A Legend of Reading Abbey

by Charles MacFarlane

  XI.

  I have said that we heard all too much of our powerful and wickedneighbour Brian Fitzcount. But now that he knew Henry Plantagenet wascoming, and was one that would have power to destroy him and to put anend to all plundering and castle-building, a sudden repentance seizedhis time-hardened conscience. Some did much praise him for this, andgreatly admired the seeming severity of his penance; but it is to befeared that he, like many others among our castle-builders anddepredators, did only repent when he found that he could sin no more. Sogreat had been his crimes, and so noted was Duke Henry for his strictexecution of justice, that, notwithstanding his long adherence toHenry's mother, Sir Brian could not hope to escape a severe punishment,with forfeiture of the broad lands which had become his by marriage, andwith deprivation of the great riches he had accumulated by plunderingthe country. In this wise no secure asylum was open to him except in thecloisters or in taking the cross. And before the Plantagenet returnedinto England Sir Brian Fitzcount did take upon him the cross, and givingup his terrible castle at Wallingford with all his fiefs, and abandoningall his riches--_relictis fortunis omnibus_--he joined other crusadersand took his departure for Palestine. His wife Maud, the rich daughterof Sir Robert d'Oyley, had before this time retired into a convent inNormandie, and there, being awakened to a sense of the wickedness of herpast life, she did soon take the veil. As they had no issue, and left noknight near of kin, King Henry, soon after his coronation, tookpossession of Wallingford Castle and of the honour of Wallingford; andfrom that happy moment the troubles of the country and of our good houseceased. Such was the fate of our worst enemy; but of the scarcely lesswicked Sir Ingelric of Huntercombe we still could learn nothing ofcertain, and the rumours which reached us were very contradictory, somesaying that he had been slain by Welsh thieves, some that he had fledbeyond sea, some that he had entered into religion under a feigned name,and was preparing to take the monastic vows in the Welsh house atBangor, and some asserting that he had gone with a desperate band intoScotland to take service with that king and aid him in subjugating thewild mountaineers of the north. Nay, there was still another reportcommon among the poor country folk that dwelt upon Kennet near Speen,and it was to the effect that Satan had carried him away bodily. Inshort, none knew what had become of him, but all prayed that they mightnever see his face again.

  Henry Plantagenet was busied in reducing the castles of some of histurbulent barons in Normandie when he received the news of KingStephen's demise. Being well assured that none in England would darequestion his right to the vacant throne, and being moreover a wiseprince, who always finished that which he had in hand before beginningany new thing, he prosecuted his sieges, and ceased not until he hadreduced all the castles. Thus it was good six weeks after the death ofStephen, and hard upon the most solemn festival of the Nativity, whenHenry came into England with his wife Eleanor and a mighty company ofgreat men. He was received as a deliverer, and there was joy andexultation in the heart of every true Englishman at his coming. Awondrously handsome and strong prince he was, albeit his hair inclinedto that colour which got for his great-uncle the name of Rufus or RedKing. His forehead was broad and lofty, as if it were the seat of greatwisdom, and a sanctuary of high schemes of government. His eyes wereround and large, and while he was in a quiet mood, they were calm, andsoft, and dovelike; but when he was angered, those eyes flashed fire andwere like unto lightning. His voice!--it made the heart of the boldestquake when he raised it in wrath, or in peremptory command; but itmelted the soul like soft music when he was in the gentle mood that wasmore common to him, and it even won men's hearts through their ears: itwas by turns a trumpet or a lute. Great, and for a prince miraculous,was his learning, his grandfather, the Beauclerc, not having been afiner scholar: wonderful was his eloquence, admirable his steadiness,straightforwardness and sagacity in the despatch of all business. Hebreathed a new life, and put a new soul into the much worn anddistracted body of England. There shall be peace in this land, said he;and peace sprang up as quick as the gourd of the prophet: there shall bejustice among men of all degrees; and there was justice. Having takenthe oaths to be good king and lord--to respect mother church and theancient liberties of the people, the great Plantagenet was solemnlycrowned and anointed in the royal city of Winchester on the 19th of thekalends of December, by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury; and Eleanor,his wife, was crowned with him. In the speech which he did then deliver,he boasted of the Saxon blood which he inherited from his grandmother,Queen Maud, of happy memory, who descended in right line from AlfredusMagnus; and these his royal words did much gratify the English people,without giving offence to the lords and knights of foreign origin, who,by frequent intermarriages, had themselves become more than half Saxons,and who had long since prided themselves in the name of Englishmen, andwould, in truth, be called by none other name. And full soon didHenricus Secundus make it a name of terror to Normandie, to the whole ofFrance, and all circumjacent nations; and now that I write, in his happytime, hath he not filled the highest offices in church and state withmen of English birth, and with many of the unmixed Saxon race? From hisfirst entrance into the government of this realm, he was principallydirected in matters of law and justice by our great lord archbishop,Thomas a Becket, then only archdeacon of Canterbury, provost ofBeverley, and prebendary of Lincoln, and St. Paul's, London; and ourLord Thomas, as all men do know, is the son of Gilbert a Becket,merchant of the city of London.

