The Camp of Refuge: A Tale of the Conquest of the Isle of Ely

by Charles MacFarlane

  CHAPTER X.

  THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND.

  Compared with Crowland, Ely was quite a dry place: there the abbeychurch and conventual buildings stood upon a hill and on firm hardground;[132] but here all the edifices stood upon piles driven into thebog, and instead of a high and dry hill, there was nothing but a deadwet flat, and unless in those parts where the monastery and the townstood the ground was so rotten and boggy that a pole might be thrustdown thirty feet deep. Next to the church was a grove of alders, butthere was nothing else round about but water and bogs, and the reedsthat grow in water. In short this Crowland, both in the situation andnature of the place, was a marvel even in the fen-country; and, certes,it was different from all places in any other part of England. Lying inthe worst part of the fens, it was so enclosed and encompassed withdeep bogs and pools, that there was no access to it except on the northand east sides,[133] and there too only by narrow causeways. Even inthe summer season the cattle and flocks were kept at a great distance,there being no pasture-land upon which they could be placed withoutdanger of seeing them swallowed up; so that when the owners would milktheir cows they went in boats, by them called skerries, and so smallthat they would carry but two men and their milk-pails. There was nocorn growing within five miles of Crowland. The greatest gain was fromthe fish and wild-ducks that were caught; and the ducks were so manythat the Crowland fowlers could at times drive into a single net threethousand ducks at once; and so the good people called these pools theirreal corn-fields.[134] For this liberty of fishing and fowling theypaid yearly to the Lord Abbat a very round sum of money: and, we ween,the abbat and the monks had ever the choice of the best fowls andfishes they caught. That holy man Guthlacus, who had laid the Crowlanddevils, and who had cut the sluices that led from the fetid pools tothe flowing rivers, had also made the causeways which gave access tothe town and monastery. These narrow but solid roads of wood and gravelran across the deepest marshes, and had willows and alders growing oneither side of them: they were marvellous works for the times; and dowe not see in our own day a pyramidal stone on the causeway leading tothe north, inscribed with the name of Guthlacus?[135] Much had thisbeatified anchorite done to alter the face of the country; yet many ofthe foulest pools remained and could not be purified. The town wasseparated from the abbey by a broad stream, and three other streams orwater-courses flowed through the town,[136] separating the streets fromeach other; the streets were planted with willows; and the housesraised on piles driven into the bottom of the bog; and the people ofone street communicated with the people of another street by means oflight flying-bridges or by means of their skerries. A bold people theywere, and hardy and dexterous withal, for their lives were spent inhazardous fowling and fishing, and in toiling over measureless watersand quagmires. Fenners must be bold and expert men, or they muststarve. Moreover the folk of Crowland town were very devout andconstant in their worship of the Saxon saints and had a laudableaffection for their dispossessed Saxon monks and Lord Abbat: althoughin the time of King Edward, of happy memory, when they knew not whatreal sorrow or trouble was, they would at times murmur to my LordAbbat's chamberlain about the money they were called upon to pay, andat times they would even quarrel lustily with the purveyors of thehouse about eels and wild-ducks, pikes and herons, and such liketrivialities. But the usurping abbat from France had already nearlydoubled their rents and dues, and for every fish or fowl that the Saxonpurveyors had claimed, the Norman purveyors laid their hands upon adozen. Ye may judge, therefore, whether the good folk of Crowland towndid not abhor the Norman monks and wish them gone.

  In turning away the good Lord Abbat and all his obedientiarii orofficials, and all his superior monks, the intruders had left in thehouse a few inferior monks, and about half a score of servientes andlay-brothers to hew their wood and draw their water. And they had sooverwrought these Saxon laics, and had so taunted and vilipended them,that the poor hinds, one and all, wished them in the bottomless pit.

