Under the Flag of France: A Tale of Bertrand du Guesclin

by David Ker

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Black Death

  Nearly five months had gone by since that black New Year night, and thefields and woods of Old England were bright with all the beauty ofsunny May, when a small band of armed horsemen came riding slowly overthe crest of a ridge looking down on the quiet, green valley, at thefar end of which the low, square, dark-grey tower of a noble cathedralrose above the grassy meadows and glittering windings of its tinyriver, sentinelling, like a guardian giant, the ancient town ofWinchester.

  The party consisted of a knight in full armour, his two esquires, and adozen sturdy men-at-arms, who, when passing through this beautifulcountry in that bright sunshine, and actually in sight of their homes,after long absence and countless perils, might well have been expectedto be radiant with joy. But it was not so. They rode in sullen silence,with gloomy faces and downcast eyes, which ever and anon shot bystealth a dark look at their leader, who wore the only bright face inthe whole band.

  Well might Sir Simon Harcourt look so joyful. Claremont Castle and itsbroad lands, which he had coveted so long, were his at last, by thedeath of his two nephews; for by this time Alured's death seemed ascertain as Hugo's. Nothing had ever been seen or heard of thefratricide since the fatal night when his uncle came back alone from afruitless search for him; and no one doubted that he had either beenslain by French soldiers or prowling robbers, or had died by his ownhand in a fit of frantic despair.

  Hence Sir Simon (after waiting some months, as if to give time for thediscovery of some proof that his lost nephew was still alive)respectfully asked leave of the king to cross over to England, and "putin order" (_i.e._ take as his own) the fair domain that was lyingmasterless; and Edward could find no cause for refusing.

  Neither he nor his son had ever liked the man, toward whom both feltthe instinctive repugnance of a high nature for a low one, even apartfrom the terrible shadow that had now darkened his name. But, whateverwere their secret suspicions, they could prove nothing; and both alikeshrank from putting an open stigma on one who was certainly guiltlessin actual deed, and might possibly (sorely as appearances were againsthim) be guiltless in purpose too.

  So Harcourt crossed the sea with a small train, landed at Southampton,and rode inland till almost in sight of Claremont Castle, revolving inhis mind schemes of selfish ambition, and either not seeing or notheeding the lowering looks of his followers.

  But these brave men had good cause to look gloomy, apart from theirdark suspicions of the wily and hard-hearted man who was now theirmaster; for the whole land through which they were passing seemedsmitten by the curse of Heaven. That terrific pestilence, known tohistory as the Black Death, which had wasted the whole continent ofEurope during the two past years, had reached Britain at last. Theshadow of death darkened all the land; and in the fair southerncounties of Merry England, as in doomed Egypt of old, "there was not ahouse where there was not one dead."

  Even their short march from the coast had already given them ghastlyproof of the misery which, under all this glitter of victory andconquest, was gnawing the very vitals of England, and amply avengingthe sufferings inflicted by her on France. Through the silent streetsof Southampton corpse after corpse was being borne; and many housesstood empty, with open doors, not a soul being left alive within.

  Hardly had they got clear of the town, when they met a man being ledaway to prison; and, on asking his crime, they were told that, beingunable to find work in his native place, he had presumed to leave itand seek employment elsewhere, "which thing," said the sheriff, with animportant air, "hath been straitly forbidden by our lord the king, in aspecial statute framed this very year, commanding all craftsmen toremain in their own place, and be content with such wages as are giventhere; wherefore this contumacious rogue hath well deserved his doom!"

  A little farther they passed through a small hamlet, without seeing aliving thing in its voiceless, grass-grown street, in the middle ofwhich two unburied corpses lay festering in the sun. Sir Simon, seeing(as he thought) a man leaning out of a window in the last cottage ofall, hailed him; but there was no reply, and the knight, lookingcloser, grew pale as he saw the shrunken features and rayless eyes ofthe dead. There was no one left alive in the whole village!

  About a mile beyond this place of death, they espied a large placardaffixed to a post by the wayside, written in a stiff, officialhand--for printing was still a century away in the unknown future.