  King Henry kept his Christmas at Bermondsey; and it was from that placethat he issued his royal mandate, that all the foreign mercenaries andcompanies of adventure that had done such terrible mischief in the warsbetween King Stephen and Matilda should depart the land within a giventime, and without carrying with them the plunder they had made. Diversof these men had been created earls and barons, and still keptpossession of fiefs and castles, but they nearly all yielded for thegreat dread they had of the new king, and so got them out of England bythe appointed day, as naked and poor as they were when, for our sins,they first came among us; and many a Fleming and Brabanter, Angevin andBreton, from being a baron and castle-builder, returned to theplough-tail in his own country. As the spring season approached, ourgreat king repaired unto Wallingford Castle, and there convened a greatcouncil of earls, bishops, abbats, and some few citizens of note andwealthy franklins. It was a pleasant and right joyous journey that whichI had with our Lord Abbat Reginald, and Sir Alain de Bohun, and my youngLord Arthur. Already the hamlets which had been burned began to rearagain their yellow-thatched roofs in the bright sun; the wasted anddispeopled towns were already under repair; the shepherd, with his snowyflock and skipping lambs, was again whistling on the hill sides like onethat had nought to fear; the hind was singing at his labours in thefertile fields; the farmer and the trader were travelling with theirwains and pack-horses, from grange to market and from town to town,without dread of being robbed, and seized, and castle-bound; skiffs andbarks were ascending and descending the river with good cargaisons, andwithout having a single lance or sword among their crews; the trenchescut in the churchyards were filled up, the unseemly engines of war weretaken down from the church towers, and the church bells, beingreplaced, again filled the air with their holy and sanctifying sounds.Even the wilderness and the solitary place partook of the spirit of thisuniversal peace and gladness: there was sunshine in every man's face,whether bond or free. In summa, it seemed, in truth, a time when thewolf dwelt with the lamb, and the leopard lay down with the kid, and thelion with the fatted calf; when the iron of the great engines of war wasturned into a ploughshare, the sword into a pruning-hook, and the lanceinto a pastoral crook. I, who did well remember the sad state of thingsonly a few months agone, did much marvel that a country could so soonrecover from the horrors of war, and the depth of a universal anarchyand havoc; and did, with a melting heart and moistened eye, offer up mythanks to the Giver of all good things that it should be so.

  It was at Wallingford that I did see, for the first time, ourfar-renowned Thoma
s a Becket. There was no seeing him without discerningthe great heights to which he was destined to rise, even more by hisnatural gifts than by the king's favour. At this time he numbered somethirty-six or thirty-seven years; and from his childhood those years hadbeen years of study or of active business, as well of a secular as of anecclesiastical kind. A handsome man was he at that season, and blitheand debonnaire, and, mayhap, a trifle too much given to state affairs,and the pomps and vanities of this world, for a churchman: but, oh, Johnthe Evangelist, what a mind was his! what readiness of wit and reach ofthought! And what an eagerness was in him to raise his countrymen tohonour, to make his country happy and full of glory, and to raise thechurch in power and dignity! "_Angli sumus_, we be Englishmen," said heto our lord abbat, "and we must see to raise the value of that name."Great and long experienced statesmen there were in this great council atWallingford, men that had travailed in negotiation at home and abroad,and that had grown grey and bald in state offices; but verily they allseemed children compared with the son of our London merchant, and theyone and all submitted their judgment to that of Thomas a Becket, who hadbarely passed the middle space of human life. Numerous were the wise andhealing resolutions adopted in that great council, the most valuable ofall being, that the crown lands which King Stephen had alienated, inorder to satisfy his rapacious barons, should be resumed and re-annexedto the crown; and that not one of the eleven hundred and more castles,which the wicked castle-builders had made in Stephen's time, should beallowed to stand as a place of arms. Some few were to remain to curb theWelsh and Scots, or to guard the coast; but these were to be intrustedto the keeping of the king's own castellans: of the rest, not a stonewas to be left upon another. This had been decreed before, but time hadnot been allowed King Stephen to do the work; and so easy and overindulgent was he, that it is possible the work would not have been donefor many a year if he had continued to live and reign.

