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

by Charles MacFarlane

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  THE DUNGEON.

  It was just before sunset of the disastrous day which saw thetraitorous monks of Ely return from the castle at Cam-Bridge, that theLord of Brunn and his trusty sword-bearer arrived at Turbutsey[240](where the monks of old had landed the body of Saint Withburga) withthe corn and wine for the abbey; and also with the dead body of theSalernitan, which they hoped to inter in the abbey church-yard.Turbutsey had but few in-dwellers; and the poor hinds that were therehad heard nothing of the foul report of Lord Hereward's death, whichhad wrought such mischief in the abbey. Lord Hereward, eager to be athis proper post in the Camp of Refuge, took the direct road, or path,which led thereunto, carrying with him, for the comfort of secularstomachs, only a few flagons of wine and a few measures of wheat, andordering Elfric to go up to the abbey with all the rest of theprovision, as soon as it should be all landed from the boats andskerries. But, before the landing was finished, there came down somegossips from the township of Ely, who reported with marvellous sadfaces, that the gates of the abbey had been closed ever since themid-day of yesterday; and that the whole house was as silent and sad asa pest-house, on account, no doubt, of the death of the good Lord ofBrunn, the kind-hearted, open-handed lord, who had ever befriended theSaxon poor! Upon hearing them talk in this fashion, the sword bearercame up to the gossips, and told them that the Lord of Brunn was nomore dead than he was.

  "Verily," said the people, "the sad news came down to the townshipyesterday before the hour of noon; and ever since then the abbey gatesand church gates have been closed, and the township hath been in tears."

  Now, upon hearing this strange news, Elfric's quick fancy began towork, and apprehending some evil, albeit he knew not what, he resolvednot to carry up the stores, but to go up alone by himself to see whatstrange thing had happened in the abbey, that should have caused themonks to bar their doors, and even the doors of the church, against thefaithful. He thought not of the want of rest for one night, or of thetoils he had borne on that night and during two whole days, for he hadborne as much before without any great discomfort; but he looked at thestark body of the Salernitan, as it lay with the face covered in one ofthe boats, and then he thought of Girolamo's death-wound and dyingmoment, and of the ill-will which some of the convent had testifiedtowards that stranger, and of the rumours he had heard of murmuringsand caballings against the good Lord Abbat, and he said to himself, "Myheart is heavy, or heavier than it ever was before, and my mind ishaunted by misgivings. If the monks of Ely be traitors to theircountry, and rebels to their abbat, by all the blessed saints of thehouse of Ely they shall not taste of this bread, nor drink of thiswine! And then this unburied, uncoffined, unanealed[241] body, and thedying prayer of Girolamo for Christian burial, and a grave whither theNormans should come not!... I must see to that, and provide againstchances." And having thus said to himself, he said aloud to his troopof fenners: "Unload no more corn and wine, but stay ye here atTurbutsey until ye see me back again; but if I come not back bymidnight, or if any evil report should reach ye before then, cross theriver, and carry all the corn and the wine with ye deep into the fens;and carry also with ye this the dead body of Girolamo, unto whom Ibound myself to see it interred in some safe and consecrate place; andgo by the straightest path towards Spalding! Do all this if ye love meand reverence the Lord of Brunn; and in the meanwhile rejoice yourhearts with some of the good drink: only be wise and moderate." And thefenners said that they would do it all, and would be moderate: andthereupon, leaving behind him the Ely gossips, and the fenners, thecorn, the wine, and the dead body of Girolamo, Elfric took the road tothe abbey, and arrived _ad magnam portam_, at the main-gate, before itwas quite dark. A few of the town folk had followed him to the gate,shouting with all their main that Elfric the lucky sword-bearer hadcome back, that the Lord of Brunn had come back, and that they hadbrought good store of corn, meal, and wine for my Lord Abbat Thurstan:for, upon reflection, Elfric had thought it wise to tell them thismuch. But from within the abbey Elfric heard no sound, nor did he seethe form or face of man, in the turret over the gate-way, or in thewindows, or on the house-top. But there were those or the watch withinwho saw Elfric very clearly, and who heard the noise the town-folk weremaking: and anon the small wicket-gate was opened, and Elfric was badeenter; and the poor folk were commanded to go home, and cease makingthat outcry. Once, if not twice, Elfric thought of withdrawing with theEly folk, and then of racing back to Turbutsey; for he liked not theaspect of things: but it was needful that he should have a clear notionof what was toward in the abbey, and so blaming himself, if not for hissuspicions, for his own personal apprehensions, he stepped through thewicket, taking care to shout, at the top of his voice, as he got underthe echoing archway, "Good news! brave news! The Lord Hereward is comeback to the camp, and hath brought much corn and wine for this hallowedhouse! Lead me to Abbat Thurstan--I must speak with the Lord Abbatforthwith!

