CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE BAILIFF OF SOUTHAMPTON SLEW THE TWO MASTERLESS MEN.
The road along which he travelled was scarce as populous as most
other roads in the kingdom, and far less so than those which lie
between the larger towns. Yet from time to time Alleyne met
other wayfarers, and more than once was overtaken by strings of
pack mules and horsemen journeying in the same direction as
himself. Once a begging friar came limping along in a brown
habit, imploring in a most dolorous voice to give him a single
groat to buy bread wherewith to save himself from impending
death. Alleyne passed him swiftly by, for he had learned from
the monks to have no love for the wandering friars, and, besides,
there was a great half-gnawed mutton bone sticking out of his
pouch to prove him a liar. Swiftly as he went, however, he could
not escape the curse of the four blessed evangelists which the
mendicant howled behind him. So dreadful are his execrations
that the frightened lad thrust his fingers into his ear-holes,
and ran until the fellow was but a brown smirch upon the yellow
road.
Further on, at the edge of the woodland, he came upon a chapman
and his wife, who sat upon a fallen tree. He had put his pack
down as a table, and the two of them were devouring a great
pasty, and washing it down with some drink from a stone jar. The
chapman broke a rough jest as he passed, and the woman called
shrilly to Alleyne to come and join them, on which the man,
turning suddenly from mirth to wrath, began to belabor her with
his cudgel. Alleyne hastened on, lest he make more mischief, and
his heart was heavy as lead within him. Look where he would, he
seemed to see nothing but injustice and violence and the
hardness of man to man.
But even as he brooded sadly over it and pined for the sweet
peace of the Abbey, he came on an open space dotted with holly
bushes, where was the strangest sight that he had yet chanced
upon. Near to the pathway lay a long clump of greenery, and from
behind this there stuck straight up into the air four human legs
clad in parti-colored hosen, yellow and black. Strangest of all
was when a brisk tune struck suddenly up and the four legs began
to kick and twitter in time to the music. Walking on tiptoe
round the bushes, he stood in amazement to see two men bounding
about on their heads, while they played, the one a viol and the
other a pipe, as merrily and as truly as though they were seated
in a choir. Alleyne crossed himself as he gazed at this
unnatural sight, and could scarce hold his ground with a steady
face, when the two dancers, catching sight of him, came bouncing
in his direction. A spear's length from him, they each threw a
somersault into the air, and came down upon their feet with
smirking faces and their hands over their hearts.
"A guerdon--a guerdon, my knight of the staring eyes!" cried one.
"A gift, my prince!" shouted the other. "Any trifle will serve--a
purse of gold, or even a jewelled goblet."
Alleyne thought of what he had read of demoniac possession--the
jumpings, the twitchings, the wild talk. It was in his mind to
repeat over the exorcism proper to such attacks; but the two
burst out a-laughing at his scared face, and turning on to their
heads once more, clapped their heels in derision.
"Hast never seen tumblers before?" asked the elder, a black-browed,
swarthy man, as brown and supple as a hazel twig. "Why shrink
from us, then, as though we were the spawn of the Evil One?"
"Why shrink, my honey-bird? Why so afeard, my sweet cinnamon?"
exclaimed the other, a loose-jointed lanky youth with a dancing,
roguish eye.
"Truly, sirs, it is a new sight to me," the clerk answered.
"When I saw your four legs above the bush I could scarce credit
my own eyes. Why is it that you do this thing?"
"A dry question to answer," cried the younger, coming back on to
his feet. "A most husky question, my fair bird! But how? A
flask, a flask!--by all that is wonderful!" He shot out his hand
as he spoke, and plucking Alleyne's bottle out of his scrip, he
deftly knocked the neck off, and poured the half of it down his
throat. The rest he handed to his comrade, who drank the wine,
and then, to the clerk's increasing amazement, made a show of
swallowing the bottle, with such skill that Alleyne seemed to see
it vanish down his throat. A moment later, however, he flung it
over his head, and caught it bottom downwards upon the calf of
his left leg.