  Even in these sun-shining days there were some slight clouds raised bythe jealousies and ambitions and craving appetites of certain of ourgreat men, who sought to raise themselves at the cost of others.Certain magnates whose names shall not soil this pure parchment--certainself-seeking men who had been allied with Brian Fitzcount and SirIngelric of Huntercombe, and who, like Sir Ingelric, had shifted fromside to side, tried hard to fill the ears of King Henry and hissecretarius Thomas a Becket with tales unfavourable to Sir Alain deBohun and his son Arthur; as that they had made war against the king'smother, and had oppressed and plundered the lords that were favourableto her cause, and had ever been the steadiest and most devoted of allthe partisans of the usurper Stephen. But neither the king nor a-Becketwas to be moved by these evil reports. "I do see," said the sharp andshort-dealing secretarius, "that all the good and quiet people of hiscountry bear testimony in favour of the Lord of Caversham and his braveson: I do further see (and here a-Becket, with a light and quick thumb,turned over great scrolls of parchment which had affixed to them thename and seal of King Stephen) that in the nineteen years he sofaithfully served the late king, the said Sir Alain de Bohun hath notadded a single manor, nay, nor a single rood of land, to the estatesbequeathed unto him by his father or inherited through his wife; andalso do I see that he hath aspired after no new rank, or title, oroffice, or honour whatsoever, but is now, save in the passage of timeand the wear of nineteen years' faithful and at times very hard service,that which he was at the demise of Henricus Primus; and having all thesethings in consideration, I do opine that the Lord of Caversham hath everfollowed the dictates of a pure conscience, and hath ever been and stillis a man to be trusted and honoured by our Lord the King HenricusSecundus."

  "And I," quoth the right royal Plantagenet, "I who am come hither tomake up differences, to reconcile factions, to heal the wounds which areyet bleeding, and to give peace to this good and patient and generousEnglish people, will give heed to no tales told about the bygone times.The faith and affection which Sir Alain de Bohun did bear unto myunhappy predecessor, in bad fortune as well as in good, are proofs ofthe fidelity he will bear unto me when I have once his oath. My lords,there be some among ye that cannot show so clean a scutcheon! What withthe turnings from this side to that and from that to this, and thecastle-buildings and other doings of some of ye, I should have had awilderness for a kingdom! But these things will I bury in oblivion, andthis present mention of them is only provoked by ill-advised discourses,and the whisperings and murmurings of a few. But let that faction lookto this--I am Henry Plantagenet, and not Stephen of Blois! With the lawsto my aid I will be sole king in this land, and be obeyed as such! Thereign of the eleven hundred kings is over! Let me hear no more of this.By all the saints in heaven and all their shrines on earth! I will holdthat man mine enemy, and an enemy to the peace of this kingdom, thatsaith another word against Sir Alain de Bohun, or his son, or any lordor knight that hath done as they have done in the times that be past."

  And so it was that our good Lord of Caversham was received by the king,not as an old enemy but as an old friend, and was admitted to sit withthe greatest of the lords in consultation in Wallingford Castle, andthere to give his advice as to the best means of improving the conditionof his country. And a few days after this, when Sir Alain and his sonArthur had taken the oaths of allegiance and fidelity unto King Henryand his infant son, the king with his own hands made our young LordArthur knight, giving him on that great occasion the sword which he hadworn at his own side, and a splendid horse which had been brought forhis own use from Apulia in Italie, out of the stables of the great Countof Conversano, who hath long bred the best horses in all Christendom, tohis no small profit and glory.

  Upon the breaking up of the council of Wallingford our great Plantagenetprepared to march into the west with a well furnished army, in order toreduce by siege the castles of Hugh Mortimer and a few other arrogantbarons who had the madness to defy him. Before quitting BrianFitzcount's great house, the king said to Sir Alain de Bohun, "For fortydays, and not longer, I may have my young knight Sir Arthur with me.Unto thee, in the meantime, I give commission to level every castlewhatsoever that hath been left standing in this fair country ofBerkshire."