  Harcourt (who, like other gentlemen of his time, could neither read norwrite, and was rather proud of it than otherwise) sent one of hisesquires--a young prodigy who could actually read his own language--todecipher the notice, which was so thoroughly characteristic of that ageas to be worth quoting in full--

  "Bee it knowen unto alle menne hereby, that it hath beene ordayned by our lorde the kynge, of hys grete goodnesse and mercie, that alle sturdie, myghtie, and valliaunt beggars, whych doe goe to and fro in thys realme, cravinge alms for theyr idlesse; the fyrst tyme they bee founde soe offendynge, they shall bee soundly scourged for a publicke ensample; the second tyme, theyr eares shall bee cutte off; and atte the thirde, theye shall incontinently bee hanged."

  The reading of this fourteenth-century poor law was hardly ended, whenby came a group of peasants, gaunt, haggard, tattered, half-starved,who, as they unwillingly made way for the knight and his train, scowledat him askance, and muttered between their teeth words of ominous sound.

  "These be the fine folk," growled one, "who make us eat bread mingledwith chopped straw, that they may have their cates and their spices."

  "And send us to face rain and wind and cold in the field," said asecond, "while they sit at ease in their fine houses!"

  "And ere we put hand to our own crop," added a third, "we must ploughtheir worships' fields, and reap and garner their grain; yea, andthrash and winnow it too; and all for nought--not one silver penny offee!"

  "Thou say'st sooth, Hob; slugs and caterpillars are they every one, whodevour our labour, and do nought for themselves."

  "Marry, thou art right, Will; the old saying is ever true--

  "'When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?'"

  "Ay, true it is; it will ne'er be a blithe world in Merry England tillall the gentlemen are out of it."

  If Sir Simon and his gay young esquires heard these ominous murmurs atall, they probably despised them as the mere idle growling of "a sortof discontented churls," little dreaming that this was the firstmuttering of that tremendous storm which, in the days of Edward III.'sweak and worthless successor, was to shake all England with the terrorof "Wat Tyler's Rising."

  The farther they went, the deeper grew the horror of thatplague-stricken region. The jovial shout of the teamster, the merrywhistle of the ploughboy, the blithe song of the housewife over herspinning-wheel, were heard no more. The few peasants still at work inthe fields had the heavy, spiritless, hopeless look of men doomed todie; and when two wayfarers met on the high-road, they glancednervously at each other's faces, as if expecting to see there the lividspot which was the herald of the fell destroyer.

  Passing through the village of Shawford, Harcourt and his men found aDominican friar (who had just buried with his own hands three or fourvictims of the plague whom no one else dared to touch) preaching to athrong of country-folk; and the knight's crafty face changed slightlyas he heard the preacher's text--

  "Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? In the place where dogslicked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine."

  Slowly they rode down into the beautiful valley of the Itchen, and,passing under the stately trees that overhung the winding river (now inall the beauty of their fresh green leaves), mounted the farther slope,and saw before them the rich pastures and green woods of Claremont,beyond which the dark-grey tower of the ancient castle looked forthfrom its encircling lifeguard of noble trees.

  "At last!" said Harcourt, hal
f-aloud, as if his greedy joy at thepossession of this splendid and long-coveted prize had for onceovercome his wonted crafty caution.

  At that moment a fearful cry, half howl and half shriek, burst from thethicket beside him, and through the crackling boughs broke a ghastlyfigure, with the marks of the pestilence terribly plain on its lividface, and only a few rags of clothing hanging loosely around its bonyframe, which was so frightfully wasted that the scared spectators halfthought they beheld a new-buried corpse starting from its grave.

  The poor wretch was plainly at the point of death; but, filled with thestrength of that madness which was a common symptom of the fell disease(usually impelling the wretched sufferers to communicate the horribletaint to all whom they met), he sprang like a tiger at Sir Simon'sunprotected face (for the knight had opened his visor to see his newdomain more clearly), and bit him deeply in the right cheek!

  In a moment the men cut him down; but the work was done.

  "Bear his worship to yon cottage, and look to him," cried the elderesquire, as the knight reeled in his saddle and fell heavily to theearth; "I ride to Winchester for a leech."

  Away he flew, as one who rides for life and death; but, with all hisspeed, he rode in vain.

  Three days later, Sir Simon Harcourt died; and those who stood by hisdeath-bed saw with secret horror that, to the last moment, his skeletonhands kept working themselves convulsively against each other, as ifstriving to wipe off some fancied stain.

  So died the arch-plotter, in sight of the rich heritage for which hehad played so foully, and which he never enjoyed; nor could he havefound a fitter epitaph than the solemn text read over his grave by goodWilliam de Wykeham, the founder of Winchester College--

  "This night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall thosethings be which thou hast provided?"