A. D. Crake - The House of Walderne
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A. D. Crake >> The House of Walderne
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"Canst thou not sing a song, Stephen, like a gallant troubadour
from the land of the sunny south, to reward our hosts for their
entertainment?"
And Stephen sang one of the touching amatory ballads which had
emanated so copiously from the unfortunate Albigenses of the land
of Oc. The sweet soft sounds charmed, although the hosts understood
not their meaning.
"And now, my lad, have not thy parents taught thee a song?" said
the knight, addressing the boy.
"Sing thy song of the Greenwood, Martin," added the mother.
And the boy sang, with a sweet and child-like accent, a song of the
exploits of the famous Robin Hood and Little John:
Come listen to me, ye gallants so free,
All you that love mirth for to hear;
And I will tell, of what befell,
To a bold outlaw, in Nottinghamshire.
As Robin Hood, in the forest stood,
Beneath the shade of the greenwood tree,
He the presence did scan, of a fine young man,
As fine as ever a jay might be.
Abroad he spread a cloak of red,
A cloak of scarlet fine and gay,
Again and again, he frisked over the plain,
And merrily chanted a roundelay.
The ballad went on to tell how next day Robin saw this fine bird,
whose name was Allan-a-dale, with his feathers all moultered;
because his bonnie love had been snatched from him and was about to
be wed to a wizened old knight, at a neighbouring church, against
her will. And then how Robin Hood and Little John, and twenty-four
of their merrie men, stopped the ceremony, and Little John,
assuming the Bishop's robe, married the fair bride to Allan-a-dale,
who thereupon became their man and took to an outlaw's life with
his bonny wife.
"Well sung, my lad, but when thou shalt marry, I wish thee a better
priest than Little John; here is a guerdon for thee, a rose noble;
some day thou wilt be a famous minstrel.
"And now, my Stephen, let us sleep, if our good hosts will permit."
"There is a hut hard by, such as we all use, which I have devoted
to your service; clean straw and thick coverlets of skins, warriors
will hardly ask more."
"It was but an hour since I thought the heath would have been our
couch, and a snowball our pillow; we shall be well content."
"It is wind proof, and thou mayst rest in safety till the horn
summons all to break their fast at dawn: thou mayst sleep meanwhile
as securely as in thine own castle."
And the outlaws rose with a courtesy one would hardly have expected
from these wild sons of the forest; while Kynewulf showed the
guests to their sleeping quarters, through the still fast-falling
snow.
The hut was snug as Grimbeard (for such was the chieftain's
appropriate name) had boasted, and tolerably wind proof, although
in such a storm snow will always force its way through the tiniest
crevices. It was built of wattle work, cunningly daubed with clay,
even as the early Britons built their lodges.
And here slept the great earl, whose name was known through the
civilised world, the brother-in-law of the king, the mightiest
warrior of his time, and, amongst the laity, the most devout
churchman known to fame.
______________________________________________________________
In the dead hour of the night, when the darkness is deepest and
sleep the soundest, they were both awakened by the opening of the
door, and the cold blast of wind it produced. The earl and his
squire started up and sat upright on their couches.
A woman stood in the doorway, who held a boy by the hand; the eyes
of both were red with weeping.
"Lady, thou lookest sad; hath aught grieved thee or any one injured
thee? the vow of knighthood compels my aid to the distressed."
It was the woman they had noted at the fireside.
"Thou art Simon de Montfort," she said.
"I am; how dost thou know me?"
"I have met thee before, under other guise. Is liberty dear to
thee?"
"Without it life is worthless--but who or what threatens it?"
"The outlaws, amongst whom thou hast fallen."
"They will not harm me. I have eaten of their salt."
"Nay, but they will hold thee to ransom, and detain thee till it is
brought: I heard them amerce thee at a thousand marks."
"In that case, as I do not wish to winter here, I had better up and
away; but who will be my guide?"
"My son; but thou must do me a service in return--thou must charge
thyself with his welfare, for after guiding thee he can return here
no more."
"But canst thou part with thine own son?"
"I would save him from a life of penury and even crime, and I can
trust him to thee."
"Oh, mother!" said the boy, weeping silently.
"Nay, Martin, we have often talked of this and longed for such a
chance, now it is come--for thine own sake, my darling, the apple
of mine eye; this good earl can be trusted."