  Seeing our lord abbat start a little at these words, the king said, inhis sweetest voice, "Aye, my lord abbat, even Reading Castle must downwith the rest; but ye will not feel the want of it, for with God's helpnone shall trouble thy house, or cause the least mischief to thy landsor vassals while I am king of England; and as a slight token of my trustand esteem, thy good and near neighbour Sir Alain shall keep hisbattlements standing. It were a task worthy of thee, good my lord, thatthou shouldest even go with Sir Alain on his present mission, andsprinkle some holy water on the ground where these accursed castles havestood, and build here and there a chapel upon the spots."

  Our abbat, who ever much affected the society of Sir Alain, and wholoved the good work in hand, said he would perform this task; and forthis the king gave him thanks.

  "Before I go hence," said the king to the Lord of Caversham, "is thereno grace or guerdon that thou wouldest ask of me?"

  Sir Alain responded that he and his son had had grace and guerdon enow.

  "By our Ladie of Fontevraud," quoth the king, "I have given theenothing, and have only given thy son a horse and a sword and hisknighthood. Bethink thee, good Sir Alain, is there no thing that thoucanst ask, and that I ought to give?"

  Sir Alain smiled and shook his head, and said that there was nothing hecould ask for.

  "By the bones of my grandfather," quoth the king, "thou art the firstman I ever found in Anjou, Normandie, or England, of this temper ofmind! But I have a wish to give if thou hast none to take; I charge theewith a service that is important to me and the people, and that mustcost thee somewhat ere thou shalt have finished it; and, therefore,would I give thee beforehand some suitable reward.... What, still dumband wantless?"

  Here our lord abbat, bethinking himself of sundry things, whispered tohis neighbour, "Sir Alain, say a word for Sir Arthur's marriage withthe gentle Al
ice, and ask the king's grace for a free gift of theforfeited lands which once appertained to Sir Ingelric."

  "Beshrew me," quoth the Lord of Caversham, "I never thought of theking's consent being necessary to my son's marriage. I thank thee, lordabbat, and will speak to that point." Yet when he spake, all that hetold was the simple story of the nurture which had been given in his ownhouse by his sweet wife to the fair daughter of Sir Ingelric, and of thelong and constant love which had been between that maiden and his onlyson, and all that he asked was that the king, as natural guardian of allnoble orphans, would allow the marriage.

  The eyebrows of the Plantagenet kept arching and rising in amazement,until Abbat Reginald thought that they would get to the top of hisforehead, high as it was. When he spake again, which he did not do for aspace, he said, "And is this formula, that costs me nothing, all thatthou hast to ask from the King of England, Duke of Normandie, and Earlof Anjou, Poictou, and Aquitaine?"

  "Verily," replied Sir Alain, "'tis all that I can think of, and for thatone favour I will ever be your bedesman."

  "Sir Alain," said our abbat, tugging him by the skirt, "thou hast saidno one word touching the lands of Sir Ingelric."

  "We need them not," said the high-minded old knight, "we be rich enowwithout. If Sir Ingelric were alive and penitent, I might, in this happytime of reconciliation and oblivion of past wrongs, ask the fiefs forhim; but as it is, let them go, or let the king keep them--he may needthem more than I."

  "Well!" quoth the Plantagenet, "I see thou hast taken counsel. So now,my trusty Sir Alain, tell me what guerdon I shall give thee for theservices with which thou art charged."

  "My liege lord," quoth the lord of Caversham, "I, who in the times thatare past have so often done that which liked me not for no fee orreward, but only in discharge of the oaths I had sworn, would not nowask a guerdon for the performance of a task so grateful unto me. Let myson espouse the fair Alice, and I am more than content."

  But the king, who had been turning things over in his mind while ourabbat had been counselling Sir Alain, now called in Sir Arthur de Bohun,and said to him thus:--"Sir Knight of mine own making, I, the king, dogive unto thee the hand of that little ladie Alice thou wottest of; andI do confer as a dower upon the said ladie Alice all the manors,honours, and lands whatsoever that were by her mother conveyed to SirIngelric of Huntercombe. It were not well that so noble a damsel shouldgo portionless to her husband. Ye may be people of that rare sort thatwould care not for the fiefs, but the noble maiden might feel it. Theless we say of her unnatural sire Sir Ingelric the better for him andfor us. Whether he be dead or alive, the lands which were his throughhis two marriages are confiscated. It were but a common act of justiceto give back to the maiden that which was her mother's, and I would asmy free gift add the lands of the second marriage. A-Becket shall see toit, and draw up the grant before we go hence. Sir Arthur, I hail theelord of Speen, and wish thee joy with thy bride. These forty days of warwill soon be over, and with thy ladie's prayers to help us, we mayfinish with this mad Hugh de Mortimer in much less time."