  On the night after Lord Hereward's feast at Brunn and the fifth nightfrom the festival of the Nativity, Alain of Beauvais, the intrusiveabbat, was feasting in the hall with his Norman friars, who had neverpassed through a noviciate, and with his Norman men-at-arms, who wereneither more nor less godly than his monks. One or two of the Englishlaics were waiting upon these their lords and masters; the otherlay-brothers were supposed to be gone to their straw beds. Alain thepseudo-abbat, being warm with wine, was talking in the manner of allFrenchmen about dames and demoiselles, and was telling his company whata sweet lady it was that broke her heart when he first left Beauvais toseek his fortune with Duke William. Just at this juncture of time therecame into the hall an invisible devil in the essence of a stink. It wassuch a stench as mortal nose had never smelt before--it was so intense,so foul and diabolical, that no mortal man could bear it long! Alainthe pseudo-abbat, putting both his hands to his nose, said, "Notre Damede la misericordi! what smell is this?" They all put their hands totheir nostrils, and roared "What stink is this?"

  Before the English lay-brothers could make any answer, the foul smell,which kept growing stronger, was accompanied by a terrible rumblingnoise:--and then there came most violent gusts of wind, whichextinguished all the lamps, cressets, torches, and candles; and then,upon the darkness of the hall, there burst a livid, ghastly, bluelight, and above and below, from side to side, the hall seemed filledwith streaming blue flames, and still that atrocious stench grewstronger and stronger! Abbat, monks, men-at-arms, and all, rushed outof the hall, some crying that it was the eve of the day of judgment,and some roaring that it must be the devils of Crowland come backagain. Outside the hall, in the darkened corridor (and by this timethere was not a single lamp left burning in any part of the house, butonly the altar-lights in the church) they ran against and stumbled overother Frenchmen who were running up from the inferior offices and fromthe stables, for they had all and several been driven away by bluelights and foul smells; and every mother's son of them believed thatthe Crowland devils had been sent to dispossess them and drive themback to Normandie. The corridor was long and straight, but as dark aspitch; some fell in their flight and rolled the one over the other, andsome stood stock still and silent as stocks, save that their kneesknocked together and their teeth chattered; and some ran forwardhowling for mercy, and confessing their sins to that hell-darkness.But, when near the end of the long dark passage, a French monk and aman-at-arms that ran the foremost of them all fell through the flooringwith a hideous crash, and were heard shrieking from some unexploredregions below, that the fiends had gotten them--that the devils ofCrowland were whirling them off to the bottomless pit! [The pit orfetid pool into which these two evil-doers were thrown was notbottomless, though deep; yet I wist nothing was ever more seen eitherof that monk or of that man-at-arms.] As these piercing shrieks wereheard from below, the Normans roared in the corridor--some blasphemingand cursing the day and hour that they came to England, others prayingto be forgiven, with many a _Libera nos!_ and _Salve!_ and othersgnashing their teeth and yelling like maniacs. But some there were thatmade no noise at all, for they had swooned through excess of fear.

  And now there came an exceeding bright light from the chasm in thefloor through which the monk and the man-at-arms had fallen; but thelight, though bright, was still of a ghastly blue tinge; and by thatlight full twenty devils, or it might be more, were seen ascending anddescending to and from the flaming pit, or chasm in the floor. Some ofthese fiends had blubber-lips, beetle heads, humped shoulders, andbandy legs, and were hirsute[137] and black as soot; others of themwere red and altogether shapeless; others were round and yellow; butall their visages were most irregular and frightful, and they had alllong tails tipped with fire, and flashes of red, green, and yellowflames came out of the mouths of every one of them. As for hoarsethroats, no voices could be hoarser and more dreadful than the voicesof these lubber-fiends as they went up and down the pit, like bucketsin a well, or as they roared in t
he dark cavities under the passage,and beneath the very spot where the Normans lay huddled. The intrusiveabbat tried to say a _De profundis_, but the words stuck in his throat,not being very familiar with that passage.

