The Deserter, and Other Stories: A Book of Two Wars

by Harold Frederic

  CHAPTER III.

  A STRANGE CHRISTMAS EVE.

  When two nights and two days had passed, Dickon and Andreas foundthemselves on the furthermost edge of the forest. Here skirted thewoodland a highroad which neither had seen before. Beyond this were arolling moor country and distant mountains, the sight of which wasstrange to them; but house of any kind there was none.

  When their eager gaze, sweeping all the prospect, had made certain thatno habitation was to be seen, Dickon groaned deeply, and little Andreaswept outright.

  As they stood thus, Andreas clenched his hands at his breast, liftinghis white face upward toward the bare boughs. Then he closed his eyes,and staggering a single step, fell forward to the ground, and lay thereon his face like a log.

  Dickon lifted his comrade in his arms, and bore him back into thethicket. Out in the open where the two youths had viewed the highroadthe earth was frozen stiff, and snow lay thin-spread upon it; butbehind them, on the path they had made, lay warmer nooks sheltered bytangled shrubs.

  To the first of these Dickon pushed his way, and putting the lad softlydown, began gathering dry, dead leaves by armfuls and piling them overthe senseless body. On these he laid branches, and then again moreleaves, until only the boyish, sleeping face met the air.

  Now he made another journey to the outer place which they had won, andgleaning from the ground the three things he had left there, broughtthem back to where the lad lay under his leaves, and put them downbeside him. These were the crossbow, the book in its casket, and themangled carcass of a boar which he had killed, but had eaten of more tohis harm than good, since there was no fire with which to cook themeat.

  Dickon looked down to his friend, and saw that the boy was awake, andsick unto death. Cold and hunger and the toil of wild wandering haddealt harshly with even Dickon's own tough English flesh and blood.They were killing the fragile lad from foreign parts.

  "Do you get warmth?" he asked dolefully, as he had asked scores ofother times.

  For answer the lad closed his eyes and shook his head in weakness.

  Then Dickon knelt down and did a thing strange to all his knowledge ofcustoms. He kissed the pale forehead which lay half-hid among theleaves. Then, as if in shame, he sprang to his feet.

  "Bide you here till I come," he said, and turning, strode off towardthe open, with the crossbow under his arm.

  For warmth's sake and the peril which brooded behind him, he swunghimself forward at a swift pace down the highroad. The air and themovement kindled his blood a little.

  A full league it seemed to him he must have tramped, over barrenmoorland and through winding defiles with steep, unfriendly sides ofbare rock, before he came to anything that spoke of human habitation.Then, as the skies were darkening into twilight, he entered unawaresinto the deeper shadows of a great wall, gray and forbidding, risingabove the highway like a part of the boulders themselves.

  At the base of this, as if entering upon the heart of the earth, was asmall, black door of wood, framed in frowning stone.

  On this door of the monastery Dickon pounded with his fists, and withthe handle of his weapon, and presently there came a sound as of boltswithdrawn. The door opened half-way, and a chalk-faced young friar inwhite gown and hood stood before him.

  "Enter," this spectral figure said, and trembled with the cold.

  "Nay, fire is what I seek," stammered Dickon, almost in fright at theghost-like form before him, and at the strange sound of a tinkling bellechoing from the rocks overhead.

  "Canst not wait till thou art dead for that?" the white-robed phantomsaid, in tones of earthly vexation. He would have shut the door atthis, but that Dickon sprang forward, thrust his bow against the innerframe, and clutched the friar by the arm.

  "Fire! fire!" he cried. "Give me that to kindle fire, or I killyou--like the others!"

  The monk stood stock-still, and curled the thin corners of his lips inscorn at this rude boy, and held him with his bright, sneering gaze.Dickon looked into these sharp, cold eyes, and felt himself a noisyfool.

  "Nay, father," he stumbled on, pleadingly, "if I get not a fire, hedies!"

  "Hast thy head full of dead men, seemingly," the young Cistercianreplied.

  He cast his glance down over this rough visitor, and noting theblood-splashes upon his hose, lifted his brows in wrathful inquiry.Then he snatched up the crucifix from the end of the chain at hisgirdle, and thrust it swiftly into Dickon's face.

  "Who art thou, churl?" he demanded. "Whose blood is this?"

  "WHOSE BLOOD IS THIS?"]

  Dickon's nerve sank into his shoes.

  "A boar that I have slain, good father," he answered in a mumblingwhimper, "and lack fire wherewith to roast it; and the raw flesh is illfood, and he can eat naught of it, and gets no warmth, and must die ifI win not a fire."

  At this the monk softened. He led Dickon into the outer porch, andgleaned the purport of his story. Only Dickon said nothing of the bookor of the two men he had killed.