"Earl Simon," she said, 'I know thee both great and a man who fears
God; yes, I know thee, I have long watched for such an opportunity;
take this boy, and in saving him save yourself from captivity."
"Tell me his name."
"Martin will suffice."
"But ere I undertake charge of him I would fain learn more, that I
may bring him up according to his degree."
"He is of noble birth, on both sides; how fallen from such high
estate this packet--entrusted in full confidence--will tell thee.
Simon de Montfort, I give thee my life, nay, my all; let me hear
from time to time how he fareth, through the good monks of
Michelham--thou leavest a bleeding heart behind."
"Poor woman! yet it is well for the boy; he shall be one of my
pages, if he prove worthy."
"It is all I ask: now depart ere they are stirring. It wants about
three hours to dawn, the moon shines, the snow has ceased, so that
thou wilt reach Michelham in time for early mass. I will take thee
to thine horses."
She led them forth; the horses were quietly saddled and bridled. No
watch was kept; who could dread a foe at such a time and season?
She opened the gateway in an outer defence of osier work and ditch
which encompassed the little settlement.
One maternal kiss--it was the last.
And the three, earl, squire, and boy, went forth into the night,
the boy riding behind the squire.
Chapter 2: Michelham Priory.
At the southern verge of the mighty forest called the Andredsweald,
or Anderida Sylva, Gilbert d'Aquila, last of that name, founded the
Priory of Michelham for the good of his soul.
The forest in question was of vast extent, and stretched across
Sussex from Kent to Southampton Water; dense, impervious save where
a few roads, following mainly the routes traced by the Romans,
penetrated its recesses; the haunts of wild beasts and wilder men.
It was not until many generations had passed away that this tract
of land, whereon stand now so many pretty Sussex villages, was even
inhabitable: like the modern forests of America, it was cleared by
degrees as monasteries were built, each to become a centre of
civilisation.
For, as it has been well remarked, without the influence of the
Church there would have been in the land but two classes--beasts of
burden and beasts of prey--an enslaved serfdom, a ferocious
aristocracy.
And such an outpost of civilisation was the Priory of Michelham, on
the verge of the debatable land where Saxon outlaws and Norman
lords struggled for the mastery.
On the southern border of this sombre forest, close to his Park of
Pevensey, Gilbert d'Aquila, as almost the last act of his race in
England {4}, built this Priory of Michelham upon an island,
which, as we have told in a previous tale, had been the scene of a
most sanguinary contest, and sad domestic tragedy, during the
troubled times of the Norman Conquest; the eastern embankment,
which enclosed the Park of Pevensey and kept in the beasts of the
chase for the use of Norman hunters, was close at hand.
The priory buildings occupied eight acres of land, surrounded by a
wide and deep moat full forty yards across, fed by the river
Cuckmere, and abounding in fish for fast-day fare. Although it had
proved (as described in our earlier tale) incapable of a prolonged
defence, yet its situation was quite such as to protect the priory
from any sudden violence on the part of the "merrie men" or nightly
marauders, and when the drawbridge was up, the gateway closed, the
good brethren slept none the less soundly for feeling how they were
protected.
Within this secure entrenchment stood their sacred and domestic
buildings, their barns and stables; therein slept their thralls,
and the teams of horses which cultivated their fields, and the
cattle and sheep on which they fed on feast days. A fine square
tower (still remaining) arose over the bridge, and alone gave
access by its stately portals to the hallowed precincts; it was
three stories high, the janitor lived and slept therein; a winding
stair conducted to the turreted roof and the several chambers.
At the time of our story Prior Roger ruled the brotherhood; a man
of varied parts and stainless life. He was not without monastic
society: fifteen miles east was the Cluniac priory of Lewes,
fifteen miles west the Benedictine abbey of Battle, three miles
south under the downs the "Alien" priory of Wilmington.
But wherever a monastery was built roads were made, marshes
drained, and the whole country rose in civilisation, while for the
learning of the nineteenth century to revile monastic lore is for
the oak to revile the acorn from which it sprang.
Here the wayfarer found a shelter; here the sick their needful
medicine; here the children an instructor; here the poor relief;
and here, above all, one weary of the incessant strife of an evil
world might find PEACE.
On the morning succeeding the arrival of the great Earl of
Leicester, that doughty guest was seated in the prior's chamber, in
company with his host. The day was most uninviting without, but the
fire blazed cheerfully within. The snow kept falling in thick
flakes, which narrowed the vision so that our friends could hardly
see across the moat, but the fire crackled on the great hearth
where five or six logs fizzed and spluttered out their juices.