  By degrees that exceeding bright light from the chasm in the floor diedaway, leaving the corridor as black as Erebus. "An we could but get tothe church door," said one of the false monks, "we might be safe! Willno man try?--Is there no brave man-at-arms that will adventure alongthis passage and see whether we can cross that chasm and get out ofit?" The men-at-arms thought that this was a reconnaissance to be moreproperly made by monks, who were supposed to know more about the deviland his ways than did plain soldiers: nevertheless several of them saidthey would adventure, if they had but their swords or their pikes withthem. But they had all left their weapons in their several lodgings;and so, not one of them would budge. The darkness continued, but thevoices which had been roaring below ground ceased. At last Alain ofBeauvais, fortifying himself with such short prayers and Latininterjections as he could recollect, and crossing himself many scoretimes, resolved to go along the dark passage and try whether therecould be an exit from it. Slowly he went upon his hands and knees,groping and feeling the floor with his hands, and now and then rappingon the floor with his fist to essay whether it was sound. Thus thisunrighteous intruder went on groping and rapping in the dark until hecame close to the edge of the chasm. Then a quivering blue light shotout of the pit, and then--monstrum horrendum! a head, bigger than theheads of ten mortal men, and that seemed all fire and flame within,rose up close to the intrusive abbat's nose, and a sharp shrill voicewas heard to say in good Norman French, "Come up, my fiends, from yoursombre abodes! Come up and clutch me my long while servant and slaveAlain of Beauvais!" The intrusive abbat rushed back screaming, and fellswooning among the swooned. Again the long corridor was filled withthat intense and intolerable blue light, and again the blubber fiendsascended and descended like buckets in a well, and again the horriblenoise was heard below, and the devil that spoke the good Norman Frenchwas heard shouting, "Devil Astaroth, art thou ready? Devil Balberith,hast thou lit thy fires on the top of the waters? Devil Alocco, are thypools all ready to receive these Norman sinners? Fiends of the fen, areyour torches all prepared? Fire fiends, are ye ready with yourunquenchable fires? Incubuses[138] and succubuses, demons, devils, anddevilings all, are ye ready?" And the hoarse voices, sounding as ifthey came from the bowels of the earth, roared more fearfully thanbefore; and one loud shrill voice, that sounded as if close to themouth of the pit, said in good Norman French, "Yea, great devil ofCrowland, we be all ready!"

  "'Tis well," said the other voice, "then set fire to every part of thisonce holy building, over which the sins of these Norman intruders havegiven us power! Fire it from porch to roof-tree, and if they will seekto abide here, let them perish in the flames, and be buried under thecinders and ashes."

  "If the devil had spoken Saxon," said one of the monks, "I should haveknown nought of his meaning, but since he parleys in Norman, it is notI that will neglect his warning!" And rushing back into the hall wherethey had so lately been feasting, and bursting open one of the windows,this well-advised intruder leaped from the window into the stinkingmoat. As when a frighted ram is seized by the horns and dragged by theshepherd hind through the brake, all the silly flock that could notmove before follow him one by one, even so did our Norman monks andmen-at-arms follow the first monk through the window and into the foulmoat! Such as had swooned were brought, if not to their senses, to theuse of their legs and arms, by the renewal of that exceeding brightlight, or by the pinches and twitches of their comrades, which theytook for pinchings of the devil--roaring accordingly. But in awondrously short space of time every one of the intruders was outsideof the house, and was either sprawling in the foul moat, or wadingthrough muck and mud towards the firm, dry causeway. There was greatperil of drowning or of being suffocated in the bogs; nor were they yetfree from the supernatural terrors, for ghastly blue fires were burningon the surface of sundry of the deeper pools, and there was anoverpowering stench of sulphur. Not one of them doubted but that thelights were from hell; yet, truth to say, those blue flames showed themhow to avoid the deep pools in which they might have been drowned, andhow to find their way to the causeway; for the moon had not yet risen,and except when illuminated by these unearthly lights the fens were asdark as chaos. When they had floundered a long while in the mud andfen-bogs, they got to the firm and dry causeway which the holyGuthlacus had made for the use of better men. They were so exhausted bythe fatigue, fright, and agony of mind they had undergone, that theyall threw themselves flat upon the narrow road, and there lay in theirsoaked clothes, and shivering in the cold winds of night. They werestill so near to Crowland that they could see bright lights, withnothing blue or unearthly about them, streaming from the windows of theabbey and from almost every house in the township, and could verydistinctly hear the ringing of the church bells and the shouting oftriumphant voices.

