The Serf

by Guy Thorne

  CHAPTER VI

  Per varios casus, per tot discrimena rerum, tendimus in LATIUM sedes ubi fata quietas ostendunt.

  There is always and forever a haven we can win. In all the chances andturmoils of this life, howeversomuch we are tossed upon the seas ofcircumstance, somewhere, without doubt, there is peace.

  For the intellect distracted and pierced through by every fresh morselof knowledge, for the brain tired out by the senses, for the body fullof the sickness, let us say, of a great town, somewhere the Fates have aquiet resting place. There is peace waiting. Let Alecto, Megaera andTisiphone shriek and wail ever so loudly, they shall not break it.

  Tendimus in Latium--we are all going towards Latium. For some of us itis the blessed peace of the grave, and others are to find it in thislife. Somewhere there is peace!

  Hyla felt an utter weariness of life and all its appeals as he fledthrough the forest. The hot wan wine of revenge that had been his bloodwas now cool and stagnant. That stern old devil-hearted man that he hadmade into a filthy corpse had passed away out of knowledge as if he hadnever been. The brain of the serf was all empty of sensation, save forthat great weariness. His body was full of the mere instinct ofself-preservation. The legs on which he ran, the arms which pushed asidethe forest branches, the furtive eyes which sought for foes, all actedindependently of his brain. Nature itself working in him bade him fly.For himself, had he thought about it, he would hardly have cared, eventhough he had been captured. But none the less was his fleeing swift andsure.

  He twisted his tortuous way through the thick hazel shoots, which struckhim in the face as he buffeted them, and his bare arms and legs werescarred and pricked in a thousand places with thorns from the trailingundergrowth.

  When he had beat back to the other end of Monkshood, walking parallel tothe glade, he heard voices close to him and the noise of a company ofpeople entering the ride at the far end of the glade. By the threesinister trees, he heard the keen notes of a horn blowing in eagersummons. Suddenly a new and terrible fear came to him. The dogs, whichwere whining all round, would most surely smell him in a moment. Hecould hear their excited movements on every side. He realised that heshould have made a much greater detour, and that he had, in fact,stumbled into the very middle of his enemies.

  He could see no way out of his perilous position, and felt that he wascertain of immediate discovery. But the Fates, which were providing ashort peace for him, willed that his capture was not yet to be. Theurgent note of Kenulph's horn, half a mile away, attracted the dogs, andthey gave tongue, and, dashing out of the cover, spread up the drive ina long line. Fulke, who was within ten yards of the hidden murderer,cheered them on.

  "I can see figures," shouted a huntsman, "one, two horses. They must bemy lord and Kenulph, and Sir Boar is dead. Come along, Sir Fulke, we arenot very far behind after all!"

  With that the whole company pressed out into the ride and thunderedaway, and Hyla was left solitary. The narrowness of the escapeheartened him into fresh endeavour, and once more he began his swiftcareer through the wood. After another mile of hard going, he sat for amoment. 'Twas then that he heard a low sibilant noise, like the hiss ofa snake. He started up, looking round him on every side. He heard thesound again, and it seemed to come from the sky above.

  He looked up into the depths of a beech tree above him, and presentlythere appeared a lean brown leg among the leaves. A body followed, andCerdic dropped on to the turf.

  "Well?" said Cerdic, "God be with you! What have you done?"

  "Killed him," said Hyla with a curious pride, though he tried hard toappear unconscious of his great merit. "He's dead, sure enough. I wellthink he is in hell now--he and Pierce in the same fire."

  "The Saints have watched thee with kind eyen that you did it, Hyla. Inhell is my lord, and there a will lie, for Saint Peter that hath the keyis not so scant of wit as to let him go. Let us thank Our Lady that didstrengthen your arm."

  "Yes, let us thank her," said Hyla. "I gave him two arrows, 'one forElgifu,' I said, and 'this one for Frija,' I said. That was how I didit. So that he might be sure for what he died, you wist. Yes, that wasjust how I did it."

  He had a curious shame which prevented a reference to the third shaft.He was not sure if Cerdic would have understood that arrow of FREEDOM.He hardly realised it himself.