"We thank you for the wine, kind sir," said he, "and for the
ready courtesy wherewith you offered it. Touching your question,
we may tell you that we are strollers and jugglers, who, having
performed with much applause at Winchester fair, are now on our
way to the great Michaelmas market at Ringwood. As our art is a
very fine and delicate one, however, we cannot let a day go by
without exercising ourselves in it, to which end we choose some
quiet and sheltered spot where we may break our journey. Here
you find us; and we cannot wonder that you, who are new to
tumbling, should be astounded, since many great barons, earls,
marshals and knight, who have wandered as far as the Holy Land,
are of one mind in saying that they have never seen a more noble
or gracious performance. If you will be pleased to sit upon that
stump, we will now continue our exercise."
Alleyne sat down willingly as directed with two great bundles on
either side of him which contained the strollers' dresses--doublets
of flame-colored silk and girdles of leather, spangled with brass
and tin. The jugglers were on their heads once more, bounding
about with rigid necks, playing the while in perfect time and
tune. It chanced that out of one of the bundles there stuck the
end of what the clerk saw to be a cittern, so drawing it forth,
he tuned it up and twanged a harmony to the merry lilt which the
dancers played. On that they dropped their own instruments, and
putting their hands to the ground they hopped about faster and
faster, ever shouting to him to play more briskly, until at last
for very weariness all three had to stop.
"Well played, sweet poppet!" cried the younger. "Hast a rare
touch on the strings."
"How knew you the tune?" asked the other.
"I knew it not. I did but follow the notes I heard."
Both opened their eyes at this, and stared at Alleyne with as
much amazement as he had shown at them.
"You have a fine trick of ear then," said one. "We have long
wished to meet such a man. Wilt join us and jog on to Ringwood?
Thy duties shall be light, and thou shalt have two-pence a day
and meat for supper every night."
"With as much beer as you can put away," said the other "and a
flask of Gascon wine on Sabbaths."
"Nay, it may not be. I have other work to do. I have tarried
with you over long," quoth Alleyne, and resolutely set forth upon
his journey once more. They ran behind him some little way,
offering him first fourpence and then sixpence a day, but he only
smiled and shook his head, until at last they fell away from him.
Looking back, he saw that the smaller had mounted on the
younger's shoulders, and that they stood so, some ten feet high,
waving their adieus to him. He waved back to them, and then
hastened on, the lighter of heart for having fallen in with these
strange men of pleasure.
Alleyne had gone no great distance for all the many small
passages that had befallen him. Yet to him, used as he was to a
life of such quiet that the failure of a brewing or the altering
of an anthem had seemed to be of the deepest import, the quick
changing play of the lights and shadows of life was strangely
startling and interesting. A gulf seemed to divide this brisk
uncertain existence from the old steady round of work and of
prayer which he had left behind him. The few hours that had
passed since he saw the Abbey tower stretched out in his memory
until they outgrew whole months of the stagnant life of the
cloister. As he walked and munched the soft bread from his
scrip, it seemed strange to him to feel that it was still warm
from the ovens of Beaulieu.
When he passed Penerley, where were three cottages and a barn, he
reached the edge of the tree country, and found the great barren
heath of Blackdown stretching in front of him, all pink with
heather and bronzed with the fading ferns. On the left the woods
were still thick, but the road edged away from them and wound
over the open. The sun lay low in the west upon a purple cloud,
whence it threw a mild, chastening light over the wild moorland
and glittered on the fringe of forest turning the withered leaves
into flakes of dead gold, the brighter for the black depths
behind them. To the seeing eye decay is as fair as growth, and
death as life. The thought stole into Alleyne's heart as he
looked upon the autumnal country side and marvelled at its
beauty. He had little time to dwell upon it however, for there
were still six good miles between him and the nearest inn. He
sat down by the roadside to partake of his bread and cheese, and
then with a lighter scrip he hastened upon his way.
There appeared to be more wayfarers on the down than in the
forest. First he passed two Dominicans in their long black
dresses, who swept by him with downcast looks and pattering lips,
without so much as a glance at him. Then there came a gray
friar, or minorite, with a good paunch upon him, walking slowly
and looking about him with the air of a man who was at peace with
himself and with all men. He stopped Alleyne to ask him whether
it was not true that there was a hostel somewhere in those parts
which was especially famous for the stewing of eels. The clerk
having made answer that he had heard the eels of Sowley well
spoken of, the friar sucked in his lips and hurried forward.