  "Fire thou shalt have," the young monk said, more kindly, when Dickon'stale was finished. "But first go through the gates before thee to thehall, and take all thou wilt of meat and ale. None will deny thee. 'Tisthe eve of holy Christmas, and though we fast, thou and thy kind mayfeed in welcome."

  "It is only fire I seek," said Dickon, doggedly, though all his vitalsclamored in revolt against the speech. "Food I will none till he hathsupped."

  "So be it," said the monk, and left Dickon alone under the groinedarchway in the growing darkness.

  Presently he came again, and put flint and steel and tinder into thelad's hand. He gave him also a leathern bottle stopped with wax and alittle cheese wrapped in fine straw.

  "Bear these along," he said. "It is the Christmas eve. Peace be withyou," and so motioned the boy away.

  Dickon's tongue was not used to words of thanks, and he had turned insilence to go out when the monk called to him, and then came forward tothe outer door.

  "You were to kill me--like 'the others,'" he said, with a grim smilecurling his lips. "What others?"

  "Two of Sir Watty's men, whom I smote down as they would have fallenupon _him_," said Dickon, pride struggling with apprehension.

  The monk smiled at this outright, and departing again abruptly,returned with a pasty in a dish, enfolded in cloths.

  "Now God be with you!" he said, heartily. "Hither bring your strangegossip on the morrow, if he find his legs."

  Once outside the rock-girt postern, Dickon set to running, his armsfull with the burden of the friar's gifts, and his heart all aglow withjoy. It was a wearisome enough ascent, and the darkness of even wasdrawing ever closer over the earth, and the lad's empty stomach criedaloud at every furlong for food; but still he pressed on.

  When at last he had gained the point on the road whence his quest hadbegun, the light had altogether failed. Then only he struck his flint,and set fire to some leaves. From these he kindled a knot of drybranches, and with this for a torch pushed his way into the woods.

  "Andreas," he called out, when at last he stood above his friend, "hereis fire and food!"

  The white face among the leaves was the color of the snow he had leftbehind him. The eyes were half-open, but no answering light came intothem. The boy lay as if dead.

  With a startled cry Dickon let fall his spoils, and dropping to hisknees, lifted the other's head up against his waist. It twisted inertlyupon the thin neck and hung forward. Was life truly gone?

  Like one in a daze, Dickon laid the boy down again among the leaves,and rose to his feet, still holding the burning sticks in his hand. Theflames came painfully near to his flesh before he started into senseagain.

  Then he swiftly built a fire in a cleft among the rocks at the end ofthe little hollow, piling dry wood and leaves upon it till the blazelighted up everything about. This done, he knocked off the waxen coverof his leather bottle, cut out the stopper, and kneeling once more, putits mouth to the dying lad's lips.

  Strange tears came into his e
yes as, after only a brief moment, thoseof his friend opened in truth, and gazed wonderingly upward at theluminous volume of ascending smoke. Then the slight frame shudderedpiteously with a recurring chill, and the dread sleep fell upon it oncemore.

  Dickon dragged him to the fire, piling leaves behind for support, andholding the lad's hands almost into the flames, so desperate did thestrait seem to be. Then he stripped off his own leathern jacket, andwrapped it about Andreas.

  He heaped fresh fuel on the fire, he rubbed the slender limbs forwarmth with his rough hands, he forced more of the wine-drink down theboy's throat--all at once, as it were, in a frenzy of resolve thatdeath should at all hazards be fought off.

  And so it came about, for presently Andreas was sitting propped up uponthe mound of leaves, smiling faintly with pleasure at the new warmth inhis veins, and sucking bare the last bird-bones from the pie.

  Dickon gnawed ravenously upon the smoky and half-cooked piece of toughmeat he had cut from the ham of the boar, and watched the sweetspectacle of his friend restored to life, in an abstraction of dumbjoy.

  Andreas lifted his hand in air, and uttered an exclamation of surprise.

  "It is Christmas eve!" he said. "I had forgotten!"

  "So said the friar," Dickon mumbled between mouthfuls, tearing at thefood meanwhile with his teeth. "He was in two minds about having meflogged, but for that. The monks have a fear of the king, they say, andon the days he marks for them durst not break bread for themselves.Thus this friar must needs fast to-day--so he said. How could the kingknow, if he slipped in some food while-times? He hath not been in theseparts this many years."

  "It is not the king, Dickon," answered Andreas. "A greater than anyking ordereth these matters."

  "Aye, the lord of Warwick," said Dickon. "My father rode with him, infar countries, when he was lusty. But the king slew him years agone, ina battle by London town. Wist you not that?"