  Arthur knelt at the feet of the Plantagenet, and kissed his royal hand,and said it was too much grace and over much greatness; and both fatherand son joined in telling the king that the lands of the mother of Alicewould be more than enough without the inheritance of the dark ladie.

  "Of a truth," said Sir Alain, "I should fear that that evil heritagewould come to us burthened with a curse; for it was ill acquired by thefather of the dark ladie, and was ever by her misused."

  "Well," quoth the king, "we will keep part of those lands in our ownhands, and give a part to the abbat and monks of Reading, who will knowhow to remove the curse with masses and prayer, and almsgiving to thepoor."

  It was now the turn of our lord abbat to give thanks, which he did likethe noble and learned churchman that he was. And all these things beingpre-arranged, Thomas-a-Becket penned the royal grant for the fair Alice,and a new charter for our house; and the king signed and sealed thetwain. By the charter he confirmed all preceding charters and donations.And he gave to the abbey two good manors which had belonged to the darkladie, together with permission to enclose a park, in the place calledCumba, for the use of the sick, whether monks or strangers. And verysoon after, upon his returning out of the west country, the king, by aparticular charter, gave the monks of Reading licence to hold a fairevery year on the day of St. James and the three following days, andconfirmed our old right to a Sunday market at Thatcham, commanding theinhabitants of the country to attend the said market, and the jealousmen of Newbury not to hinder them or molest them. He also made us agrant of forty marks of silver, to be paid annually out of his exchequeruntil he should be enabled to secure unto us a revenue of the same valuein lands. Verily, we the monks of Reading did no more suffer for thatwhich we had done in the past time than did our noble neighbours ofCaversham. When that the great men saw in what high esteem Sir Alain andSir Arthur were held by the king, they spake to them cap in hand, andvexed their wit to make them fine flattering speeches; yea, the verylords who had essayed to work their ruin did now make them bigprofessions of friendship.

  So the Plantagenet departed and went unto Gloucester and Bridgenorthwith his great battalia and engines of war, and the lord abbat and I,Father Felix, went with Sir Alain de Bohun to perambulate andperlustrate the country of Barkshire, bearing with us the royal mandateto all heads of boroughs and townships and all good men to assist inrooting out the foul donjons which disfigured the fair country likeblots of ink let fall upon a pure skin of parchment. Expeditive and verycomplete was the work we made; for even as at Speen the country peopleof their own free will came flocking to us with their pickaxes andmattocks on their shoulders; and so soon as a castle was levelled, ourlord abbat, in pontificalibus, did sprinkle holy water upon the spot todrive away the evil spirits that had so long reigned there; and did, inthe tongue of the people, as well as in Latin, put up a prayer that suchwickednesses might not be again known in the land. Divers strangethings and many recondite holes and corners, and most secret andundiscoverable chambers, were brought to light in the course of thesedemolishings; but it was not until we broke down and took to pieces acastle near Shrivenham, on the confines of Barks, an outlying and littleknown place, that we laid open to the light of day a very tragicspectacle, which was in itself a conclusion to a part of this mynarration. Upon our coming to it, this castellum, like all the rest, wasdeserted, the draw-bridge being down, and the portcullis and all othergates removed by the serfs of the neighbouring manors, who had madethemselves good winter fires of the wood thereof. Nay, some poorhouseless men had for a season dwelt within the keep, and penned theirswine in the courtyard; but they had been terrified thence byunaccountable and horrible noises at midnight; and these men and theirneighbours declared that it was the most accursed place in all thecountry. It was a wonderful thing to see how fast those walls toppleddown, and how soon the deep moat was filled up. When the thick southernwall of the square keep was all but levelled, Sir Alain de Bohun'speople came suddenly upon a secret chamber which had been contrived withmuch art and cunning within the said wall. The men reached it bydemolishing the masonry above, but the access to it had been through acrooked passage which mounted from a cell underground, and then througha low narrow doorway, the door of which contained more iron than oak,and closed inward with certain hidden springs, the secret whereof wasnot to be apprehended by any of us until the door was knocked down andtaken to pieces. Within this dark and narrow chamber was revealed agreat heap of gold and silver, being well nigh as much as we had foundat Speen; and, prone upon this heap, with the face buried among the goldand silver pieces, and with the arms stretched out as though he had diedin the act of clutching the heap, was seen the body of a knight in blackmail. At the first glance Sir Alain's people and the serfs that werehelping them cried out joyously, "Gold! gold!" but then they took theknight in his armour for some scaled dragon or demon that was guardingthe treasure, and they ran away, crying "Diabolus! I
t is the devil!"

