Part 13 (1/2)
The Lady Edith dipped a clout in the well and bathed the heads and necks of the little ones, gave them to drink, and set them to lie in the shade. Soon the girl-child stirred and wept, and Edith lifted her up in her arms. A shrill cry made us all turn to behold a poorly-clad woman, hot and unkempt, who stumbled towards us, tears in her eyes and terror in her voice.
”Ye naughty ones!” she stormed at sight of the children. ”Here have I been....”
Then she stopped short, with open mouth, and stared at the slender, bare-headed woman who held her younger child, until one whispered: ”It is the King's Lady!” when she louted down upon her knees.
”Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+” said Lady Edith to her sobbing burden. ”Fear not, sweetheart! Thou must go home now--go to thy mother indeed!” and she laid her in the arms of the kneeling woman.
Never had she been more lovely than in that moment, her face s.h.i.+ning like a rose, her eyes most tender and brightly-beaming. When, a short while after, she turned from mother and child and came seeking me, a huge pity rushed up within me, and I think that she read that pity in my look.
”Dread lady,” said I, being a little mazed, and all soft with ruth, ”how goes it with our Lord the King?”
”Whenas I left my lord, all was right well with him,” she answered. ”He had some sickness in the spring, but it irked him little, truly, for his years. Such an holy life he leads, and yet he is so long-enduring towards them of worldly mind! It is great joy to me that I may see him sometimes, and be somewhat near him.”
She crossed herself, and the fair light faded from her.
”Wherefore do I murmur?” said she. ”Is not Jordan flood better than all the rivers of Damascus?”
And so saying, she folded her meek hands above her heart, and went her way.
I never saw her again. The well that she found for us abideth for her memorial: clear and cool in every weather--the freshest in all the countryside. I have often thought of her since that day; and I think of her more often now than ever in the long night hours that are not the drowsy hours when one has grown old. Dreams, Gundred, dreams--waking dreams, but idle things none the less! But sometimes meseemeth that her very self is near me, standing as I best knew her, arms outheld, face aglow. She lived and died childless; the old King had made an oath, they say, for fear he might fall short of heaven. Once or twice evil tongues have made free to slander her fame! She was staunch, I know, and flawless; and yet her heart was quick and warm. Girl, I have ever recked little of the greater deal of the saints to whom prelates bid us pray. Of G.o.d and of his goodness I reck much; and this is the saint whom I wors.h.i.+p before all others, crowned in this world or uncrowned--Edith the well-beloved Lady, whom all her people honoured and pitied.
Richard the Scrob
”Better than mine, Kenric--better than thine!” said Grim. ”Ever his are taken, and ours are left. Who will look at our sheep and our oxen when the Scrob's are by?”
Kenric withdrew the straw that he had been chewing from between his teeth, and ceased to stare at the white-limbed, red-spotted cattle in the pen before him.
”Eh! he buyeth for the Bishop,” he mumbled. ”And he buyeth for the folk of Hereford town. And for the Abbot of Leominster. And for the Prior of Wenlock. His salted meat is rowed upon Wye and upon Severn to feed the merchantmen of Bristol. Grim, this Frenchman is a worker of spells.”
”And even so the beasts of his own breeding are such as thou wilt not meet with on any other man's land within the two s.h.i.+res. Heavier!
Fatter! Sleeker! I would that his lord the devil would fly away with him soon! Hast thou but seen his woolsacks yonder? What other has such great store to sell? True, he can have little spinning at home, with no women.”
”I have not seen him--Richard the Scrob,” said vague Kenric, returning to his straw-munching. ”Are not these sold already----”
”Kenric, stand not and grumble, with blind eyes,” cried Munulf the maltman, who now accosted these two. ”Here is a sight not often seen--the little widow, Kenric, the plump widow. Look up and behold the light of thine eyes, where she cometh, girt about with her husband's stalwart kinsfold.”
”Hey? who?” Kenric rejoined. ”Who cometh yonder? Alftrude the widow of Winge? Oh, aye, it is a pretty woman enough----”
”And should be rich woman enough,” said Grim. ”They are watchdogs indeed, the brethren of the Moor. I wonder that they let her show her nose at Ludford fair--so little and straight is it that many a man will love it, by heaven! My good wife pities Alftrude greatly. She will be widow to the end of her days, they ward her about so wilily.”
”I know it, I know it!” wheezed Kenric. ”And Ulwin, Alward, and Ednoth--they are three ill men to deal withal. Alack! no hope have I!”
He summoned up a faint sigh of good-humoured resignation. ”If but now thou found me grumbling,” he explained, ”it was at French Richard.”
Munulf raked his fingers through his long yellow hair, and looked mysterious.
”I have heard cunning talk of late,” said he ”Men say that these outland folk that swarm about our King shall soon be outlanders twofold; for shall they not be bundled off, beyond the seas, whither they came? Earl G.o.dwin called together his Mickle Gemot seven weeks ago. I would we knew how that has sped. G.o.dwin is wont to bring about his will!”
”Why, my lords, he hath brought it about, the good Earl!” sounded in an excited cackle behind them. Hildred the ale-wife hastened to join the three speakers, her red face unusually resplendent with pride in being foremost retailer of news for that day. ”A man of Worcester brought great tidings yestereve. G.o.dwin is driving out the accursed Normans, every one--man, woman, child, and priest. Even Ralf our Earl, the King's nephew, shall go, though his mother were English G.o.dgifu!”