"My journey is indeed delayed," said the earl, "yet I am most
anxious to reach London and present myself to the king."
"The weather is in God's hands; we may pray for a change, but
meanwhile we must be patient and thankful that we have a roof over
our heads, my lord."
"And it gives me full time to hear particulars about the boy whom I
left in your care--a wilful, petted urchin, ten years of age he was
then."
"The lad is docile; he has scant inclination towards the Church,
but he shows the signs of his high lineage in a hundred different
ways."
"High lineage?" said the earl, with a smile and a look of inquiry.
"We had supposed him of thy kindred; he bears every sign of
noblesse and does not disgrace it," said the prior, himself of the
kindred of the "lords of the eagle."
"He is the son of a brother crusader."
"The father is not living?"
"No, he fell in Palestine, within sight of the earthly Jerusalem,
and I trust has found admittance into the Jerusalem which is above;
he committed the boy to my care--
"But let them bring young Hubert hither."
The prior tinkled a silver bell, which lay upon the table, and a
lay brother appeared, to whom he gave the necessary order. A knock
at the door was soon heard, and a lad of some fourteen years
entered in obedience to the prior's summons, and stood at first
abashed before the great earl.
Yet he was not a lad wanting in self confidence; he was tall and
slender, his features were regular, his hair and eyes light, his
face a shapely oval; there was a winning expression on the
features, and altogether it was a persuasive face.
"Dost thou remember me, my son?" asked the earl, as the boy knelt
on one knee, and kissed his hand gracefully.
"It seems many years since thou didst leave me here, my lord."
"Ah! thy memory is good--hast thou been happy here? hast thou done
thy duty?"
"It is dull for an eaglet to be brought up in a cave."
"Art thou the eaglet then, and this the cave? fie! Hubert."
"My father was a soldier of the cross."
"And wouldst thou be a soldier too, my boy? the paths of glory
often lead to the grave; thou art safer far as an acolyte here;
thou wilt perhaps be prior some day."
"I covet not safety, my lord. If my father loved thee, and thou
didst love him, take me to thy castle and let me be thy page. There
are no chivalrous exercises here, no tilt yard, only the bell which
booms all day long; matins and lauds; prime, terce and sext;
vespers and compline; and masses between whiles."
"My son, be not irreverent."
The boy lowered his eyes at the reproof.
"Thou shalt go with me. But, my boy, blame me not if some day thou
grieve over the loss of this sweet peace."
"I love not peace--it is dull."
"How wonderful it is that the son should inherit the father's
tastes with his form," said the earl to the prior. "When this lad's
sire and I were young together he had just the same ideas, the same
restless craving for excitement, and it led him at last to a
soldier's grave. Well, what is bred in the bone will out in the
flesh.
"Hubert, thou shalt go with me to Kenilworth, but it will be a hard
and stern school for thee; there are no idlers there."
"I am not an idler, my good lord."
"Only over his books," said the prior.
"That is because I prefer the lance and the bow to pot hooks and
hangers on parchment."
The boy spoke out fearlessly, almost pertly, like a spoiled child.
Yet he had a winning manner, which reconciled his elders to his
freedom.
"Now, go back to thy pot hooks and hangers, my boy, for the
present," said the earl; "and tomorrow, perchance, I may take thee
with me, if the storm abate.
"And now," said the earl, when Hubert was gone, "send for the other
lad; the waif and stray from the forest."
So Hubert retired and Martin appeared. It was by no means an
uninteresting face, that which the earl now scanned, but quite
unlike the features of Hubert--a round face, contrasting with the
oval outlines of the other--with twinkling eyes and curling hair; a
face which ought to be lit up with smiles, but which was sad for
the moment. Poor boy! he had just parted from his mother.
"Art thou willing to go away with me, my child?"
"Yes," said he sadly, "since she told me to go; but I love her."
"Thy name is Martin?"
"Yes; they call me so now."
"What is thy other name?"
"I know not. I have no other."
"Wouldst thou fear to return to the green wood?"
"Yes, for they might call me a traitor, and serve me as they served
Jack, the shoe smith, when he betrayed their plans."
"And how was that?"
"Tied him to a tree and shot him to death with arrows. How he did
scream!"
"What! didst thou see such a sight, a young boy like thee?"