  As it especially concerned monks to deal with the great dragon, and layevil spirits, Abbat Reginald and I, Father Felix, with an acolyte, whowas but of tender age, and truth to say, sorely afeared, hastened withSir Alain to that pit within the wall.

  "By the blessed rood!" said the Lord of Caversham, as he looked downinto the hollow space--"That is no living devil, but the dead body ofSir Ingelric of Huntercombe! I know him by that black mail of Milan, andby the rare hilt of that sword, which I did give him when we were swornfriends and brothers."

  "This is wonderful, and I see the finger of Heaven in it," said ourabbat, crossing himself: and we all crossed ourselves for the amazementand horror that was upon us. The meaner sort, who had fled from the deadknight, now bethought themselves of the glittering gold, and came backto the edge of that narrow pit; and when we, the monks, had thrown someholy water therein, and caused our acolyte to hold the cross over thegap, two of Sir Alain's men-at-arms descended, and re-ascending,brought forth the body and laid it at our feet upon its back, and withits face turned towards the heavens. Jesu Maria! but it was a ghostlysight! From the little air that had been in that narrow cell, and fromthe great siccity or dryness of the place, betwixt stones, flint, andmortar, the body had not wasted away, or undergone the rapid corruptionof the damp grave; and albeit the face was all shrivelled and shrunk, itwas not hard to trace some of the lineaments of the unhappy SirIngelric. Within the cavity of the mouth were pieces of coined gold, astho' he had set his famishing teeth in them; and within his clenchedhands, clenched by the last agony and convulsion of death, were piecesof gold and silver. On the brow was the well-known mark of a wound whichthat unhappy knight had gotten in his early days in fighting for KingStephen; the Agnus Dei, and the little cross at the breast, were thoseof Sir Ingelric, and were marked with his name; and the blade of thesword bore the conjoined names of Sir Ingelric and Sir Alain. Havingnoted and pointed out all these things, Abbat Reginald, after anotherand more copious aspersion of the blessed water, which is holier thanthe stream which now floweth in Jordan, raised his right hand and said,"My children, there is a dread lesson and example in that which liethbefore us! Crooked courses ever lead to evil ends, albeit not always inthis nether world. But here is one that hath reaped upon earth the fruitof his crimes, and that hath perished by the demon that first led himastray--aye, perished upon a heap of gold and silver, and offamine, the cruellest of deaths, and in a miser's hole--a robber'shiding-place--unpitied, unheeded, unconfessed, with the fiend mockinghim, and bidding him eat his gold, and with the interdict of holy motherchurch and the curses of ruined men pressing upon his sinful soul. Andwas it for this, oh Sir Ingelric, that thou didst soil thy faith, andbetray thy king and friends, and waste the fair land of thy birth, andrack and torture the poor? Take hence the excommunicate body and bury itdeep in unconsecrated earth; but remember, oh my children, all thatwhich ye have this day seen!"

  The gold and silver we removed and put into strong coffers, in orderthat we might use them with the same justice and regard to the poor thatwe had used with the treasure found in Sir Ingelric's own castle atSpeen.

  When we came to make inquiries among the people of those parts, and toput their several reports together, we made a good key to the awfulenigma and mystery of Sir Ingelric's death. That castle by Shrivenhamhad been made by one of the very worst of the castle-building robbers,who had never raised any standard but his own over his donjon keep. Inthe autumnal season of the year preceding that in which we came todestroy the place, and at the time when the joint orders of King Stephenand Henry Plantagenet were sent forth against the castle-holders, theresuddenly appeared at Shrivenham a band that came from the westward, andthat were headed by a knight in black mail, and with a black plume tohis casque; and by some of those reaches of treachery which were commonamong these evil doers, the new-comers got possession of this castellum,and made a slaughter of the builder of it, and of the men that were trueto him. But the new comers had not been a day in possession of thecastle when intelligence was brought them by a scout that a force ofKing Stephen, which had tracked them from the westward, was approachingShrivenham; and thereupon, and for that the castle was too unfurnishedwith victual to withstand any beleaguer, the strangers fled from it moresuddenly than they had come to it. As the vicinage was almost deserted,and as the few people fled and hid themselves, the black band had nocommunications with them during their brief stay; but two poor serfs whohad watched their departure had described it as being full of panic,terror, and of a dread of other things besides that of the closeapproach of the king's force (which force never came at all); for theyhad heard the band bewailing that they had no longer a leader, thattheir chief had disappeared in the castellum, and that the devil musthave carried him off bodily: and the serfs did well mark that the knightin the black mail was not among them, nor at their head, as they hadseen him at their first coming. And as Sir Alain's people, in finishingtheir good work at the castellum, threw open the subterrain windingpassage, of which mention hath been made, they found the body of an oldman with a bundle of great keys at his girdle, and a long daggersticking in his left side; and his head lay close to the strong door ofthe treasure chamber, and between the body and the door were picked up astrong bag and part of a long extinguished torch.