Close at his heels came three laborers walking abreast, with
spade and mattock over their shoulders. They sang some rude
chorus right tunefully as they walked, but their English was so
coarse and rough that to the ears of a cloister-bred man it
sounded like a foreign and barbarous tongue. One of them carried
a young bittern which they had caught upon the moor, and they
offered it to Alleyne for a silver groat. Very glad he was to
get safely past them, for, with their bristling red beards and
their fierce blue eyes, they were uneasy men to bargain with upon
a lonely moor.
Yet it is not always the burliest and the wildest who are the
most to be dreaded. The workers looked hungrily at him, and then
jogged onwards upon their way in slow, lumbering Saxon style. A
worse man to deal with was a wooden-legged cripple who came
hobbling down the path, so weak and so old to all appearance that
a child need not stand in fear of him. Yet when Alleyne had
passed him, of a sudden, out of pure devilment, he screamed out a
curse at him, and sent a jagged flint stone hurtling past his
ear. So horrid was the causeless rage of the crooked creature,
that the clerk came over a cold thrill, and took to his heels
until he was out of shot from stone or word. It seemed to him
that in this country of England there was no protection for a man
save that which lay in the strength of his own arm and the speed
of his own foot. In the cloisters he had heard vague talk of the
law--the mighty law which was higher than prelate or baron, yet
no sign could he see of it. What was the benefit of a law
written fair upon parchment, he wondered, if there were no
officers to enforce it. As it tell out, however, he had that
very evening, ere the sun had set, a chance of seeing how stern
was the grip of the English law when it did happen to seize the
offender.
A mile or so out upon the moor the road takes a very sudden dip
into a hollow, with a peat-colored stream running swiftly down
the centre of it. To the right of this stood, and stands to this
day, an ancient barrow, or burying mound, covered deeply in a
bristle of heather and bracken. Alleyne was plodding down the
slope upon one side, when he saw an old dame coming towards him
upon the other, limping with weariness and leaning heavily upon a
stick. When she reached the edge of the stream she stood
helpless, looking to right and to left for some ford. Where the
path ran down a great stone had been fixed in the centre of the
brook, but it was too far from the bank for her aged and
uncertain feet. Twice she thrust forward at it, and twice she
drew back, until at last, giving up in despair, she sat herself
down by the brink and wrung her hands wearily. There she still
sat when Alleyne reached the crossing.
"Come, mother," quoth he, "it is not so very perilous a passage."
"Alas! good youth," she answered, "I have a humor in the eyes,
and though I can see that there is a stone there I can by no
means be sure as to where it lies."
"That is easily amended," said he cheerily, and picking her
lightly up, for she was much worn with time, he passed across
with her. He could not but observe, however, that as he placed
her down her knees seemed to fail her, and she could scarcely
prop herself up with her staff.
"You are weak, mother," said he. "Hast journeyed far, I wot."
"From Wiltshire, friend," said she, in a quavering voice; "three
days have I been on the road. I go to my son, who is one of the
King's regarders at Brockenhurst. He has ever said that he would
care for me in mine old age."
"And rightly too, mother, since you cared for him in his youth.
But when have you broken fast?"
"At Lyndenhurst; but alas! my money is at an end, and I could but
get a dish of bran-porridge from the nunnery. Yet I trust that I
may be able to reach Brockenhurst to-night, where I may have all
that heart can desire; for oh! sir, but my son is a fine man,
with a kindly heart of his own, and it is as good as food to me
to think that he should have a doublet of Lincoln green to his
back and be the King's own paid man."
"It is a long road yet to Brockenhurst," said Alleyne; "but here
is such bread and cheese as I have left, and here, too, is a
penny which may help you to supper. May God be with you!"
"May God be with you, young man!" she cried. "May He make your
heart as glad as you have made mine!" She turned away, still
mumbling blessings, and Alleyne saw her short figure and her long
shadow stumbling slowly up the slope.