"Yes," said Martin innocently; "why shouldn't I?"
There was a pause.
"Poor child," said the prior.
"My boy, thou should say 'my lord,' when addressing a titled earl."
"I did not know, my lord. I beg pardon, my lord, if I have been
rude, my lord."
"Nay, thou hast already made up the tale of 'my lords.'"
"You will not let them get me again, my lord?"
"They couldn't get in here, and tomorrow, if the storm cease, I
shall take thee away with me. Fear not, my poor boy. If thou hast
for a while lost a mother, thou hast found a father."
The boy sighed. Affection is not so easily transferred; and the
earl quite comprehended that sigh; as a strange interest, almost
unaccountable, he thought, sprang up in his manly breast for the
little nestling, thrown so strangely upon his protection and care.
Brave as a lion with the proud, gentle as a lamb with the weak and
defenceless, such was Simon de Montfort, an embodiment of true
greatness--the union of strength with love. Both Martin and Hubert
were fortunate in their new lord.
"There sounds the vesper bell. Wilt thou with me to the chapel?"
said the prior.
Thither both earl and prior proceeded. It was Wednesday evening;
the psalms were then apportioned to the days of the week, not of
the month, and the first this night was the one hundred and
twenty-seventh:
Except the Lord build the house,
their labour is but vain that build it.
Except the Lord keep the city,
the watchman watcheth but in vain.
And again:
Lo, children and the fruit of the womb
are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord.
The two boys whom he had so strangely adopted came to the mind of
the earl; they were not of his blood, yet they might be "an
heritage and gift of the Lord." And as the psalms rose and fell to
the rugged old Gregorian tones--old even then--their words seemed
to Simon de Montfort as the voice of God.
Oh! how rough, yet how grand that old psalmody was! Modern ears
call its intervals harsh, its melodies crude, but it spoke to the
heart with a power which our sweet modern chants often fail to
exercise over us, as we chant the same sacred lays.
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Nightfall--night hung like a pall over the island, over the moat,
over the silent heath and woods; the snow kept falling, falling;
the fires kept blazing in the huge hearths; and the bell kept
tolling until curfew time, by the prior's order, that if any were
lost in the wild night they might be guided by its sound to
shelter.
The earl slept soundly in his little monastic cell that night, and
in the morning he perceived the light of a bright dawn through the
narrow window; anon the winter's sun rose, all glorious, and the
frost and snow sparkled like the sheen of diamonds in its beams.
The bell was just ringing for the Chapter Mass, the mass of
obligation to all the brotherhood, and the only one sung--during
the day--in contradistinction to the low, or silent, masses--which
equalled the number of the brethren in full orders, of whom there
were not more than five or six.
The earl, his squire, and the two boys were there. The prior was
celebrant. The manner of Hubert showed his distraction and
indifference: it was like a daily lesson in school to him, and he
gave it neither more nor less attention. But to Martin the
mysterious soothing music of the mass, like strains from another
world, so unlike earthly tunes, came like a new sense, an
inspiration from an unknown realm, and brought the unbidden tears
to his young eyes.
It must not be supposed that he was totally ignorant of the
elements of religion; even the wild inhabitants of the forest crave
some form of approach to God, and from time to time a wandering
priest, an outlaw himself of English birth, ministered to the
"merrie men" at a rustic altar, generally in the open air or in a
well-known cavern. The mass in its simplest form, divested of its
gorgeous ceremonial but preserving the general outline, was the
service he rendered; and sometimes he added a little instruction in
the vernacular.
What good could such a service be to men living in the constant
breach of the eighth commandment? the Normans would ask. To which
the outlaws replied, we are at open war with you, at least as
honourable a war as you waged at Senlac.
And his mother saw that little Martin was taught the simple truths
and precepts of Christianity; more she asked not; nor at his age
did he need it.
But here was a soil ready for the good seed.
______________________________________________________________
The weather continued fine, so after mass the earl and his squire
started for Lewes, taking the two boys with him, Hubert and Martin.
That night they were the guests of John, Earl of Warrenne {5},
who, although he did not agree with the politics of Simon de
Montfort, could not refuse the rites of hospitality.
On the morrow, resuming their route, they left the towers of Lewes
behind them as they pursued the northern road. Once or twice the
earl turned and looked behind him, at the castle and the downs
which encircled the old town, with a puzzled and serious expression
of face.
