A. D. Crake - The House of Walderne
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A. D. Crake >> The House of Walderne
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Hence Hubert's words.
"It is for that purpose we have sent for thee," replied the earl.
"Thou must win thy spurs, and there is no likelihood of opportunity
arising in this peaceful land (how little the earl thought what was
in the near future), so thou must even go where blows are going."
"I am ready, my lord, and willing."
"The Earl of Hereford is about to return home, and will take thee
with him to fight against the Welsh under his banner. Now what dost
thou say to that?"
Hubert bent the knee to the new lord, with all that grace which he
inherited from his Provencal blood. And sooth, my young readers, if
you could have seen that eager face with that winning smile, and
those brave bright eyes, you would have loved him, too, as the earl
did; but for all that I do not think he had the sterling qualities
of his friend Martin, who is rather my hero: but then I am not
young now, or I might think differently.
We have not space again to describe this portion of Hubert's life,
upon which we now enter, in any detail. Suffice it to say he went
to Hereford Castle with the earl, and was soon transferred to an
outpost on the upper Wye, where he was at once engaged in deadly
warfare with the fiercest of savages. For the Welsh, once the
cultivated Britons, had degenerated into savagery. Bloodshed and
fire raising amongst the hated "Saxons" (as they called all the
English alike) were the amusement and the business of their lives,
until Edward the First, of dire necessity, conquered and tamed them
in the very next generation. Until then, the Welsh borders were a
hundred times more insecure than the Cheviots. No treaties could
bind the mountaineers. They took oaths of allegiance, and
cheerfully broke them. "No faith with Saxons" was their motto.
These fields, these meadows once were ours,
And sooth by heaven and all its powers,
Think you we will not issue forth,
To spoil the spoiler as we may,
And from the robber rend the prey.
Even the payment of blackmail, so effectual with the Highlanders,
did not secure the border counties from these flippant fighters,
and in sooth Normans were much too proud for any such evasion of a
warrior's duty.
There, then, our Hubert fleshed his maiden sword, within a week
after his arrival at Llanystred Castle; and that in a fierce
skirmish, wherein the fighting was all hand to hand, he slew his
man.
But in these fights, where every one was brave, there was small
opportunity for Hubert to gain personal distinction. A coward was
very rare; as well expect a deer to be born amongst a race of
tigers. There were, it is true, degrees of self devotion, and for a
chance of distinguishing himself by self sacrifice Hubert longed.
And thus it came.
He had been sent from the castle on the Wye, which might well be
called, like one in Sir Walter's tales, "Castle Dangerous," upon an
errand to an outpost, and was returning by moonlight along the
banks of the stream, there a rushing mountain torrent. It was a
weird scene, the peaks of the Black Mountains rose up into the calm
pellucid air of night, the solemn woods lined the further bank of
the river, and extended to the bases of the hills. It was just the
time and the hour when the wild, unconquered Celts were likely to
make their foray upon the dwellers on the English side of the
stream, if they could find a spot where they could cross.
About half a mile from Llanystred Castle, amidst the splash and
dash of the water, Hubert distinguished some peculiar and
unaccustomed sounds, like the murmur of many voices, in some
barbarous tongue, all ll's and consonants.
He waited and listened.
Just below him roared and foamed the stream, and it so happened
that a series of black rocks raised their heads above the swollen
waters like still porpoises, at such distances as to afford
lithesome people the chance of crossing, dry shod, when the water
was low.
But it was a risk, for the river had all the strength of a
cataract, and he who slipped would infallibly be carried down by
the strong current and dashed against the rocks and drowned.
Here Hubert watched, clad in light mail was he, and he cunningly
kept in the shadow.
Soon he saw a black moving mass opposite, and then the moonlight
gleam upon a hundred spear tops. Did his heart fail him? No; the
chance he had pined for was come. It was quite possible for one
daring man to bid defiance to the hundred here, and prevent their
crossing.
See, they come, and Hubert's heart beats loudly--the first is on
the first stone, the others press behind. He, the primus, leaps on
to the second rock, and so to the third, and still his place is
taken, at every resting place he leaves, by his successor. Yes,
they mean to get over, and to have a little blood letting and fire
raising tonight, just for amusement.
And only one stout heart to prevent them. They do not see him until
the last stepping stone is attained by the first man, and but one
more leap needed to the shore, when a stern, if youthful, voice
cries:
"Back, ye dogs of Welshmen!" and the first Celt falls into the
stream, transfixed by Hubert's spear, transfixed as he made the
final leap.
