by Guy Thorne
CHAPTER X
"At the sight therefore, of this river, the Pilgrims were much stunned; but the men that went with them said, 'You must go through, or you cannot come at the gate.'"
Hyla slept ill after an hour or two. Tired nature gave him a physicaloblivion for a time, but when his exhaustion was worked off, he began totoss uneasily and to dream. The events of the past days danced in aconfused jumble in his brain, and the dominant sensation was one ofgliding over water.
Water and the vast lonely fen lands were vividly before him in a hundreduneasy and fantastic ways. He awoke to find the hut hot and stiflingbeyond all bearing. The deep breathing of his women folk was all theimmediate sound he heard, though an owl was sobbing intermittently inthe wood by the lake.
How hot it was! The rich earthy smell, a fertile, luxuriant odour oflife, was terribly oppressive. There was an earthen jar of lake water atthe door of the hut, but when he groped a silent way to it, he found itwarm and full of the taste of weeds and tree roots. There was no comfortin it.
He stood looking out into the night. There was no moon, but it washardly dark. Now and then a ghostly sheet of summer lightning flickeredover the sky. Late as it was the air was full of flying insects. Thecockchafers boomed as they circled over the enclosure in their long,swift flight. Great moths, with huge fat bodies, hung on the roofs ofthe huts or flapped to the neighbouring trees. The heavy, lazy GoatMoths, three years old, and nearly four inches from wing to wing. Themale Wood Leopard, more active than his great brother, thesombre-coloured Noctuas, the evil-looking, long-bodied Hawk Moths, alldanced in the dusky air.
Out in the fields the crickets sang like a thousand little bells, andthe atropus, a tiny insect from which bucolic superstition has evolvedthe "death watch," ticked as it ran over the door posts.
Glow-worms winked in pale gleams among the grass, and louder than anyother noise was the deep hum of the great Stag-beetle as he flew by. Amyriad night life pulsed round the waking man. The Goatsucker flew roundthe borders of the wood catching the insects in his flight, and hisstrange, jarring pipe thrilled all the heavy air; among the leaves andundergrowth the Hedgepig, rested with his long day's sleep, rustled insearch of food, making his curious, low, gurgling sound, and rattlinghis spines.
In those far-off days wild life luxuriated and throve. Day and nightwere full of strange sounds heard but rarely now. As Hyla stood wearilyby his hut, the Polecat was fishing for eels in the mud of the lakeshore. Old dog-foxes slunk through the woods in search of prey, whiletheir cubs frisked like kittens in the open spaces of the woods, playinghide-and-seek, and engaging in a mimic warfare. The air was full ofNoctules and Natterers, great silent bats.
In some dim way, Hyla was influenced by all this vitality around him.Richard Espec in his place would have said, "In wisdom Thou hast madethem all, the earth is full of Thy riches. Thou openest Thy hand andfillest all things living with plenteousness; they continue this dayaccording to Thine ordinance, for all things serve Thee. He spake theword and they were made, He commanded, and they were created!"
That would have been the logical expression of a good man who spent hislife in reconciling the concrete with the unseen. Hyla's attitude wasjust the same, though he was not educated to elevate a thought into anexpression of thought.
But, nevertheless, he felt the mystery of the night, and the livecreatures at work in it.
The Spirit of God worked in him as it worked in wiser and moreconsiderable men.
But it was rather lonely also. His great deed still had its influence ofterror upon him. A man who violently disturbs the society in which helives and moves, as Hyla had done, wants human companionship. It is illto know one is absolutely alone.
He thought that he would seek Cerdic, if, perchance, he was in a moodfor talk, and not too drowsy. He went towards his friend's hut. In thedim light, as he threaded his way across the stoke, he saw that manyother serfs had found their shelters too noisesome and hot for comfort.They lay about in front of the huts in curious twisted attitudes,breathing heavily with weariness and sleep.
Cerdic had also chosen the air to lie in. He was stretched on a skin,lying on his back, and in his hand was a half-eaten piece of blackbread, showing that sleep had caught him before he had finished hissupper.
Hyla lent over him and whispered in his ear. It was interesting to seehow quickly and yet how silently the man awoke. With no sound ofastonishment or surprise, he sat up, with alert enquiring eyes, fullawake and ready for anything that might be toward.
"Peace!" said Hyla, "there is nothing to trouble about. But I cannotsleep, and feel very lonely, and want speech with a man. The air is fullof winged things, and the shaw yonder of beasts. I do not know why, Iwant a man's voice."
"You made your bede to-night?" said Cerdic.
"Yes, I prayed, Cerdic, and you with me. But I feel ill at ease, andsweating with the heat."
"Yes, yes," said Cerdic, as one who was used to these fleetingsicknesses of the brain, and as one who could prescribe a cure. "I wistwell how you feel, Hyla. 'Tis the night and the loneliness of it.Onnethe can a man be alone at night unless he is busy upon something.Come sit you down and talk."
They reclined side by side upon the grass, but neither had much to say.Hyla found something comforting in the companionship of Cerdic.
"I keep minding _His_ face," said Hyla suddenly.
"Then you are a fool, Hyla. But I wist that is only because 'tisnighttime. You are not troubled in the day. You have had your wreak uponyour foe. Let it be, it is done, and Sir Priest hath absolved you fromsin, and eke me."
He looked at Hyla with a smile, as who should say that the argument wasirresistible.