  "Thou mayst speak with him in the bottomless pit," said the sub-prior.And as the sub-prior spoke, under the dark archway within the gate, ahalf-score from among the traitorous monks leaped upon the faithfulsword-bearer, and put a gag into his mouth, so that he could cry out nomore, and whirled him across the court-yards, and through thecloisters, and down the steep wet staircase, and into the cell orvault, or living grave, within and under the deep foundations of theabbey: and there, in the bowels of the earth, and in utter solitude andutter darkness, and with three several iron-bound doors closed uponhim, they left him, making great haste to return to the refectory, andhoping that their plan had been so well managed that none but thedesperate members of their own faction had either seen Elfric enter, orheard his shouts, or the shouts of the town-folk.

  So soon as Elfric could get the gag out of his mouth, and recover fromhis first astonishment, he began to think; and he thought that this wasbut a bad return for his fighting and risking death for the sake of thestomachs and bowels of the monks of Ely; and he became convinced in hisown mind that the traitorous monks must have made away with the nobleAbbat Thurstan, and have consummated their treachery: and then hethought of his friends in the Camp of Refuge, and at Hadenham, and ofthe Lord Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude, and, most of all, of the maidMildred! And then there came before him the ghastly face of theSalernitan, and rang in his ears, like a knell, the words which thedying Girolamo had used in the morning, when speaking of the hard doomof his beloved! And, next to this, he bethought himself of the fearfullegend of the house of Ely, which related how the blinded prince, whohad pined so long in those dreary vaults, had ever since haunted themunder the most frightful forms! Yet when his lively fancy had broughtall these things before him, and even when he had become convinced thathe would be buried alive, or left to starve and gnaw the flesh from hisown bones in that truly hellish pit, which he knew was as dark by dayas by night, a sudden and sweet calm came over his distraught mind; andhe kneeled on the cold slimy floor of the dungeon and raised to heavenhis hands, which he could not see himself, but which were well seen bythe saints above, unto whom thick darkness is as bright light; and whenhe had said a short prayer for himself and for his Mildred, for hisgenerous lord and most bountiful ladie, he threw himself along theground, and laying his left arm under his head for a pillow, he madehimself up for sleep. "Come what will," said he, "I have been true tomy God, to my saints, to my country, to my church, to my lord andmaster, and to my love! This martyrdom will soon be over! Not thesedeep hollows of the earth, nor all the weight of all the walls andarched roofs and springing towers of Ely Abbey can crush or confine, orkeep down, the immortal spirit of man! Mildred! my Lord Hereward! mynoble lady and mistress! and thou, oh joyous and Saxon-hearted LordAbbat Thurstan! if traitors have it their own way here, we meet inheaven, where there be no Normans and no Saxon traitors!" And sosaying, or thinking, and being worn out by excess of fatigue, or ratherby the excessiveness of his late short moral anguish,--an agony sharperthan that of the rack, upon
which men are said to have fallenasleep,--Elfric in a very few moments fell into the soundest of allsleeps. The toads, which fatten in darkness, among the noxious andcolourless weeds which grow where light is not, and the earth-wormscrawled over and over him, but without awakening him, or giving him anydisturbance in his deep sleep. And as he slept, that black and horrentdungeon, in which his body lay, was changed, by the bright visionswhich blessed his sleep, into scenes as bright as the chapel of SaintEtheldreda in the abbey church, on the great day of the saint'sfestival, when a thousand waxen tapers are burning, and the whole airis loaded with incense and with music. It was the sunshine of a goodconscience shining inwardly.

