The Serf

The squire made a funnel of his hands and gazed at the flag. "A moline cross, if I see aright," he said, "but it does not matter. Roger's flag eke his coat-armour, are what he has a mind to use, not what he useth by any right of birth."

"Can'st see what they are doing out by the carts – by the edge of the orchard?"

"Yes, sir. They be working on the mantelets, and anon they will wheel them up to protect those who would raise a palisade on the moat's edge. But come, Master Richard, we must be on the rounds. Much must be looked to. Now look you, Sir Brian, in a siege the hoards are your defender's chief stand-by. Now we are going into each one, for it is in those defences that we must trust in time of attack. When your hoards are breached, then your castle is like to fall."

He spoke with the technical assurance of a veteran – a sergeant-major respectfully imparting his own riper knowledge to a brace of subalterns.

The "hoards" were wooden structures, little pent-house forts, run out from the curtains, standing on great beams which fitted into holes in the masonry. From behind the breastwork of thick wood the archers could shoot with a freedom – this way and that – which was denied them by the long oblique openings in the wall itself. They commanded all points.

The group walked out along the narrow gangway, which stretched out over the black moat below, and entered the temporary fort of wood. It was built for the accommodation of four or five men, sharp-shooters, who were practically safe from everything but heavy artillery fire from mangonel and catapult.

They surveyed the scene before them in silence. The morning had risen clear, calm, and hot. For weeks the morning had been just as this was, and they had strolled along the battlements to catch the cool air and sharpen an early appetite. But on those other days the meadows beyond the moat, which ran to the forest edge, had been silent and empty, save for herds of swine and red peaceful cattle. Now, but two hundred yards away, scarce more than that it seemed in the clear keen air of dawn, were the tents, the dying fires, the litter and stir, of a great hostile camp.

The lines of men, horses, and carts, stretched away right and left in a long curve, till Outfangthef hid them on one side, and the gateway towers, with their pointed roofs, upon the other.

They could hear the trumpets, the hammers of the carpenters, a confused shouting of orders, and the hum of active men, as the besiegers began to prepare the manifold engines of attack, which – perhaps before night fell – would be creeping slowly towards the walls of Hilgay.

That great low shed which lay upon the ground like a monstrous tortoise, would presently creep slowly towards them, foot by foot, until it reached the edge of the moat, and the men beneath it would build their great fence of logs and empty carts of rubbish into the sullen waters.

They could see men upon the sloping roofs, gradually sloping from a central ridge, men like great flies, nailing tanned hides over the beams. The sound of tapping hammers reached them from the work which should be protective of Greek fire and burning tar from above.

And against the light green of the meadow-lands, and the darker olive of the thick forest trees, the many colours of pennons, the glint of sunlight upon arms, gave the animation of the scene an added quality of picturesqueness. How "decorative" it all was! how vivid and complete a picture! And yet how stern and sinister in meaning.

"BELLA PREMUNT HOSTILIA,DA ROBUR, FER AUXILIUM."

The soldiers were silent as they leaned out over the pent-house. Huber crossed himself, for the chapel bell began to toll down below in the fortress.

The squires left the works and descended to the bailey. Huber remained on the wall. From where he stood he could see all over the castle. Such of the garrison as were not on guard or employed in active preparation straggled slowly over the grass towards the chapel door. Some of the serfs followed, the man-at-arms could easily distinguish their characteristic dress.

He turned curiously pale beneath his bronze. Then his eyes turned towards the noble tower Outfangthef, and presently fixed themselves on a low iron door, between two buttresses, which was nearly below the level of the yard, and must be reached by a few old mildewed steps.

His eyes remained fixed upon the archway of the door, and his face became full of a great gloom and horror.

The sentinels passed and re-passed him as he stared down below with set pale features. At length he turned and entered one of the hoards. The angle of the side hid him from view of the men upon the walls.

There Huber knelt down and prayed for the serf who had saved his life on Wilfrith Mere, and now lay deep down behind that iron door.

The strong man beat his breast and bowed his head. As he prayed, with unwonted tears in his eyes, he heard the distant silver tinkle that meant the elevation of The Host. He bowed still lower with his hands crossed upon his breast.

For to this rugged and lonely worshipper also, the message was coming that all men are brothers.

"Suscipe, sancte Pater, – hanc immaculatam Hostiam," that was what Anselm was saying down there in the chapel; and He who heard the one offering would not despise the other, a broken and a contrite heart.

And so farewell to Huber.

In a dark place, under the ground, full of filth and rats, Hyla lay dying in the crucet hûs. It is not necessary to say how they had used him.

He was not unconscious, though now and again the brain would fly from the poor maimed body, but the swoon never lasted long.