  "The like of this hath not been seen or heard," said Alain of Beauvais;"the serfs of Crowland are in league with the devils of Crowland! TheSaxon rebels to King William have called the demons to theirassistance!"

  "Nothing so clear," said one of the men-at-arms, "but let my advice betaken. The moon is rising now, therefore let us rise and follow theroad that lies before us, and endeavour to get out of these infernalfens to the town of Huntingdon or to the castle at Cam-Bridge, or tosome other place where there be Normans and Christians. If the men ofCrowland should come after us, Saxons and slaves as they are, they maydrive us from this causeway to perish in the bogs, or cut us to piecesupon the narrow road, for we have not so much as a single sword amongus all!"

  "We have nothing," groaned Alain of Beauvais.

  "Aye," grunted one of his friars, "we brought little with us andassuredly we take less away with us! We be poorer than when we came anddrove the English abbat out of his house with nought but his missal andbreviary."

  "But we men-of-war depart much poorer than we came," said one of thesoldiers; "for each of us brought a good stout English horse with him,and arms and armour--and all these are left to the devils of Crowland;and we shall all be laughed at for being devil-beaten, though howmen-at-arms can contend with demons I cannot discover. But hark! whatnew din is that?"

  The din was a roar of voices proceeding from Crowland town. It sooncame nearer, and still nearer; and then the hurried tramping of manyfeet, and the tramp of horses as well as of men, were heard along thecauseway; and, as the moon shone out, the head of a dense moving columnwas seen on the narrow road and sundry skerries or light skiffs wereseen gliding along the canals or broad ditches which ran on either sidethe causeway; and shouts were heard of "Hereward for England! Herewardfor England!"

  Hereupon the Normans all rose from the cold ground, and began to runwith all the speed and strength that was left in them along the narrowroad, the hindmost hardly ever ceasing to cry "Misericordia," or "Havepity upon us, gentle Saxons!" But run as they would, the cry of"Hereward for England" was close behind them; and the horses, being putinto a trot, broke in among them. More than one of the men-at-arms hadthe mortification of being knocked down and ridden over by a Crowlandman mounted on his own war-horse; several of the monks got freshimmersions in the canals. Had the Saxons so disposed, not a Norman ofall that company would have escaped with his life, for they were all ashelpless as babes in their swaddling-clothes. But Hereward of the trueEnglish heart had conjured Elfric and the Salernitan to shed as littleblood and destroy as few lives as possible; and Girolamo well knew thatthe terror and panic these fugitives would carry into whatsoever Normancamp or station they went would do far more good to the good cause thanwas to be done by despatching or by making prisoners of this score ortwo of obscure rogues.

  Thus Elfric, who led the van on a stately horse, called a halt when hehad carried his pursuit to some three miles from Crowland abbey. "Andnow," said he, "with the permission of good Guthlacus, we will cut sucha trench a
s shall prevent these robbers from returning to Crowland. Sodig and pull away, ye lusty fenners and nimble boys of Crowland thatlately made such good sham devils! Dig away for one good hour by thisbright moonlight, and to-morrow ye may make the trench broader anddeeper by daylight! Oh, Guthlacus, we will repair thy good work whenthe good times come back again, and when honest men may walk along theroad in peace, without any fear of Norman cut-throats!"

  Two score and more lusty hinds came forward with axes and spades andmattocks; and within the hour a trench was dug quite broad and deepenough to stop the march of any heavily armed man or war-horse. TheSaxons then returned to Crowland, and as they went they sang in chorusa joyous war-song, and shouted "Hereward for England!"