A sudden pause: the second man tries to leap so as to avoid the
spear, his own similar weapon presented before him, but position
gives Hubert advantage, and the second foe goes down the waves,
dyeing them with his blood, raising his despairing hand, as he
dies, out of the foaming torrent.
The third hesitates.
And now comes the real danger for Hubert: a flight of arrows across
the stream--they rattle on his chain mail, and generally glance
harmlessly off, but one or two find weak places, and although his
vizor is down, Hubert knows that one unlucky, or, as the foe would
say "lucky," shot penetrating the eyelet might end sight and life
together. So he blows his horn, which he had scorned to do before.
He was but imperfectly clad in armour, and was soon bleeding in
divers unprotected places; but there he stood, spear in hand, and
no third person had dared to cross.
But when they heard the horn, feeling that the chance of a raid was
going, the third sprang. With one foot he attained the bank, and as
Hubert was rather dizzy from loss of blood, avoided the spear
thrust. But the young Englishman drove the dagger, which he carried
in the left hand, into his throat as he rose from the stream. The
fourth leapt. Hubert was just in time with the spear. The fifth
hesitated--the flight of arrows, intermitted for the moment, was
renewed.
Just then up came Lord Walter, the eldest son of the earl, with a
troop of lancers, and Hubert reeled to the ground from loss of
blood, while the Welsh sullenly retreated.
They bore him to the castle. A few light wounds, which had bled
profusely from the leg and arm, were all that was amiss. Hubert's
ambition was attained, for he had slain four Welshmen with his own
young hand. And those to whom "such things were a care" saw four
lifeless, ghastly corpses circling for days round and round an eddy
in the current below the castle, round and round till one got giddy
and sick in watching them, but still they gyrated, and no one
troubled to fish them out. They were a sign to friend and foe, a
monument of our Hubert's skill in slaying "wildcats."
A few days later the Lord of Hereford arrived at the castle, and
visited Hubert's sick chamber, where he brought much comfort and
joy. A fine physician was that earl; Hubert was up next day.
And what was the tonic which had given such a fillip to his system,
and hurried on his recovery? The earl purposed to confer upon him
the degree he pined for, as soon as he could bear his armour.
At first any knight could make a knight. Now, to check the too
great profusion of such flowers of chivalry, the power to confer
the accolade was commonly restricted to the greater nobles, and
later still, as now, to royalty alone.
It was the eve of Saint Michael's Day, "the prince of celestial
chivalry," as these fighting ancestors of ours used to say. It was
wild and stormy, for the summer and autumn had been so wet that the
crops were still uncarried through the country. The river below was
rushing onward in high flood; here it came tumbling, there it
rolled rumbling; here it leapt splashing, there it rushed dashing;
like the water at Lodore; and seemed to shake the rocks on which
Castle Llanystred was built.
And above, the clouds in emulous sport hurried over the skies, as
if a foe were chasing them, in the shape of a southwestern blast.
So the nightfall came on, and Hubert went with the decaying light
into the castle chapel, where he had to watch his arms all night,
with fasting and prayer, spear in hand.
What a night of storm and wind it was on which our Hubert, ere he
received knighthood, watched and kept vigil in the chapel. It
reminded him of that night in the priory at Lewes, and from time to
time weird sounds seemed to reach him in the pauses of the blast.
All but he were asleep, save the sentinels on the ramparts.
He thought of his father, and of the Frenchman, the Sieur de
Fievrault, whose place and even name he was to assume. Once he
thought he saw the figure of the slain Gaul before him, but he
breathed a prayer and it disappeared.
How he welcomed the morning light.
The sun breaks forth, the light streams in,
Hence, hence, ye shades, away!
Imagine our Hubert's joy, when, the following morning, Earl Simon
quite unexpectedly arrived at the castle, and with him the Bishop
of Hereford; come together to confer on important business of state
with the Earl of Hereford, whom they had first sought at his own
city, then followed to this outpost, where they learned from his
people he had come to confer knighthood on some valiant squire.
The reader may also imagine how Earl Simon hoped that that valiant
squire might prove to be Hubert. And lo! so it turned out.