In the long and awful night, in that black tomb, with no noise but the pattering of the rats, what did he think of?

I think there were two great emotions in his heart. He prayed very earnestly to God, that he might die and be at peace, and he cried a great deal that he could not say good-bye to Gruach. The unmarried cannot know how bitterly a man wants his wife in trouble. Hyla kept sobbing and moaning her name all night.

The second day, though he never knew a day had gone down there, they had but little time to torture him, and after half an hour of unbearable agony he was left alone in silence. No one but an enormously strong man could have lived for half as long.

Still in his brain there was no thought of martyrdom, and none of the exaltation that it might have given. Although he prayed, and believed indeed, that God heard him, his imaginative faculties were not now acute enough to help him to any ghostly comfort. Continually he whimpered for Gruach, until at length he sank into a last stupor.

At last, at the end of the afternoon, his two torturers came and unbound the maimed thing they had made.

"It is the end now, Hyla," said one of them, "very soon and it will be over. They are all a-waiting, and my Lord Roger Bigot of Norwich has given us an hour's truce, while we kill you, you dog!"

They untied the thongs, and lifted him from the cruel stones. One of them gave him a horn of wine, so that he might have a little strength. It revived him somewhat, and they half led, half carried him up the stairs. Up and on they went, on that last terrible journey, until the lantern, which was carried by a soldier in front of them, began to pale before rich lights of sunset, which poured in at the loop-holes in the stairway wall.

They were climbing up Outfangthef.

The fresh airs of evening played about them. After the stench of the oubliette, it was like heaven to Hyla.

They passed up and up, among the chirping birds, until a little ill-fitting wooden door, through the chinks of which the light poured like water, showed their labour was at an end. The serf's spirits rose enormously. At last! At last! Death was at hand. At this moment of supreme excitement, he nerved himself to be a man. The occasion altered his whole demeanour. Almost by a miracle his submissive attitude dropped from him. His dull eyes flashed, his broken body became almost straight. The heavy, vacuous expression fled from his face never to return, and his nostrils curved in disdain, and with pride at this thing he had done.

It was better to be hanged on a tower like this than on the tree at the castle gate, he thought as the little door opened.

They came out upon the platform in the full blaze of the setting sun. Far, far below, the smiling woods lay happily, and the rooks called to each other round the tree-tops. The river wound its way into the fen like a silver ribbon. Peace and sweetness lay over all the land.

Hyla turned his weary head and took one last look at this beautiful sunset England.

A great cheering came from below as the execution party came out on the battlements, a fierce roar of execration.

While they were fitting his neck with the rope, Hyla looked down. The castle was spread below him like a map, very vivid in the bright light. Hundreds of tiny white faces were turned towards him. Outside the walls he saw a great camp with tents and huts, among which fires were just being lit to cook the evening meal.

At last, on the edge of the coping they let him kneel down for prayer. Lord Fulke had not yet sounded the signal, down in the courtyard, when they should swing him out.

He did not pray, but looked out over the lovely country-side with keen brave eyes. Freedom was very, very near. Freedom at last! The soldiers could not understand his rapt face, it frightened them. As he gazed, his eye fell on a round tower at the far end of the defences. Down the side of the tower a man was descending by means of a rope. Although at this distance he appeared quite small, something in the dress or perhaps in the colour of the hair proclaimed it to be Lewin. The executioners saw him also.

"God!" said one of them. "There goes our minter to Roger. The black hound!"

He bent over the edge of the abyss and shouted frantically to the crowd below, but he could convey no meaning to them. The little moving figure on the wall had disappeared by now, but a group of men standing at the moat-side showed that he was expected.

Hyla saw all this with little interest. He was perfectly calm, and all his pain had left him. Already he was at peace.

A keen blast from a trumpet sounded in the courtyard below, and came snarling up to them.

There was a sudden movement, and then the two hosts of the besiegers and besieged saw a black swinging figure sharply outlined against the ruddy evening sky.

Justice had been done. But may we not suppose that the death notes of that earthly horn swelled and grew in the poor serf's ears, pulsing louder and more gloriously triumphant, until he knew them for the silver trumpets of the Heralds of Heaven coming to welcome him?

Deo GratiasTHE END

1

These stories are perfectly fair examples of monastic teachings in the Twelfth Century. Roughly speaking, any one might do anything if he or she said an occasional Ave. Indeed, Dom Mathew Paris, the most pious and trustworthy monkish historian, and in his way a scourge to the laxity of his own order, has more than one story of this kind in which he evidently believes.

2

It is quite possible that this fashion of the shavelings accounted for the mistake of Harold's spies at the Conquest, who said that there were more priests in the Norman camp than fighting men in the English army!

3

Revenged.