  Now, while it fared thus with the captive below, much talk anddiscussion took place among divers of the honest monks above; for,notwithstanding the great care which had been taken to send away theEly folk, and to seize and gag Elfric as soon as he came within thegate, the cry of the men of Ely, and the shout of the sword-bearer thatLord Hereward had come back, and had brought much corn and wine, wereheard in almost every part of the house; and, upon hearing them, themonks that were not of the faction grievously lamented what had beendone against the Lord Abbat, and in favour of the Normans, and veryclearly perceived that a trick had been put upon them in the report ofLord Hereward's death.

  "I tell ye now, as I told ye then," said Father Kynric, "that ye allmake too much account of your meat and drink, and are all too impatientof temporary inconvenience. But what said the blessed Etheldreda? 'Thefashion of this world passeth away; and that only is to be accountedlife which is purchased by submitting to temporal inconveniences.'"

  "And tell me," said that other good old Saxon monk, the Father Celred;"tell me, oh my brethren, tell me how Saint Etheldreda fared when shewas in the flesh, and ruled this house as lady abbess?"

  "Aye," said good Father Elsin, "Saint Etheldreda never wore linen, butonly woollen; she never returned to her bed after matins, which werethen begun immediately after midnight; and, except on the greatfestivals of the church, she ate only once a day, nor cared nor knewwhether her bread was white or brown."

  "Alack!" said Kenulph of Swaffham, a cloister-monk who had voted forthe wicked prior solely because the cellars and the granaries wereempty; "alack! man's flesh is weak, and hunger is so strong! SaintEtheldreda was a woman, and a delicate princess; but, an she had beenan upland man like me, and with such a sharp Saxon stomach as I have,she never could have lived upon one meal a day!"

  "That is to say," quoth Father Cranewys, "if she had not been sustainedby permanent and wondrous miracle, for ye wis, Brother Kenulph, thatthere be ladie saints in hagiology that have lived for octaves, and forwhole moons together, upon nothing but the scent of a rose. I wonder,and would fain know, how much corn and wine the Lord of Brunn hathbrought with him."

  "Whatever he hath brought," quoth Father Kynric, "the Normans will getit all! the prior and the sub-prior, and all the rest of the officialsspeak in riddles, but none of us can be so dull as not to see that DukeWilliam will be here to-night or to-morrow morning, and that the priorwent to invite him hither. The mischief is now done, and the prior istoo strong to be resisted; but if there were but three cloister-monksof my mind, I would break out of this house in spite of the sub-prior'scalls, and locks, and bars! Yea, I would break out and release thebrave boy Elfric, and away with him to the Camp of Refuge, to put myLord Hereward and our other noble friends, and the whole Saxon hostupon their guard. Everlasting infamy will rest upon the monks of Ely,if they be taken and massacred in their sleep."

  "If," said the monk from Swaffham, "the supplies which the LordHereward hath brought be abundant, I would rather go and pass thisautumn and coming winter in the fens, than stay here under the usurpedrule of the prior, who beareth a mortal hatred against all of us thatever opposed him. Nay, I would rather continue to eat meat and fishwithout bread (provided only there was a little wine), than abide hereto witness so foul a treason as thou talkest of. But prithee, brotherKynric, how much corn and wine may a man reasonably expect to have beenbrought down, and where is it?"

  Kynric responded, that he only knew that the Ely folk had cried, thatthere was good store of corn, meal, and wine, and that Elfric hadshouted within the gate that there was much corn and wine.