  Girolamo the Salernitan, who had remained in the abbey with the Saxonlay-brothers, had put the house so completely in order and had socleansed it of the foul odours he had made by his art, and had sosweetened it with frankincense brought from the church, and with barksand fragrant spirits taken from his own packets, that no man could haveconceived that anything extraordinary had taken place. Save that thegood Lord Abbat and his cloister monks were missing, the whole houselooked just as it did before the Normans broke in upon it and droveaway the Lord Abbat and his brethren. Honest and merry English voicesrang again through hall, corridor, and cloister, instead of Normanspeech that whistles in the nose; and Saxon saints were once moreinvoked instead of the unknown saints of France.

  Other men had been busy in the house besides the Salernitan and hisassistants. No joyful occurrence ever took place among the Saxonswithout its being noted by a feast;--provided only that such goodSaxons had wherewith to feast upon. The Normans had gone off in muchtoo great a hurry to think of taking anything with them. In the butteryremained, among other rich drinking-horns, all carved and ornamentedwith silver, that famed horn which Witlaf,[139] king of Mercia, hadgiven from his own table to Crowland monastery, in order that the eldermonks might drink thereout on festivals, and in their benedictionsremember sometimes the soul of the donor. It was a mighty large horn,such as became a great king: and it was an ancient custom of the housethat when any new Lord Abbat came they filled the horn with strongwine, and offered to him to drink, and if he happened to drink it alloff cheerfully, they promised to themselves a noble Lord Abbat and manygood years in his time. Now for this high festival the subcellarerbrought forth this ancient and royal drinking-horn, which held twicethe quantity of our modern horns; and in order that there might be nodelay in filling it, the good subcellarer caused to be brought up frombelow an entire cask of wine, and as soon as the cask was in therefectory the head of it was stove in. Old Robin the cook, who had beenpastor and master in the art culinary to that good cook of Spalding,had so bestirred himself, and had put so many other hands and feet inmotion, that there was a good supper ready for all of the house, andall of the town, and all of the vicinage of Crowland who had beenaiding in the good work of disseising, now so happily accomplished; andby the time Elfric and his friends got back to the monastery, the feastwas ready. The thin and dark Salernitan, being but a puny eater and nodrinker, and not fully versed in our vernacular, partook only of threeor four dishes and of one cup of wine; and then went straight to thebed which had been prepared for him. The homely Saxons felt a reliefwhen he was gone. They sent the wine round faster, and began todiscourse of the wonders they had done and seen. Elfric gave thanks tothe lay-brothers of the house without whose aid the sham devils ofCrowland could never have gotten within the house.

  "And how suitably attired!" said Roger the tailor.

  "Yet what nimble devils we were!" said Orson the smith.

  "What vizards! what tails! That thin dark stranger made the vizards;but it was I that made the tails, and proud am I of the work! How theytwisted! How lism[140] they were! How I switched mine about by pullingthe strings under my jerkin!"

  "I wish," said Hob the carpenter, "that thou hadst not switched thydevil's tail into mine eye as I was coming up after thee through thetrap-door. That trap-door was a good device, and it was all mine own;for who went and cut away the beams just at the right time but Hob?"

  "All did well," said Elfric, "but there were some that did wondrously.Colin Rush, thou madest a very pretty nimble devil! Hugh, thy roar wasperfection! Joseph the novice, thou wast so terrible a devil to lookupon, that although I dressed thee myself, I was more than half afraidof thee!"

  "And I," responded Joseph, "was wholly terrified at thee, masterElfric! nor can I yet make out how thou didst contrive to throw aboutall that fire and flame, through eyes, mouth, and nostrils, withoutburning thy big vizard. Hodge the miller set fire to his big head andburned it to pieces, and so could do nothing but stay below in thecellar and help in the roaring."

  "And not much did I like that dark underground place," quoth Hodge:"and when the lights were all out, and goodman Hugh, groping his way inthe dark, caught my tail in his hand and pulled it till it nearly cameaway from my breech, I 'gan fancy that the Crowland devils wereangered, and that some real devil was going to haul me off! I wot thatthe roar I then gave was quite in earnest! My flesh still quivers, andice comes over my heart as I think of it!"