  "By Godis rood, you have done well, my friend. But pray, pray that youmay be clean, and that Our Lady may wesshe you of blood guilt."

  They knelt down, and became straightway enveloped in a mystery that wasnot of this world. The dead man in the tree-cave could not stir Hyla asthis sudden invoking of God's mother, for he was certain that she wasclose by in the wood, listening.

  Cerdic made prayer, because he was a man of quick wit and glib oftongue.

  "O Lady of Heaven," said he, "we call upon you in our souls' need, and Iwill plainly tell you why. And that is this: Hyla has killed our LordGeoffroi, for he did take his girls. And Lord Geoffroi has sorelyoppressed us and beaten us, and so, dead is he. And we pray you that webe made clean of the killing in Godis sight. And if it may be so, we askthat you will say to the heavenly gateward that he should ne'er let ourLord Geoffroi therein. For Saint Peter knoweth not how bad a man he was.And we would that you wilt say by word that he be cast down with Judasand with all the devils into hell, Amen." And then in a quick aside toHyla, "'Amen' fool, I did not hear you say it."

  With that Hyla said "Amen" very lustily, and they both rose from theirknees. "I am gride that I said no 'Amen,'" said Hyla, "but I waslistening to the prayer. It was a wonderful good prayer, Cerdic."

  "Yes," said the other, "I can pray more than a little when it so comesto me. Had I but some Latin to pray in I doubt nothing that I would getmy own bocland back before I die. But come, we are far from safety yet.It gets late, we must go swiftly."

  They met with no mishap, and saw no man till they were on the veryoutskirts of the wood, and not more than a couple of hundred yards fromthe stoke itself. They were about thirty yards from the main entrance tothe wood, a road which was beaten hard with the coming and going of menand horses.

  There they stopped for a consultation. Was it better, they asked eachother, to gather some kindling wood and go boldly through the village asif upon the ordinary business of the day, or, on the other hand, to makea wide half circle, and reach the river a mile away from thelanding-stage?

  It was quite certain that as yet no news of the Baron's death hadreached the castle. There could be no doubt of that. They might walkopenly through the village with no suspicion. Yet, at the same time,they might very probably be met by a man-at-arms or one of the minorofficials of the castle, and ordered to some work within its gates. Itwas a difficult question to decide upon hurriedly, and yet it must besettled soon. Every moment wasted in council meant--so they took it--achance less for freedom. As they discussed the issue in an agony ofindecision they both found that terror was flowing over them in waves.Cerdic's throat contracted and was pulled back again into a drytightness. He cleared his throat at every sentence, as who should beabout the nervous effort of a public speech.

  As for Hyla, his stomach became as though it were full of water, and hisbowels were full of an aching which was fearfully exciting and which atthe same time, strangely enough, had an acute physical pleasure in it.

  Their indecision was stopped by an event which left only one method offlight open to them.

  As they tossed the chance back and forward to one another, debated uponit and weighed it, they heard the noise of a horseman passing by _ventrea terre_. As he passed he sounded his horn. They wormed their way to theroad as they heard him coming, and saw that it was the forester Kenulph.His face was ashen grey and set rigid with excitement, and then bothsimultaneously saw that he was bearing the news to the castle.

  He passed them like rain blown by the wind, and turning the corner waslost to their sight.

  "This makes our way clear algates," said Cerdic. "Sith Kenulph rides tocastle hall, we must be bold. It wi
ll take while a man might tellhundreds for them to take the news. He will hold all the castle inthrall. They will be forslackt for half-an-hour. He is there by now, allclad with loam and full of his news. Come out into the village and godown to river bank. We go to clear the brook mouth. It's all mucky andbegins to kill the fish. Remember, that is what we go to do."

  "I obey your heasts, Sir Cerdic," Hyla answered him with a smile. "Come,come upon the way. I think it matters not much one way or the other, butwe may win our sanctuary by hardiment. Algates, we are ywrocken."[3]

  "Yes, that are we, and revenge is sweet. No more will he ill-use ourgirls, or burn us on the green. Surely he has a deep debt to pay."