  Father Elsin said that he had heard the cellarer say to thesub-sacrist, that the good store of provision would be at Turbutsey,inasmuch as Hereward had promised to land it there; and that at a veryearly hour in the morning it should all be sent for and brought intothe abbey.

  "In that case," quoth the upland monk, "If a few of us could sally outbefore midnight, the corn and wine might be ours."

  "Of a surety," said Father Kynric, "and we might carry it with us intothe fens, which will not be conquered though the Camp of Refuge shouldfall; and we might share it with Lord Hereward and his true Saxons, andlook to time and chance, and the bounty of the saints, for freshsupplies."

  "Then by all the saints that lie entombed in Ely," said Kenulph ofSwaffham, "I will break out and quit this dishonoured and dishallowedcommunity! The porter at the great gate came like me from Swaffham; Tomof Tottington, the lay-brother that waits upon the sub-prior, theholder of the keys, was brought into this house by me: there be otherlay brothers and servientes that would do my will or thy will, ohKynric, or thine, Elsin, or thine, Celred, sooner than the will of theprior, and the rather since they have heard of the corn and wine!Assuredly they will unbar doors and break out with us when they aretold that the store is so near at hand as at Turbutsey!"

  "An we could but carry off with us our true Lord Abbat Thurstan," saidFather Kynric, "it were a glorious deed."

  "But it cannot be," quoth Kenulph, "for the infirmarer told me anonthat Thurstan is sick almost to death; and then he is watched andguarded by all the keenest of the faction, and the faction is toonumerous and strong to allow us to proceed by force, or to attemptanything save by stratagem and in secrecy. But, silence! we arewatched, and that fox, the sub-sacrist, is getting within ear-shot. Solet us separate, and let each of us, before going into the dormitory,and into his cell, speak with such of the house as he can with entirefaith depend upon. I will go unto the gate-keeper."

  It was the custom of the monks to walk and talk in the cloisters for aspace between supper and bed time; and the above discourses were madein the quietest corner of the cloisters a very short time before thesecond watch of the night. Those who had made them separated, and verysoon after they all withdrew to the dormitory; and the sub-prior, aswas the bounden duty of his office, went through the dormitory andknocked at every cell-door, and called upon every monk by name, andheard and saw that each monk and each novice was in his cell for thenight. And when the sub-prior had thus fulfilled what was _in statutisordinis_, he went to his own chamber, which was in the turret over thegreat gateway; and being weary, he went straight to his bed, firstputting under his pillow the key of the gate, and the keys of the fouldungeon into which Elfric had been whirled. The prior, the chamberlain,the cellarer, and other chiefs of the faction, sate up awhile in secretconference in the prior's own private chamber; but then they tooseparated and went to their beds, comforting themselves with theprospect of the abundance which should henceforward reign in the house,and of the honours and advantages they should severally receive on themorrow from Duke William for their dark treason to their countrymen.Being all worn out with fatigue, they were soon fast asleep, eachhaving proposed to himself to rise at a very early hour in the morning,in order to get in Lord Hereward's supplies, and to see to the properdecorating of the church for the reception of Duke William, and hisbrother the fighting bishop, and the rest of the Norman crew. Above andbelow, the whole abbey of Ely was asleep when the good fathers Kynric,Elsin, Celred, Cranewys, and Kenulph, with two other cloister-monks whohad determined to flee from the house, came one by one in perfectsilence, and carrying their shoes and sandals in their hands, forthfrom the dormitory, and into the quadrangle of the abbey, and thenunder the low arched way, where the gatekeeper, that
free layman fromSwaffham, was standing ready to unbar the gate, and where thelay-brother that waited upon the sub-prior was waiting for his order tobegin. A word from Father Kenulph in his ear, and away went thesub-prior's man up into the chamber over the gateway. And before onemight say three credos, the lay-brother was back again under thearchway, with the four ponderous keys in his hand. Then they all wentinto the gatekeeper's room, where two cressets were burning brightly;and by that light the cloister monks saw that there was blood upon theheaviest of the keys.