"Stephen," he said to his squire; "I cannot tell what ails me, but
there is an impression on my mind which I cannot shake off."
"My lord?"
"That yon castle and those hills, which I seem to have seen in a
dream, are associated with my future fate, for weal or woe."
Chapter 3: Kenilworth.
The chief seat of the noble Earl of Leicester, as of a far less
worthy earl of that name, three centuries later, was the Castle of
Kenilworth. It had been erected in the time of Henry the First by
one Geoffrey de Clinton, but speedily forfeited to the Crown, by
treason, real or supposed. The present Henry, third of that name,
once lived there with his fair queen, and beautified it in every
way, specially adorning the chapel, but also strengthening the
defences, until men thought the castle impregnable.
Well they might, for our Martin and Hubert beheld on their arrival
a double row of ramparts, looking over a moat half a mile round,
and sometimes a quarter of that distance broad: and the old
servitors still told how the sad and feeble king had built a
fragile bark, with silken hangings and painted sides, wherein he
and his newly-married bride oft took the air on the moat. The
buildings of the castle were most extensive; the space within the
moat contained seven acres; the great hall could seat two hundred
guests. The park extended without a break from the walls of
Coventry on the northeast to the far borders of the park of the
great Earl of Warwick on the southwest--a distance of several
miles.
And here, in the society of a score of other boys of their own age,
our Hubert and Martin were to receive their early education as
pages.
Education--ah, how unlike that which falls to the lot of the
schoolboy of the nineteenth century. As a rule, the care of the
mother was deemed too tender and the paternal roof too indulgent
for a boy after his twelfth year, so he was sent, not exactly to a
boarding school, but to the castle of some eminent noble, such as
the one under our observation; and here, in the company of from ten
to twenty companions of his own age, he began his studies.
We have previously described this course of education in a former
tale, The Rival Heirs, but for the benefit of those who have not read
the afore-said story we must be pardoned a little recapitulation.
He was daily exercised in the use of all manner of weapons,
beginning with such as were of simple character; he was taught to
ride, not only in the saddle, but to sit a horse bare-backed, or
under any conceivable circumstances which might occur. He had to
bend the stout yew bow and to wield the sword, he had to couch the
lance, which art he acquired with dexterity by the practice at the
quintain.
He had also to do the work of a menial, but not in a menial spirit.
It was his to wait upon his lord at table, to be a graceful cup
bearer, a clever carver, able to select the titbits for the ladies,
and then to assign the other portions according to rank.
It was his to follow the hounds, to learn the blasts of the horn,
which belonged to each detail of the field; to track the hunted
animal, to rush in upon boar or stag at bay, to break up or
disembowel the captured quarry.
It was his to learn how to thread the pathless forests, like that
of Arden; by observing the prevalent direction of the wind, as
indicated by the way in which the trees threw their thickest
branches, or the side of the trunk on which the mosses grew most
densely; to know the stars, and to thread the murky forest at
midnight by an occasional glimpse of that bright polar star, around
which Charley's Wain revolved, as it does in these latter days.
It was his to learn that wondrous devotion to the ladies, which was
at the foundation of chivalry, and found at last its reductio ad
absurdum in the Dulcinea of Don Quixote; but it was not a bad thing
in itself, and softened the manners, nor suffered them to become
utterly ferocious.
He was taught to abhor all the meaner vices, such as cowardice or
lying--no gentleman could live under such an imputation and retain
his claim to the name. But it must be admitted that there were
higher duties practised wheresoever the obligations of chivalry
were fully carried out: the duty of succouring the distressed or
redressing wrong, of devotion to God and His Church, and hatred of
the devil and his works.
Alas! how often one aspect of chivalry alone, and that the worst,
was found to exist; the ideal was too high for fallen nature.
To Hubert the new life which opened before him was full of promise
and delight; he seemed to have found a paradise far more after his
own heart than Eden could ever have been: but it was otherwise with
Martin.
They had not been unkindly received by their companions, although,
as the other pages were nearly all the sons of nobles, there was a
marked restraint in the way in which they condescended to boys who
had only one name {6}. Still, the earl's will was law, and
since he had willed that the newcomers should share the privileges
of the others, no protest could be made.
And as for Hubert there was no difficulty; he was one of nature's
own gentlemen, and there was something in his brave winning ways,
in which there was neither shyness nor presumption, which at once
found him friends; besides, his speech was Norman French, and he
was au fait in his manners.
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