  While they had been speaking they had been gathering great armfuls offallen twigs and branches, and soon they went slowly down the ride withthese. The frowning gates of the castle came into their view, butKenulph had already entered them, and the very guards had left thegates. They passed by to the right, and came on to the green. One or twowomen were busy washing linen at the doors of the houses, but save forthem no one was about.

  They passed the long walls of the castle, skirting the moat, by which asmooth path ran, till they came to the fields. There they were stoppedfor a few minutes. One Selred, a serf who tended swine, came out of thefield where his charges dwelt. He was a half-witted creature, but littleremoved from the swine themselves. He carried a spear head, broken off afoot down the shaft, and this had been sharpened on a hone of hard woodfor a weapon with which to kill the swine. He pointed to the row of deadanimals which lay stark and unclean on one side of the field.

  [3] Revenged.

  "Nearly fifty," said he, "have I killed this day for siege vittaille, totheir very great dreriment. Holy Maid! never did you hear suchsquealing."

  They shook him off after a time, but with difficulty. He was infinitelyproud of his achievement. "I do love pig's flesh," he gibbered afterthem as they fled down the hill.

  From the castle there now came the shrill notes of a tucket, and thenthe castle bell began to toll furiously, and a confused noise ofshouting floated down the hill. When they hurried to the landing-stagethey found that the boats had been duly scuttled. Here and there agunwale projected out of the water, and on the stones lay the windac ofa cross-bow with which holes had been made in the boats.

  Hyla gave a long, low whistle, and waited for Gurth to glide out of thereeds bordering the great fen. There was no reply, and the two fugitiveslooked at each other in alarm. Then Cerdic whistled rather louder, butstill the welcome sight of the boat did not come to them.

  "Something has happened to the mome," Cerdic said, "I am sure that hewould not forslowe us like this if a were safe."

  "What shall we do?" asked Hyla.

  "I do not know," said Cerdic, his courage oozing out of him everymoment. Their position was certainly sufficiently perilous. There was,as yet, nothing to connect them with the crime, but half-an-hour mightalter everything. It was, moreover, quite certain that, in a search, oneparty at least would be sent down to the river.

  They stood there gazing at each other in great alarm.

  "I have a great fear that we are lost," Hyla said.

  "Indeed, I believe so," answered the other, with strained, terrifiedeyes.

  Both of them felt that they were hard in the very grip of unkindcircumstance. They shook like river-side willows when the wind blows.

  Now as they stood together communing as to what they should do, and witha great sinking of heart, it chanced that their faces were turnedtowards the river, away from the castle. They looked most eagerlytowards the reeds upon the other side.

  The river ran sluggishly like oil, and there was no breaking up of itssurface. Here and there some dancing water-flies made a tiny ripple, butthat was all.

  Suddenly a great fish leapt out of the middle water high into the air. Aflash of silver, a glimpse of white belly, and with a loud report it wasgone. Sullen circles widened out and broadened towards them. Then theysaw at the very place where the bream had disappeared the still surfaceof the water was violently agitated. They watched in amazement. A greatblack object heaved slowly up into view, full six feet long. It was thebody of Pierce, the man-at-arms, all swollen by water. The face waspuffed into an enormous grotesque, and the open eyes seemed cognisant ofthem.

  The faces of the two serfs became ashen white, and they looked at eachother in terrible fear.

  "Christ, what a visnomie!" said Cerdic.

  "God shows us that we are to die. My lord will be ywrocken" said Hyla.

  "See how it seems alive."

  "Yes, that does it. I can see the hole in's neck. The fishes have beenat it."

  "Oh, courage, courage! Our Lady never means us to die, whistle for Gurthonce more. Perchance he is nearer now, perchance he is nearer, and, notknowing we are here, cometh not."

  "I cannot sound a note, my breath is hot and my lips are very dry.Whistle you for me."

  Just then a noise of shouting behind their backs made them both wheelround swiftly. Half-way down the hill a group of men-at-arms wererunning towards them.

  Cerdic gave a great wail of despair.

  One of the soldiers dropped upon his knee, and a long arrow came pastthem singing like a great wasp. It ricochetted over the water into thereeds beyond. The soldiers were now a hundred and fifty yards away,shouting fiercely as they came on.

