had been i' the stocks. One, the foremost of the crew--I do think he had a long tail and gaping hoofs, but I was over frightened to see very clear--came with a mocking malicious grin, his tongue lolling out, and his eyes glaring and fiend-like.
”'Pray, good friend,' said he, pulling off a little black bonnet, 'be compa.s.sionate enough to help us with our load to the hill-top.' Now was I terrified beyond measure, insomuch that I made a desperate tug, whereby loosening myself, I ran like the wind, the wicked fiends following and roaring after me with loud and bitter curses. I jumped into the river, in my hurry having missed the ford, and I heard 'em still shouting, and, as I thought, pursuing me; but the Virgin and St Chadde were my helpers, for when Biddy opened the door in the morning, I lay there in a great swoon, with my head bruised, and a hole in my good grey cloak.”
”And so thou comest here a-boasting of thy drunken discoveries,” said the Thane. ”Thou shalt wish thou hadst not gotten thee so soon from the fiend's clutches. A spice of old Nicholas' vocation may not be amiss; yet, by way of relish to thy tale”----
The agony of the culprit was loud and appalling, but the chief was inexorable, until his denunciations were interrupted by a stranger, who craved a short respite for the groaning supplicant.
He was meanly clad: a coa.r.s.e cloak, stained and threadbare, was thrown open, showing a close habit of the most ordinary fabric; yet a natural and graceful bearing imparted a dignity even to his poor and worthless habiliments.
”I am a stranger, and sore oppressed with long travel. Penury and misfortune have been my lot, and I am driven from place to place without a home or a morsel of bread. Last night, long after the curfew, I came hither, but no _hospitium_ or religious house being near, I sat down by the hill-side yonder, until morning should enable me to crave help for my hopeless journey. The morning had not dawned ere I awoke--a loud trampling, and a rush of many voices had broken in upon my slumbers. I beheld crowds of strange-looking men, laden with terrific burdens. They seemed to be eagerly and earnestly at work, under heavier loads than I thought mortal man could sustain; the whole s.p.a.ce too, as far as the eye might carry, seemed alive with them, the flickering of their torches forming a scene of almost unimaginable splendour. Right before me were a number of these labourers, hauling up a heavy beam from the river; others were apparently crossing, laden with materials no less bulky and intractable. All were in motion, wriggling along like so many ants on a hillock. The party just before me stayed immediately below where I sat, watching their proceedings with no little curiosity and amazement. They threw down their load,--then pausing, appeared to view with some hesitation the steep bank above them. The foremost of the group now came softly towards me. Pulling off his bonnet, with a grave and beseeching aspect he craved help to accomplish the ascent. Not then dreaming of goblins and their deceitful glamour, I put my shoulder to the work with a right good will; and truly it were a marvel to watch the tough beam, how it seemed to obey the impulse. I worked with all the might I could muster, but it appeared as though little were needful; and in a trice we scrambled to the top, when the whole party scampered off, leaving me to follow or not, as I chose. I saw something tossed towards me, which glistened as it lay at my feet. Stooping, I found a silver ring, beauteously bedecked with one glowing crystal. Round the rim is formed a quaint legend, bearing a fair device, which some learned clerk may perchance decipher.”
The stranger drew from his finger a ma.s.sy ring. A little ferret-eyed monk, a transcriber of saints' legends and Saxon chronicles, was immediately called. He p.r.o.nounced the writing heathenish, and of the Runic form. A sort of free translation may be given as follows:--
”The Norman shall tread on the Saxon's heel, And the stranger shall rule o'er England's weal; Through castle and hall, by night or by day The stranger shall thrive for ever and aye; But in Rached, above the rest, The stranger shall thrive best.”