  "By Saint Lucia, who presideth over man's blessed organ of sight and theglorious light of day," quoth our abbat; "by sweet Saint Lucia, I do seedaylight through that dark passage. The bait of that gold drew SirIngelric hither, to be taken as in a trap. He was eager to have thefirst hanselling and most precious bits of the treasure, or mayhap tocarry off the whole, or conceal it for his own use, counting upon moretime than heaven allowed him. That old unshriven traitor was, doubtless,one of the men of the castle-builder, that betrayed their master, andhim Sir Ingelric slew so soon as he had led him to the chamber andopened the door, with the intent that he should not divulge unto othersthe secret of the hiding place. Peradventure, the old man in hisdeath-struggles dashed out the light and pulled to the open door; or SirIngelric, being left in darkness, and uninformed of the fastenings, didin his great haste kick the door and so cause it to fly to, and shut forever upon him."

  We did all think that the riddle was well read by Abbat Reginald, andthat this was a natural conclusion to the other and better knownincidents of Sir Ingelric's dark story.

  By the time we had finished with the wicked castles of Barkshire, ourgreat and ever victorious King Henry had finished with that perverse manHugh de Mortimer; and as we came to our house at Pangbourne on our wayback to Reading, we there met the young Lord of Caversham, Sir Arthur deBohun, who had been dismissed to his home by the king, and not withoutsome further proof of the royal friendship, for, as it was ever in hisnature to do, Sir Arthur had done manfully in the king's sieges andother emprises. It was a happy meeting to all of us, and there was nolonger any public calamity to cloud or reproach our private happiness.The donjons were all down, or in good keeping; and, from end to end andin all its breadth England was at peace, and none of the baronage wereso daring as to resist the king and the law. _Dulce mihi nomenpacis!_--ever sweet unto me was the name of peace, and now we had boththe name and the substance of it. It was therefore resolved atPangbourne that the marriage of Sir Arthur and the Lady Alice should becelebrated on the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, which was now nearat hand.

  Upon coming to Caversham Sir Alain de Bohun hung his shield upon thewall, intending to go forth to no more wars. Then he put into the handsof the gentle Alice the king's charter which conferred upon her thedomains of her mother, telling her, in his jocose way, that as she hadnow so goodly an inheritance she might be minded to quit the humblehouse and poor people at Caversham, and get her to court to match withsome great earl. And at this that fairest of maidens placed the king'scharter in the hands of Sir Arthur, and with a blushing cheek andwithout words spoken, went out of the hall. Sir Arthur did afterwardsinform her, in the gentlest manner, of the sure death of Sir Ingelricmany month
s agone; and, albeit he had been so unnatural a father, Aliceshed many tears, and made a vow to give money to the church and poor,that his sinful soul might be prayed for. The dreadful manner of SirIngelric's death was carefully concealed from the young bride, and hathnever been fully made known unto her. She was united to Sir Arthur inour abbey church, on the happiest festival of St. Michael that our househad ever known, for the season was mild and beautiful, the harvest hadbeen abundant, we had gotten in all our crops without hindrance, ourgranaries were filled with corn and our hearts with joy; and as all ofus, from the lord abbat down to the obscurest lay brother, had asurpassing affection as well for the gentle bride as for her noble mate,who had in a manner been our son and pupil, and an old reverence andlove for Sir Alain and his ladie, we could not but rejoice at the greatjoy we saw in them. But all good people, gentle or simple, bond or free,did jubilate on this happy day; and when the bride and bridegroomreturned homeward, the procession which followed them, shouting andsinging, and calling down blessings upon their young heads, was so longas to run in an unbroken line from the midst of the King's mead to theend of Caversham-bridge; for our good vassals of Reading town had allput on their holiday clothes and shut up their houses, and all thepeople of Caversham were afoot, and Tilehurst, and Sulham, and Charlton,and Purley, and Sunning, and Speen, and Pangbourne, and every othertownship and village for miles round-about had poured out theirinhabitants; and not a franklin or serf, not a man, woman, or childamong them all, but was feasted either by Sir Alain or Sir Arthur, or byus the monks of Reading. Methinks the sun never rose and set upon sobeautiful a day! The air and the earth rejoiced, and the flowing waters;the full Thamesis and our own quick and resonant Kennet made music andthanksgiving together; and seemed it to me that I had never so loved thecountry of my birth, and the fair scenes in which my life had been pastfrom infancy to ripe manhood; and yet had I ever loved that fair countryabove all that mine eyes had seen in much travelling. _Natale solumdulcedine cunctos mulcet._ Oh native soil, thou softenest man's heart,and fillest it with love of thee!