  Hyla turned a last hopeless glance to the river. Just as he did so along nose shot out of the reeds, and the punt they had waited for glidedswiftly towards them.

  "Hallo, hallo!" Cerdic yelled in an agony of excitement. "Quick, quick,else we die!"

  There was a sudden jar as the prow of the punt collided with themasonry. The two serfs leapt into it. Gurth took the long pole andplunged it deep into the water. The muscles grew rigid on his bare backand stood out upon his arms as he bent for one mighty stroke. Thesoldiers were only twenty yards away. With an incredible slowness, so itseemed to the fugitives, the arms of the punter began to lengthen as theboat moved. In another second the propelling impulse gathered force andspeed, and just as the first man arrived upon the landing-stage itglided rapidly over the water. There was a thud as it struck thefloating body, and a horrid liquid bubbling, and then in another secondthey entered the passage and the reeds hid them from view. Gurth sankdown, deadly sick, upon the floor of the punt, and the pole, held by onehand only, dragged among the rushes with a sound like a sickle in corn.

  The three men crouched in the bottom of the boat, listening to the angryclamour on the opposite shore. An arrow or two passed over their heads,and one fell from a height into the very prow of the boat, but none ofthem were touched. There was not an ounce of courage among them. Theyhad no strength to go on.

  The castle bell away on the hill-top still rang loudly, and the shrillmetallic notes of the tuckets called and answered to each other allround.

  As they lay in the reeds not thirty yards from their pursuers, thesenoises of alarm filled them with fear. A voice rang out from the excitedbabble across the river and flung an echoing and malignant threat atthem.

  Although they could see nothing, the whole scene was painted for themwith noise. They heard the voices sink into a quick murmur ofconversation, and then hurried footsteps sped up the hill with messagesfor the castle.

  Still they stayed trembling in the punt and made no effort to escape.All the weight of the terrible traditions that overhung their class wasupon them. The great effort they had made, their incredible boldness,now left them with little more spirit, in spite of their good fortune,than whipped dogs. The moment was enough, for the moment they were safefrom capture, and the voices of the soldiers--how terribly near!--didnot stir them to action.

  It was only when their peril became imminent that they were roused fromtheir apathy. Sounds of activity floated over to them. A voice wasgiving directions, and then there was a shout of "Now," followed by aharsh, grating noise. The serfs realised that the soldiers had been ableto drag one of the sunken punts on to the landing
-stage. Almostimmediately a noise of hammering was heard. They were repairing theboat.

  At that shrill, ominous sound Cerdic rose from the bottom of the punttrembling with excitement. "Men," he said in a deep startled voice, "wehave been here too long, and death is like to come our way. Oh, fainthearts that we have been, and the Saints with us so long, and the HolyMaid helping us! Come, silent now! take poles and let us get away. Iknow the fens better than those divells."

  So confident was his voice and so burning with excitement, that in onemoment it lashed their cowardice away. Hyla sprung towards the sternpole and Gurth lifted the other, then, with hardly a movement save a fewtiny splashes, the boat glided slowly away into the heart of the fen.The voices of the soldiers became fainter and more faint till they couldhear them no more.

  The ringing blows of the hammer pursued them a little further, until ina few minutes those also died away, and they were alone in the fen.

  All round them the great reeds rose and whispered, enormous bulrusheswith furry heads like young water-rats nodded towards them as they racedfor their life down those dark mysterious waterways. Deeper and deeperinto the heart of the great fen sped the boat. Gurth and Hyla workedwith the precision of machines. There was a wonderfully stimulatingeffect in the rhythm of the action. The water became a deep shiningblack, showing incalculable depths below. In order to propel the boat atall they had to skirt the very fringe of the morass, for there onlycould the poles find bottom. At each heave and lift, under which thepunt kicked forward like some living thing, the poles came up clottedand smeared with stinking black mud, undisturbed before for hundreds ofyears. Sometimes, at a deeper push, the mud was a greyish white andstudded with tiny shells, tokens which the great grey sea had leftbehind to tell that once it had dominion there.