Early in the morning our young friend was led to the bath, where he
put off forever the garb of a squire, then laved himself in token
of purification, after which he was vested in the garb and arms of
knighthood. The under dress given to him was a close jacket of
chamois leather, over which he put a mail shirt, composed of rings
deftly fitted into each other, and very flexible. A breastplate had
to be put on over this. And as each weapon or piece of armour was
given, strange parallels were found between the temporal and
spiritual warfare, which, save when knighthood was assumed with a
distinctly religious purpose, would seem almost profane.
Thus with the breastplate: "Stand--having on the breastplate of
righteousness."
And with the shield: "Take the shield of faith, wherewith thou
shalt be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."
We will not follow the parallel farther: had all the customs of
chivalry been indeed performed in accordance with this high ideal,
how different the medieval world would have been.
Thus accoutred, but as yet without helmet, sword, or spurs, our
young friend was led to the castle chapel, between two (so-called)
godfathers--two sons of the Earl of Hereford--in solemn procession,
amidst the plaudits of the crowd. There the Earl of Leicester
awaited him, and Hubert's heart beat wildly with joy and
excitement, as he saw him in all his panoply, awaiting the ward
whom he had received ten years earlier as a little boy from the
hands of his father, then setting out for his eventful crusade.
The bishop was at the altar. The High Mass was then said; and after
the service the young knight, advancing to the sanctuary, received
from the good earl, whom he loved so dearly, as the flower of
English chivalry, the accolade or knightly embrace.
The Bishop of Hereford belted on the young knight's own sword,
which he took from the altar, and the spurs were fastened on by the
Lady Alicia, wife of Lord Walter of Hereford, and dame of the
castle.
Hubert then took the oath to be faithful to God, to the king, and
to the ladies, after which he was enjoined to war down the proud
and all who did wickedly, to spare the humble, to redress all
wrongs within his power, to succour the miserable, to avenge the
oppressed, to help the poor and fatherless unto their right, to do
this and that; in short, to do all that a good Christian warrior
ought to do.
Then he was led forth from the church, amidst the cheers and
acclamations of all the population of the district, with whom the
action which hastened his knighthood had won him popularity. Alms
to the poor, largesse to the harpers and minstrels: all had to be
given; and the reader may guess whose liberality supplied the
gifts.
Then--the banquet was spread in the castle hall.
Chapter 13: How Martin Gained His Desire.
While one of the two friends was thus hewing his way to knighthood
by deeds of "dering do," the other was no less steadily persevering
in the path which led to the object of his desire. The less
ambitious object, as the world would say.
He was ever indefatigable in his work of love amidst the poor and
sick, and gained the approbation of his superiors most thoroughly,
although in the stern coldness which they thought an essential part
of true discipline, they were scant of their encomiums. Men ought
to work, they said, simply from a sense of duty to God, and earthly
praise was the "dead fly which makes the apothecary's ointment to
stink." So they allowed their younger brethren to toil on without
any such mundane reward, only they cheered them by their brotherly
love, shown in a hundred different ways.
One long-remembered day in the summer of the year 1259, Martin
strolled down the river's banks, to indulge in meditation and
prayer. But the banks were too crowded for him that day. He marked
the boats as they came up from Abingdon, drawn by horses, laden
with commodities; or shot down the swift stream without such
adventitious aid. Pleasure wherries darted about impelled by the
young scholars of Oxford, as in these modern days. Fishermen plied
their trade or sport. The river was the great highway; no, there
was no solitude there.
So into the forest which lay between Oxford and Abingdon, now only
surviving in Bagley Wood, plunged our novice. As the poet says:
Into the forest, darker, deeper, grayer,
His lips moving as if in prayer,
Walked the monk Martin, all alone:
Around him the tops of the forest trees
Waving, made the sign of the Cross
And muttered their benedicites.
The woods were God's first temples; and even now where does one
feel so alone with one's Maker? How sweet the solemn silence! where
the freed spirit, freed from external influences, can hold
communion with its heavenly Father. So felt Martin. The very birds
seemed to him to be singing carols; and the insects to join, with
their hum, the universal hymn of praise.
Oh how the serpent lurks in Eden--beneath earthly beauty lies the
mystery of pain and suffering.
A wail struck on Martin's ears--the voice of a little child, and
soon he brushed aside the branches in the direction of the cry,
until he struck upon a faintly trodden path, which led to the
cottage of one of the foresters, or as we should say "keepers."