"Cerdic," said Hyla, "I feel in truth something I cannot say. I amabsolved and stainless, I wist well, yet I am accoyed. I fear some evil,and the night is strange. The air is thick with flies and such volatile,and--I wist not. I wist not what I mean."
"Hast eaten too heavily and art troubled by this new place. Shall I prayfor you a space?"
His face lit up with eagerness as he said it.
"Not now, Cerdic," said Hyla, "I am not for bede to-night. Come youwith me to lake-side; there will be air upon the water, perchance. Icannot breathe here."
"I have slept enough and will go with you, but these sick fancies arenot in your fashion. You have never been y-wone to them; and for mypart, Hyla, I put my trust in my lords the angels, and think that evilthoughts come from devils of Belsabubbis line."
Hyla crossed himself in silence. "Rest a moment," he said. "I will seeif Gruach wakes, and if she does, tell her I am going to the lake-sidefor coolness, and that I cannot sleep."
But when he got to the hut it was as silent as when he had left it, andhe heard the untroubled breathing of the women he loved.
With a curious expression of tenderness for so outwardly unemotional aman he made the sign of salvation in the gloom of the door, and with aheart full of foreboding turned towards Cerdic.
The lawer-of-dogs was not anxious to leave his sleep and wander throughthe night. Far rather would he have lain sleeping till the sun and birdsof morning called him to work in a happy security he had never knownbefore. But there was a great loyalty in him, and a love for his friendthat was as sincere as it was unspoken.
Moreover, he began to see of late new traits in Hyla. He found himchanged and less easily understood. Mental influences seemed at work inhim which raised him, or removed him, from the ordinary men Cerdic knew.Cerdic only _felt_ this. He did not think it. Yet his unconsciousrealisation of the fact made him defer to Hyla's moods and fall in withhis suggestion.
He was a shrewd, gentle, fine-natured man. I should like to have claspedhis hand.
He put a lean, brown paw on Hyla's broad shoulder, and together theythrew the plank over the evil-smelling ditch, malodorous and poisoningthe night, and strode out into the wood.
They flitted noiselessly among the dark trees, silent amid the nobleaisles and avenues which sloped down to the lake.
The air was certainly cooler as they left the stoke behind.
They had gone some distance upon their way when they sat for a moment torest upon the bole of a fallen oak tree in a little open glade some tenyards square. The clearing was fairly light, but a black wall of treesencompassed it. There, such was the influence of the place and hour,they fell talking of abstractions with as much right and probably asluminous a point of view as their betters.
"What think you, lad, Geoffroi be doing now?" said Hyla.
"Burning in hellis fire," said Cerdic in a tone of absolute conviction.
"Think you for ever?" said Hyla musingly.
"Aye, Hyla, I pray Our Lady. The Saints would not have him in heaven,and I wist St. Jesu also."
"We might go to him," said Hyla.
Cerdic gazed at him through the dark with genuine astonishment.
"By Godis ore!" he said, "never shall we two roast for long. Prior hathprayed with us and we are shriven. We have done no man harm. I amcertain, Hyla, that the Saints and Our Lady will take us in. An it onlybe to carry water or dung fields, we shall be taken in."
The absolute assurance in his tone told upon the other and comfortedhim.
"Art not accoyed to die?" he asked.
"No wit. Natheless, I would live a little longer now we have won kindmasters. Yet would I die this night withouten fear. I would well like tosee the Blessed Lady and all her train. It will be a wonderful finesight, Hyla."
As they sat thus, talking simply of that other life, which was so realto them in their childlike, undisturbed faith, they did not hear themoving of many feet through the underwood or the low whispers of a bodyof men who were approaching the glade in which they sat.
One loud word, a chance oath, would have startled them away and savedthem. Indeed, had they not been so intent upon high matters they musthave heard footsteps. Trained foresters as they were, creatures of thefields, the woods, and the open heavens, no men were more quick to hearthe advance of any living thing or more prompt to avoid hostile comers.
The first intimation that came to them was the sudden clank of asteel-headed pike as it fell and rattled against a tree stump. Theyleapt to their feet, but it was too late. The wood seemed peopled witharmed men. Their alarm came upon them so quickly that each tree allround was transformed into a man-at-arms. Before they could turn to flythe leaders of the band were up with them, and strong mailed armsgrasped them.
Black-bearded faces peered into theirs, striving to see who they were inthat dim light.
"Are ye prior's men?" said Huber, in a low, eager voice.
Then with a sick fear the two serfs knew into whose hands they hadfallen. With an icy chill of despair, they realised that these wereFulke's men, and that his vengeance was long-armed, and had come uponthem stealthily in the night.
Then in that moment of anguish, they tasted all the bitterness of death.The new, fair life that was opening before them so brightly vanished ina flash. The old cruel voices of their masters were like heavy chains; ablack curtain fell desolately and finally over their lives.
Suddenly one of the men who had been scrutinising them closely gave aloud and joyous cry. "God's rood!" he shouted. "These be the two menthemselves a-coming to meet with us in t' wood! Mordieu, these be themurderers!"
The men-at-arms crowded round the captives with cries of savage joy."The Saints have done this," cried one man. Then, being above all thingssoldiers, and alive to all the fortunes and chances which await men in ahostile neighbourhood, they bound the serfs with thongs, and hurriedthem swiftly down the hill to the boat.
