The Count of the Saxon Shore; or The Villa in Vectis.

by Alfred John Church

  CHAPTER XX.

  CEDRIC IN TROUBLE.

  For several weeks life passed at the villa with little change or incident.But the Count, though he kept a cheerful face, and talked gaily of thefuture to his daughter and Carna, felt more acutely every day how full hisposition was of anxieties and difficulties. First came, as it always doescome first, the question of money. It had never been a very easy matter toprovide for the expenses of the fleet. Again and again the Count had drawnon his private means, which were happily very large. But these had latelybeen crippled by the troubled condition of the provinces in which hisestates were situated, and even if they had been untouched the burden thatnow threatened to fall upon them would have been too great for them tobear. Some of the seaport towns would, he hoped, continue to pay theircontributions. He was personally popular, and his influence would dosomething. Then, again, he could still give at least some return for themoney. The sea-coast must be protected from the enemy, and no one couldprotect it so cheaply and so effectually as he. From the inland towns,which had always grumbled at having to pay an impost from which they sawno visible advantage, nothing was to be hoped. And any expectation ofmoney from the authorities at home was quite out of the question.

  One thing was quite certain: the establishment must be reduced within muchnarrower limits. He must diminish the fleet, and lessen also the range ofshore which he professed to defend. He could not henceforth pretend to gonorth of the mouth of the Thamesis. For the coast southward and westwardhe might be able to provide more or less effectually. More he could notdo.

  One of the first necessities of the changed position in which he foundhimself was that he must give up the villa on the east coast. It would bea matter for after consideration whether the island of Vectis was not toomuch out of the way. But till that point could be settled, it would haveto be his head-quarters. To carry out these new arrangements, and to windup affairs in the region which he was preparing to relinquish, a voyagebecame necessary. On this voyage the Count started early in April. Hearranged for disposing of that part of the fleet which he could not hopeto keep in his own pay. Some of the oldest galleys were broken up; otherswere handed over to the authorities of the coast-towns, on theunderstanding that they were to man and pay them themselves. A few pickedmen were taken from the crews by the Count; the rest, excepting such aswere re-engaged by the local authorities, were discharged. When this hadbeen done, and the villa had been dismantled, the Count prepared to returnto the island.

  Here, meanwhile, there had been trouble. The Saxon had quietly returned tohis work at the forge, and would have been perfectly content, as far ascould be judged from his demeanour, if only he had been left alone, andpermitted to pay as before his distant worship to Carna. But to somemembers of the villa household he was an object of dislike. They werejealous of the favour in which the Count and the Count's family held him.They were naturally not at all pleased at what they could not butacknowledge his great superiority in strength, and as Christians, thoughnot particularly zealous in their performance of most of their duties,they felt themselves to be unquestionably zealous and sincere in theirhatred and contempt for a pagan. The Saxon, on the other hand, heartilydespised those by whom he was surrounded. They were slaves, or littlebetter than slaves, and he was a freeman and a chief, though the gods hadmade him a prisoner. He went to and fro among them with a scorn which wasnot the less evident because it was not expressed in words.

  For a time this enforced silence helped to keep the peace; Cedric knewnothing of the British tongue, or of the mongrel Latin which sometimestook its place, and the other inhabitants of the villa nothing of Saxon.There were angry and contemptuous looks on both sides, but there wasnothing more; or if there were words, these were harmless, because theywere not understood. But by degrees this was changed. Cedric hadintelligence of no common kind--indeed he was something of a poet among hisown people--he had many motives for learning the language of those amongwhom he dwelt, his adoration for Carna being one of the most powerful, andhe had, too, opportunities for learning. The peddler taught him much, andCarna, who never forgot her zealous desire for his conversion, taught himmore. The end was that he picked up much of the British language withextraordinary rapidity, and, in little more than six months after hiscapture, could express himself with some ease and fluency.

  This was very well in its way, but it had the unfortunate result that hebegan to understand and be understood. Every day the relations between himand the domestics and artizans employed about the villa became worse andworse, and it was not long before matters came to a crisis.

  Cedric had repeatedly noticed that the tools which he used in the forgehad been hidden or mischievously damaged. He was too proud to complain,and indeed his temper was curiously patient in any matter where he did notconceive his honour to be involved. He said nothing about the matter,searched for his missing tools, and if he could not find them, continuedto do without them, and repaired the injuries as best he could. Theoffender, of course, grew bolder with impunity, and at last the limits ofCedric's endurance were reached and passed. Coming into the forge at anunusually early hour one morning, he caught the doer of the mischief inthe very commission of a more serious piece of mischief than he had yetventured, namely, cutting a hole in the bellows. He lifted the offender bythe skin of the neck--he was a lad of about sixteen, and son of the chiefbailiff of the farm attached to the villa--shook him, as a dog shakes arat, yet without forgetting that he was but a boy, dipped him headforemost in the bath of the forge, and then let him go, more dead thanalive from the fear that he felt at finding himself in the hands of thegreat giant.