At the gate of the little enclosure, which surrounded the patch of
cultivated ground attached to the house, a young child stood
weeping. When she saw Martin her eyes lighted up with joy.
"Oh, God has sent thee, good brother. Come and help my poor mother.
She is so ill," and she tripped back towards the house; "and father
can't help her, nor brother either. Father lies cold and still, and
brother frightens me."
What did it mean?
Martin saw it at once--the plague! That terrible oriental disease,
probably a malignant form of typhus, bred of foul drainage, and
cultivated as if in some satanic hot bed, until it had reached the
perfection of its deadly growth, by its transmission from bodily
frame to frame. It was terribly infectious, but what then? It had
to be faced, and if one died of it, one died doing God's
work--thought Martin.
So as Hubert faced his Welshmen, did Martin face his foe--"typhus"
or plague, call it which we please.
Which required the greater courage, my younger readers? But there
was no more faltering in Martin's step than in Hubert's, as he went
to that pallet in an inner room, where a human being tossed in all
the heat of fever, and the incessant cry, "I thirst," pierced the
heart.
"So did HE thirst on the Cross," thought Martin, "and He thirsts
again in the suffering members of His mystical body--for in all
their affliction He is afflicted."
There was no water close by in the chamber, but Martin had noticed
a clear spring outside, and taking a cup he went to the fount and
filled it. He administered it sparingly to the parched lips,
fearing its effect in larger quantities, but oh! the eagerness with
which the sufferer received it--those blanched lips, that dry
parched palate.
"Canst thou hear me, art thou conscious?"
"An angel of God?"
"No, a sinner like thyself."
"Go, thou wilt catch the plague."
"I am in God's hands. HE has sent me to thee. Tell me sister--hast
thou thrown thyself upon His mercy, and united thy sufferings with
those of the Slain, the Crucified, who thirsted for thee?"
And Martin spoke of the life of love, and the death of shame, as an
angel might have done, his features lighted up with love and faith.
And the living word was blessed by the Giver of Life.
Then he felt the poor child pulling him gently to another room,
whence faint moans were now heard. There lay the brother, a fine
lad of some fourteen summers, in the death agony, the face black
already; and on another pallet the dead body of the forester, the
father of the family.
Martin could not leave them. The night came on. He kindled a fire,
both for warmth and to purify the air. He found some cakes and very
soon roasted a morsel for the poor girl, the only one yet
untouched, partaking of it sparingly himself. He went from sufferer
to sufferer; moistening the lips, assuaging the agony of the body,
and striving to save the soul.
The poor boy passed into unconsciousness and died while Martin
prayed by his side. The widow lingered till the morning light, when
she, too, passed away into peace, her last hours soothed by the
message of the Gospel.
Then Martin took the child and led her towards the city, meditating
sadly on the strange mystery of death and pain. The woods were as
beautiful as before, but not in the eyes of one whose mind was full
of the remembrance of the ravages of the fell destroyer.
"Where are you taking me?"
"To the good sisters of Saint Clare, who will take care of thee for
Christ's sake."
So he strove to wipe away the tears from the orphan's eyes.
He reached Oxford, gave up his charge to the charitable sisterhood,
then reported himself to his academical and ecclesiastical
superiors, who were pleased to express their approval of all that
he had done. But as a measure of precaution they bade him change
and destroy his infected raiment, to take a certain electuary
supposed to render a person less disposed to infection, and to
retire early to his couch.
All this he did; but after his first sleep he woke up with an
aching head and intolerable sense of heat--feverish heat. He
understood it all too well, and lost no time in commending himself
to his heavenly Father, for he felt that he might soon lose
consciousness and be unable to do so.
A purer spirit never commended itself to its Maker and Redeemer.
But it was not in this he put his trust. It was in Him of whom
Saint Francis sang so sweetly:
To Him my heart He drew
While hanging on the tree,
From whence He said to me
I am the Shepherd true;
Love sets my heart on fire--
Love of the Crucified.
And ere his delirium set in, Martin made a full resignation of his
will to God. He had hoped to do much for love of his Lord, to carry
the message of the Gospel into the Andredsweald, where the kindred
of his mother yet lived, and the thought that he should never see
their forest glades again was painful. And the blankness of
unconsciousness, the fearful nature of the black death, was in
itself repulsive; but it had all been ordered and settled by
Infinite Love before ever he was born, probably before the worlds
were framed, and Martin said with all his heart the words breathed
by the Incarnate God, when groaning beneath the olive tree in
mysterious agony:
"Not my will, but thine, be done."