  "Tom of Tottington," said Kenulph, "what is this? What is it thou hastdone?"

  "Nothing;" said the serviens, "but only this: the sub-prior woke fromhis sleep as I drew the keys from under his pillow, and was going tocry out and alarm the house, and so I brained him. He was ever hardmaster unto me."

  "Well!" quoth Kenulph, "'tis better that the sub-prior perish in hissins and unconfessed, than that we fail in our enterprise, and leaveour friends in the Camp to be taken unawares. So, Tom of Tottington,hurry thee down to the prison and bring up Elfric."

  The churl from Tottington grew quite pale, and said, "I dare not do it!I am no cloister-monk or mass-priest, and have no Latin whereby to layspirits! I cannot adventure into the bowels of the earth to face therestless ghost of the blind prince.... I cannot go alone!"

  "Well!" quoth Kenulph, who first crossed himself, "I will go with thee;so bear the keys, and I will carry the light, and say the prayer _Abhoste maligno libera nos, Domine_, as we go."

  The sword-bearer was still sleeping happily when the monk and thelay-brother came into the dark vault with the bright shining cresset;but as the light fell upon his eyelids he awoke, and saw Father Kenulphstanding over him; and then he started up and said, "I have beendreaming a true dream; for when did Father Kenulph do aught but good tohonest man and true Saxon! Ah! Tom of Tottington, art thou here too?Then shall I not be buried alive or starved to death!"

  "Elfric," said Kenulph, "thou art safe and free, so rise and follow us.But tell me, good Elfric, what supply didst bring to Turbutsey?"

  "We loaded with corn and with wine a score of upland pack-horses, andmany more than a score of strong asses," said the sword-bearer.

  "'Tis well," quoth Kenulph, licking his lips and rubbing his hands,"'tis better than well! So follow me, and when thou comest to the upperregions make no noise, for the Lord Abbat Thurstan is deposed from hisauthority and is sick unto death; the abbey is in the hands of theprior and his crew; and we and a few more honest members of the houseare flying from it to get the stores at Turbutsey, and to give warningto the Lord of Brunn, that the false monks of Ely have sold andbetrayed him."

  "I thought as much as all this," quoth the sword-bearer; and withoutasking any questions, he followed the cloister-monk and the lay-brotherto the gatekeeper's chamber, praising and blessing the saints for thishis so speedy deliverance. As he entered the room, reverentiallysaluting the other cloister-monks, the porter gave him his sword, whichhad been snatched from him upon his being first seized under thegateway. Next the stout porter took down some swords and spears, andfen-poles, that hung in his room, and armed his friends and himselfwith them; and then, in less than a Credo, the whole party got out ofthe monastery through the wicket-gate, and, first closing and fasteningthe wicket on the outside, they all took the broad high road that leadsto Turbutsey. Six good cloister-monks, and ten good lay-brothers andservientes, were there in this company; but all the rest of the conventremained behind to await the slaughter of their countrymen in the Camp,to welcome the Normans to Ely, and to get from them--that which theydeserved. Elfric and Tom of Tottington (an expert fenner, and muchfitter to be a soldier than the waiting-man of a monk) presentlyquitted the road to take a rough path across the fens which leddirectly into the Camp: the rest hastened on to Turbutsey, and as theyarrived there before the midnight, they were in good time to aid thetrue men Elfric had left there in getting the good stores across theriver and well into the fens. Some of the party would have left thebody of Girolamo behind at Turbutsey, or would have thrown it into theriver; but the people said what Elfric had said to them concerning thedead body, and the fighting men who had fought the Normans nearBrandon, and who had seen with their own eyes the Christian end theSalernitan had made, all declared that Girolamo must have Christianburial in some consecrated place where the Normans could not disturbhis ashes.