  All wild nature fled before their racing approach. A hundred yardsahead, even in those tortuous ways, fat unclean birds of the fen roseheavily and clanged away over the marshes. As the throb of the polescame near them, the fish shouldered each other in flight. Every now andagain they rushed over a still, wicked pool teeming with fish, and therush of their passage made white-bellied fish leap out of the water interror. Once they saw a great black vole, as large as a rabbit, swimmingin the middle of the water. He heard them coming, and turned a wetsmooth head to look; then with a twinkle of his eyes he dived anddisappeared.

  Gradually the speed of the boat slackened as the two men grew tired. Theexcitement of the day began to tell on them, and they felt in their armshow weary they were. Cerdic, who perhaps by virtue of his years orpersonal magnetism seemed to be indubitably their leader, saw it intheir faces. He saw that not only were they physically worn out, butthat energy was going from their brains also.

  "Stop you," said this shrewd person. "We are far from them now. It istime for rest and belly food." Nothing loth, they put down the puntpoles, and pushed the nose of the boat into a little bay of reeds, outof the main water.

  "Food?" said Hyla, "with all my heart, I did not know you had any. Whereis it pight?"

  Cerdic gave a little superior grin. He took up a skin wallet which layby his side and produced the materials for a feast. Six great greeneggs, stolen from a sitting duck which had belonged to the ill-fatedPierce, were the staple food. Boiled hard and eaten with black bread andsome scraps of cold meat, they were a banquet to the fugitives. Fordrink they had nothing but marsh water, which they sucked up through ahollow reed. It was blackish and rather stagnant, but it refreshed themmightily.

  "And how far have you got now, do you think?" said Gurth.

  "Near half way," answered Cerdic, "but it has been easy going, and weshall not get such free water now. It is a back way to Icomb that wehave come by up till now. Whybeare there was a broad passage, a greatstretch of water, but that was in King William's time, when boatsbrought corn from Edmundsbury. Now the monks have corn-land of theirown, and corn comes from Norwich also. The passage is all grown withweed and reeds, and no man may go up it in any vessel."

  "Where must we go, then?" Hyla asked him.

  "Nor'wards for some miles, taking any way we can that is open. Then weshall come to the lake of Wilfrith, and beyond that is the Abbey."

  "What is Wilfrith lake, and who was he?" said Hyla. "I have been uponits water, but I do not know why it is called that. Also, it has a badname, and they say spirits are seen upon it."

  Cerdic crossed himself at that.

  "Wilfrith was once Prior of Icomb," he said, "a good priest, and muchloved by God. Upon a day he was walking by the lake side, when he wasseized by lawless men and robbed of his gold cross, and left bound to atree in the forest, near the monastery. It was evening, and he could seethe robbers getting into their boats to cross the lake. So he prayed toGod. 'Lord,' he cried, 'I have not loved Thee enough. Deliver me from myneed, and with Thy help I will so correct and frame my life thathenceforth I may serve Thee better.' As he prayed, and when the thieveswere about half way over the lake, there came a great black hand up outof the water and seized the boat and dragged it into the depths. At thesame time his bonds fell from him, and he became free."

  "A black hand," said Hyla uneasily, "that would be a fearful thing tomeet with."

  "We shall not do so," said Cerdic, "for I believe that the Great Onesare helping us to-day. Who knows that they are not with us now? We havekilled Lord Geoffroi for his cruelty and sins, for all he was a lord. Doyou think Lord Christ would have let him be killed if he had not wishedit? Not he. He's no fool. I tell you," he said, cracking the shell ofhis second egg, and with great sincerity in his voice, "I tell you thatlike as not Sir Gabriel or Lord Abdiel, or one of the angels is flyingover the boat with his sword in's hand and his tucket on his shoulder."

  They all looked up to see if the angel was there, but only a little windrustled the tops of the rushes, though the sky above was beginning to bepainted with evening.

  They prattled there a little longer, willing that their rest should becomplete.

  Now, at eventide, all the fishes began to rise at the flies, and thewaters became like stained-glass, and peace was over all that wildscene.

  The voices of the serfs insensibly dropped, and made low murmurs, nolouder than the sounds of the cockchafers and long-mailed water-fliesthat now boomed and danced over the fen.

  The moon was slowly rising when they put out again on the last stage oftheir journey, punting with less haste, but making good going,nevertheless. They were in excellent spirits.