  "Tut, tut," the lad in ragged velvet made reply, smiling at first, andthen more gravely. "Your Warwick is dust and bones, as every man shallbe, the king not less than the meanest knave. But God does not die, andHe ruleth all things."

  "Sir Watty swore ever by Him," said Dickon. "But He hath not once setfoot in Shropshire, in my time."

  Andreas lifted himself at this, with eyes marvelling at such ignorance.

  "Oh, Dickon lad, thou hast the very mother's milk of learning to findthy way to," he cried, and crossed his knees by the ruddy blaze,tailor-fashion, to begin.

  The story that he told to Dickon was such a one as never Christianchild in these times needs to hear, but rather draws in from everysource, unconsciously, like speech and the shapings of thought. But toDickon it was brand new, since at Egswith no godly man had ever shownhis face. He listened to it all with open mouth and brain.

  As for Andreas, he grew presently conscious of fatigue, and lay backupon his couch of leaves as his narrative unfolded. Then, the instantspur of food and warmth becoming spent, his voice grew fainter, and inthe returning weakness his thoughts wandered from the thread of thesublime story to tender memories of how it had been illumined anddecked out in his old German home.

  "Ach, lieber Tannenbaum!" he murmured, with the firelight in his dreamyeyes. "It was a sight to live for, Dickon--the beautiful fir treebefore you, with burning candles fastened in among the branches, andChristmas gifts hanging underneath,--every little minute something newyou found,--and father, mother, brothers, sisters, all in the happyring around the tree, with joyful songs and good wishes--woe! woe! Ishall never see it again!"

  "That thou shalt, and hundreds of them," said Dickon, cheerily.

  But Andreas shook his head in sadness, and gazed into the cracklingblaze as though it were a tomb.

  "Old Geraldus and I would have had a tree," he sighed at last. "Eachyear since we came out from Augsburg we made us one, and sang the dearold German songs, and gave each other gifts. And this year we were bothto give this goodly 'Troilus' to Sir John--and lo! they are bothmurdered, dead, and I am following them, close at their heels--and'Troilus' will come to naught. And never had more cunning and shapelywork been done, not even in Augsburg!"

  "Is it far--that 'Owg'--what name do you call it?" asked Dickon. "Asfar as London town?"

  The lad smiled faintly from where he lay. "It is across the sea, andmany days' journey still."

  "And does the king come there oftener than into Shropshire?"

  "Dull boy! There your king durst never come. It is not his country.There is an emperor, and then a Wittelsbach Duke, but even these maynot come into Augsburg if the burghers say them nay. The tongue isdifferent there from yours, and so, glory be to the saints, are themanners, too. There learning flourishes, and men are gentle, and bookslike poor Troilus yonder are monthly made by dozens."

  "Wherefore came you hither, then?" queried Dickon, with rude islanderlogic.

  "It was the madness in my master's head. He deemed that here he shouldbe welcome, bringing a new craft to make knowledge common. But these bebeasts here in Shropshire, not men. They desire not books, but onlyblood and battle and red meat."

  "Men come by knowledge to their hurt," said Dickon. "There was a clerkturned thief in Egswith with Sir Watty, and he was skilled to fashionmarks on paper so wise men might know their meaning--and him theyhanged at Rednal for a rogue four winters syne."

  "For that he was a robber, and no true clerk," retorted Andreas.

  Dickon looked into the fire for answer, and then at the black, starlesssky overhead. He rose, and busied himself for a time in gathering freshfuel, and then in roughly wattling some side shelter at the back of thebed of leaves. Some vagrant flakes of snow sifted through the branchesabove, and he reflected upon the chances of making a roof on themorrow. Or doubtless it would be better to go farther back, and buildmore securely there.

  He put the question to Andreas by way of talk, restoring the firemeanwhile. The German boy smiled in wonder.

  "Why, on the morrow, if strength comes back to me, hie we to the goodwhite friars. They bade you come, and me, too!"

  Dickon's face clouded over.

  "Nay, I'm for the greenwood," he said stubbornly. "I will wear no man'scollar more, nor sleep under roof. To be free, here in the open, itmaketh a new man of me. And so, an you leave me, here I abide alone, orin these parts."

  "How should I leave thee, Dickon?" said the other, softly. "That couldnot be. But freedom lies not alone out under the skies, in wind andcold. Was any other more free than I, with my old master? Come, thoushalt be ruled by me--and we will make our way out from these ruffianparts together, and somewhere we shall light upon a gentle patron, andthere I will carve new types and build a press, and thy stout armsshall turn the screw, and I will teach thee learning, and----"

  He broke off all at once, and gazed wistfully upward at the mountingvolume of smoke and snapping sparks for a long time in silence. Dickonlooked on him, speechless but with great things dawning confusedly inhis head.