And then he lapsed into delirium.
The next sensation of which he was conscious, and which he
afterwards remembered, for we have not done with our Martin yet,
was one of a singular character. A glorious light, but intensely
painful, seemed before his eyes. It burnt, it dazzled, it
confounded him; yet he admired and adored it, for it seemed to him
the glory of God thus fashioning itself before him. And on that
brilliant orb, glowing like a sun, was a black spot which seemed to
Martin to be himself, a blot on God's glory, and he cried, "Oh, let
me perish, if but Thy glory be unstained," when a voice seemed to
reply, "My glory shall be shown in thy redemption, not in thy
destruction."
Probably this took place at the crisis of the disease, and the
physical and spiritual sensations were in union throughout the
illness. For now Martin was delirious with joy--sweet strains of
music were ever about him. The angels gathered in his cell and sang
carols, songs of love to the Crucified. One stormy night, when
gentle but heavy rain descended, patter, patter, on the roof above
his head, he thought Gabriel and all the angelic choir were there,
singing the Gloria in Excelsis, poising themselves on wings without
the window, and the strain:
Pax in terra hominibus bonoe voluntatis,
Was so ineffably sweet that the tears rolled down his cheeks in
streams.
This was the end of the imaginary music. The next morning he woke
up conscious--himself again. His first return to consciousness was
an impression of a voice:
"Dearest brother, thou art better, art thou not?"
"I am quite free from pain, only a hungered."
"What food dost thou desire to enter thy lips first?"
"The Bread of Life."
"But not as the Viaticum {20}, thank God. Wait awhile, I go to
fetch it from the altar."
And the successor of Adam de Maresco, the new head of the Oxford
House, left the youth and went into their plainly-furnished chapel,
where, in a silver dove, the only silver about the church, the
reserved sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was always kept
for the sick in case of need. It hung from the beams of the
chancel, before the high altar.
First the prior knelt and thanked God for having preserved the life
of the youth they all loved.
"Thou hast yet great things for him to do on earth ere it come to
his turn to rest," he murmured. "To Thee be all the glory."
Then he returned and gave the young novice his communion. Martin
received it, and said, "I have found Him whom my soul loveth. I
will hold Him and will not let Him go."
From that time the patient was able to take solid nourishment, and
grew rapidly better, until at last he could leave his room and sit
in the sunny cloisters:
Restored to life, and power, and thought.
And one day he sat there, dreamily watching old Father Thames, as
he murmured and bubbled along, outside the stone boundary.
"Onward till he lose himself in the ocean, so do flow our lives
till they merge into eternity," said the prior. "Now with impetuous
flow, now in gentler ripple, but ever onward as God hath ordained;
so may our souls, when the work of life is accomplished, lose
themselves in God."
Martin moved his lips in silent acquiescence.
It was intense, the enjoyment of that sweet spring day, a day when
all the birds seemed singing songs of gladness, and the air was
balmy beyond description. Life seemed worth living.
"My son, when thou art better thou must travel for change of air."
"Whither?" said Martin.
"Where wouldst thou like to go?"
"Oh, may I go to my kindred and teach them the holy truths of the
Gospel?"
"Thou shalt. Brother Ginepro shall go with thee, and ere thou
startest thou shalt be admitted to the privileges and duties of the
second order, and be Brother Martin."
"And when shall I be ordained?"
"That may not be, yet. Thou art not twenty years of age. Thou mayst
win many souls to Christ while a lay brother, as did Francis
himself, our great master. He did not seek the priesthood also, too
great a burden for a humble soul like his, and certes, if men
understood what a priest is and what he should be, there would be
fewer but perchance holier priests than there are now."
The reader must remember that nearly all the friars were laymen;
lay preachers, as we would say; preaching was not then considered a
special clerical function.
Martin could not speak for joy, but soon tears were seen to start
down his cheeks.
"I was thinking of my poor mother. Oh, that she had lived to see
this day," he exclaimed, as he saw the prior observe his emotion.
The reader will remember that news of her death had reached Martin
soon after his arrival at Kenilworth, without which he could not
have remained all these years away from the Andredsweald. Her death
had partially (only partially) snapped the link which bound him to
his kindred, the love of whom now began to revive in the breast of
the convalescent.
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