  Now did the Ladie Alice more than verify the happy prediction which ourgood Abbat Edward put forth in the stormy time, to wit, that the littlemaiden which came to our house in the basket, and which I, Felix thenovice, and Philip the lay-brother did convey by night unto Caversham,would make amends for the ingratitude and treasons and other wickeddoings of her father. Betwixt that merry wedding-day and the day thatnow is, there have been nine long years, and they have all been years ofpeace and happiness to the good house at Caversham, with that increaseand multiplication which God willed when the world was in its infancyand all unpeopled.

  Happy, too, hath been our house at Reading, and great the increase ofthe abbey in beauty and splendour. Some few griefs and trials we havehad; for earth, at the happiest, was never meant to be heaven; and weall live to die, and must die to live again. The good and bountiful LordAbbat Reginald deceased on the fourth of the kalends of February, in theyear of grace eleven hundred and fifty-eight; but he died full of yearsand honour, and verily, the Lord Abbat Roger that now is, hath beenapproved his very worthy successor. As our wealth increased under theblessed peace, and the sage government of our great king, and the favourof our Lord Thomas a Becket, for some while chancellor of the kingdom,and now and for the two years last past, by the grace of God, Archbishopof Canterbury and Primate of England, we of the chapter did begin tothink that our church was not sufficiently lofty and spacious, and thatwondrous improvements might be made in it, if we devoted to the tasksome of our superfluous wealth. And six years agone, when our LordReginald was in the twelfth year of his government over us (may ourLadie the Virgin, and St. John and St. James ever have him in their holykeeping), we made a beginning; and the year last past, being the year ofour redemption eleven hundred and sixty-four, we finished our greatchurch, which hath been so much enlarged and altered that it may becalled a new church; and Rex Henricus Secundus being present with tensuffragan bishops, and great lay barons too many to count, our LordArchbishop Thomas did consecrate it with that solemnity and magnificencewhich he puts into all his doings: and on the very day on which thearchbishop consecrated our church, the king, keeping his royal promise,granted us a land revenue of forty marks of silver out of the manor ofHoo in Kent, by assignment of Sir Robert Bardolph, the lord of thatmanor.

  And our mighty and ever victorious king, who is no less a friend tolearning and learned men, nor less a patron of the church than was hisgrandfather the Beauclerc, hath ordered books to be bought for theenriching of our library, and hath given us another charter confirmingour liberties and immunities, and enjoining all the kings that may comeafter him to observe the same, and calling upon the Lord to snatch themout of the land of the living, together with their posterity, if they orany one of them should seek to infringe our charter, or lessen ourrights and properties. "_Quam qui infringere vel minuere presumpserit,extrahat eum dominus et evertat de terra viventium cum omni posteritatesua._" These be the king's very words in the second great charter hehath given us.

  Here I surcease from the pleasant labours which have amused the fewlonely hours that my various duties left me. There cannot be a bettertime to stop and say _vale_! Henricus Secundus is king; Thomas a Becketis primate; Roger is lord abbat of Reading; and I, Felix the Sunningite,and novice that was, am poor sub-prior; and every monk of the house is aman of English birth. It hath been noted of late, that our priordeclineth apace; and there hath been a talk among the cloister monksthat I best merit that succession, which would place me next in dignityand greatness to the mitred lord abbat of this royal abbey. But, alas!what is increase of dignity but increase of care! I do hope that ourgood prior may live all through this winter; albeit, it is a very sharpone, and old men be falling fast around us.--_Vale et semper Vale!_

  THE END.

  LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.

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