  Unluckily at the very moment when the young rascal was being dismissed ina paroxysm of howling with a contemptuous kick, his father entered theyard. No one about the place was more prejudiced against the Saxon, ormore jealous of the favour in which he stood with the Count and hisfamily. He had too, in its very worst form, the ungovernable Celtictemper, and now, when he saw his son, a spoilt boy whom everybody elsedisliked, ill-treated as he thought by the prisoner, he was fairly carriedout of himself.

  "Pagan dog!" he cried, "do you dare to touch with your beast's foot aChristian boy?" and he struck at the Saxon with a long cart whip which hehad in his hand.

  The end of the lash caught the Saxon's cheek, on which it raised anugly-looking wheal. Even in the height of his passion the Briton stoodaghast at the change which came in a moment over the form and features ofthe Saxon. One or two of the bystanders had seen him face to face with anenemy, and had wondered how strangely calm he had seemed to be, showing nosign of excitement, except a certain glitter in his eyes. He had a verydifferent look now. "The form of his visage was changed," as it was in theBabylonian king(47) when he found himself, for the first time in his life,confronted by a point-blank refusal to obey. A consuming anger, like theBerseker rage of his kinsmen of after times, the Vikings, seemed topossess and transform him. His features worked, as if caught by somestrange malady, his eyes literally blazed with fury, his whole figureseemed to dilate. The luckless bailiff was seized round the middle, liftedfrom the ground as easily as if he had been a child in arms, and hurledwith a crash, like a bolt from a catapult, against the wall. He lay therebleeding from nose and mouth, while the horror-stricken Britons stoodhelpless and afraid to move.

  Cedric's Fury.]

  "Dogs of slaves," cried Cedric, "do you dare to growl at your master;" andhe swept through the terrified crowd, laying them low on either side.Happily at the moment he had no weapon in his hand, but he seized a bar ofiron from the anvil of the forge, and swinging it round his head,prepared, it seemed, to deal about him an indiscriminate destruction. Whatwould have followed it is impossible to say. In his fury and in hisabsolute mastery over that shrinking crowd, he was like a tiger in themidst of a flock of sheep. But at the critical moment, before his hand haddealt a single blow, the apparition of Carna interposed between him andhis victims. The uproar in the cour
t had reached her in her chamber, andbrought her ready to play her accustomed part of peacemaker. Now shestood, her figure framed like a picture, in the door which opened on thecourt from the part of the villa which she occupied. She wore a simpledress of white, fastened with a blue girdle; her long chestnut hair fellin loose waves to her waist, for she had not had time to arrange it inmore orderly fashion. Her face was pale and troubled, her eyes wide openwith a sad surprise. It was indeed another Cedric that she saw from theone whom she had known. Was this terrible savage, who looked more likesome dreadful spirit from the abyss than a human creature, the gentlegiant in whose mute homage she had felt such an innocent pleasure, thehopeful pupil whom she was teaching, as she hoped, to put away savage waysfor the mild and peaceful behaviour of a Christian. As for Cedric, heseemed paralyzed at the vision that presented itself to him. The sight ofthe girl always moved him strangely; now she reminded him of the time whenhe had first seen her by the bedside of his dying brother; and theremembrance completed, if anything was needed to complete, the impression.The fury that had transfigured him seemed to pass away; his hand loosedits hold on the weapon which he held. His adversaries did not fail to usethe opportunity. They had been too genuinely frightened to let it slipwhen it came. Indeed they may be excused for feeling that this mostformidable enemy had to be secured against doing any more damage. Themoment they saw him unarmed they sprang with one movement on him andoverpowered him. Even then, if he had offered resistance, they might havehad no small trouble, perhaps might have failed in securing him. But hestood passive, and allowed his hands to be bound without a struggle, andfollowed without difficulty when he was led to the room where offenderswere commonly confined. Some of the meaner spirits in the household weredisposed to visit their feelings of annoyance and humiliation on his head,now that he seemed to be in their power. But others felt a salutary dreadof rousing the sleeping lion whose rage they had seen could be soterrible. Carna too did not abandon her _protege_. He was chained, indeed,to a staple in the wall of the room which served as his prison. Thisseemed nothing more than a necessary precaution. But the girl let it bedistinctly understood that no cruelty must be used to him, and she tookcare herself that his supply of food should be plentiful and good.