  "Then melt thine ice with good warm wine," said Elfric: pushing him acup: "I thought thou hadst known that all the Crowland devils had beenlaid for aye by the good Guthlacus, and that thou hadst had nothing tofear whilst engaged in so good a work and all for the service of thyliege lord the abbat, and for the honour and service of the church andthe liberties of England. Did I not besprinkle thee with holy waterbefore thou didst don thy devil-skin?"

  "For my part," said another, "what most feared me was that awfulstench! I was told, that as a devil I must not cough, but help coughingI could not as I stirred up the pan over the charcoal fire, and keptthrowing in the foul drugs the dark stranger gave me to throw in. Insooth I neither frisked about nor hauled myself up by the rope over thetrap-door; nor did I howl, nor did I help to carry the blue links andtorches; but the stinking part did I all myself, and I think I may beproud of it! Not to defraud an honest man and good artisan of his due,I may say it was Hob the carpenter that bored the holes through thefloor so that the incense might rise right under our Norman abbat'snose; but for all the rest it was I that did it. That hell-broth stillstinks in the nose of my memory. Prithee, another cup of wine, that Imay forget it."

  "Well," said old Gaffer the tithing-man of Crowland, "we have done thething, and I hope it hath been honestly done; and without offence tothe saints or to the beatified Guthlacus."

  "Never doubt it," quoth Elfric: "the Norman spoilers and oppressors aregone to a man, and as naked as they came. I, the humble friend andfollower of my Lord Hereward the liberator, am here to dispensehospitality to-night; your own Lord Abbat will be here in a few days;and the dread of our demons of the fens and Crowland devils will makethe invaders run from all the fen country. So much good could not havecome out of evil; if the means employed had been unlawful or in any waysinful, we should have failed, and never have met with such easy andcomplete success."

  "Nevertheless," continued Gaffer, "the things which I have seen fill mewith doubt and amaze. Whoever saw the like before? Fire burning uponthe top of water, flames not to be quenched by water from below nor bywater from above! Smoke and flames not of their natural colours, butblue, and green, and scarlet, and bright yellow! and the light fromthese flames so dazzling and so ghastly! In truth I wot not how thiscan be done by mortal man!"

  "Nor wot I," said Elfric; "but this I know full well, that there was nomagic or sortilege in the preparation, and that the stranger is as goodand devout a Christian as any that dwells in the land. Many are thethings which I have seen done by the hand of man that I cannotunderstand; but am I therefore to think that the evil one hath a fingerin them? I have carried on my back, and have handled with mine ownhands, the liquids and the substances which have been used, and yethave felt neither cramp nor any other ache. And plain homely thingsthose substances and liquids do appear to be--the quietest and dullesttr
ash until mixed together and compounded. Girolamo, who hath studiedin the schools in foreign parts, even as our young clerks studied atCam-Bridge before the detestable Normans came and built their donjonthere, calls this art of compounding by the name of Chemeia, or Chimia,and he says that things much more wondrous are to be done by it.Further, he says, that his own proficiency has been acquired by longfasting and diligent study, by prayers to heaven and votive offeringsto the saints. Methinks it were better to give God credit for theseinventions and combinations, and for the wit and ingenuity of man, thanto be always attributing them to the devil, as our uninformed clownsdo. [But these last words the ex-novice spoke under his breath.] Andthis also do I know--the stranger sprinkled his powders with holywater, and prayed the prayers of our church all the while he was doinghis preparations."

  "But what makes him look so grim and black, and so wild about theeyes," said the old cook.

  "Nothing but sorrow and anxiety, sun and climate," replied Elfric. "Inthe country of the south where he was born there be no blue eyes orflaxen heads of hair; and the Normans drove him from his home andseized his house and lands, even as they are now doing with Englishmen;and he hath known long captivity and cruel torture, and hath wanderedin the far climates of the East where the hand of the Arab is liftedagainst every man."

  "Well," said Hob the carpenter, "two things are clear--the Normans aregone from Crowland, and we have gotten their wine butts. And,therefore, I submit to this good company that we should leave offtalking and be jolly. Goodman Hodge, pass me down the cup."