He was moving away himself, when his eyes lit upon a strange
sight, and one which sent a tingling through his skin. Out of
the tangled scrub on the old overgrown barrow two human faces
were looking out at him; the sinking sun glimmered full upon
them, showing up every line and feature. The one was an oldish
man with a thin beard, a crooked nose, and a broad red smudge
from a birth-mark over his temple; the other was a negro, a thing
rarely met in England at that day, and rarer still in the quiet
southland parts. Alleyne had read of such folk, but had never
seen one before, and could scarce take his eyes from the fellow's
broad pouting lip and shining teeth. Even as he gazed, however,
the two came writhing out from among the heather, and came down
towards him with such a guilty, slinking carriage, that the clerk
felt that there was no good in them, and hastened onwards upon
his way.
He had not gained the crown of the slope, when he heard a sudden
scuffle behind him and a feeble voice bleating for help. Looking
round, there was the old dame down upon the roadway, with her red
whimple flying on the breeze, while the two rogues, black and
white, stooped over her, wresting away from her the penny and
such other poor trifles as were worth the taking. At the sight
of her thin limbs struggling in weak resistance, such a glow of
fierce anger passed over Alleyne as set his head in a whirl.
Dropping his scrip, he bounded over the stream once more, and
made for the two villains, with his staff whirled over his
shoulder and his gray eyes blazing with fury.
The robbers, however, were not disposed to leave their victim
until they had worked their wicked will upon her. The black man,
with the woman's crimson scarf tied round his swarthy head, stood
forward in the centre of the path, with a long dull-colored knife
in his hand, while the other, waving a ragged cudgel, cursed at
Alleyne and dared him to come on. His blood was fairly aflame,
however, and he needed no such challenge. Dashing at the black
man, he smote at him with such good will that the other let his
knife tinkle into the roadway, and hopped howling to a safer
distance. The second rogue, however, made of sterner stuff,
rushed in upon the clerk, and clipped him round the waist with a
grip like a bear, shouting the while to his comrade to come round
and stab him in the back. At this the negro took heart of
grace, and picking up his dagger again he came stealing with
prowling step and murderous eye, while the two swayed backwards
and forwards, staggering this way and that. In the very midst of
the scuffle, however, whilst Alleyne braced himself to feel the
cold blade between his shoulders, there came a sudden scurry of
hoofs, and the black man yelled with terror and ran for his life
through the heather. The man with the birth-mark, too, struggled
to break away, and Alleyne heard his teeth chatter and felt his
limbs grow limp to his hand. At this sign of coming aid the
clerk held on the tighter, and at last was able to pin his man
down and glanced behind him to see where all the noise was coming
from.
Down the slanting road there was riding a big, burly man, clad in
a tunic of purple velvet and driving a great black horse as hard
as it could gallop. He leaned well over its neck as he rode, and
made a heaving with his shoulders at every bound as though he
were lifting the steed instead of it carrying him. In the rapid
glance Alleyne saw that he had white doeskin gloves, a curling
white feather in his flat velvet cap, and a broad gold,
embroidered baldric across his bosom. Behind him rode six
others, two and two, clad in sober brown jerkins, with the long
yellow staves of their bows thrusting out from behind their right
shoulders. Down the hill they thundered, over the brook and up
to the scene of the contest.
"Here is one!" said the leader, springing down from his reeking
horse, and seizing the white rogue by the edge of his jerkin.
"This is one of them. I know him by that devil's touch upon his
brow. Where are your cords, Peterkin? So! Bind him hand and
foot. His last hour has come. And you, young man, who may you
be?"
"I am a clerk, sir, travelling from Beaulieu."
"A clerk!" cried the other. "Art from Oxenford or from
Cambridge? Hast thou a letter from the chancellor of thy college
giving thee a permit to beg? Let me see thy letter." He had a
stern, square face, with bushy side whiskers and a very
questioning eye.
"I am from Beaulieu Abbey, and I have no need to beg," said
Alleyne, who was all of a tremble now that the ruffle was over.
"The better for thee," the other answered. "Dost know who I am?"
"No, sir, I do not."
"I am the law!"--nodding his head solemnly. "I am the law of
England and the mouthpiece of his most gracious and royal
majesty, Edward the Third."
Alleyne louted low to the King's representative. "Truly you came
in good time, honored sir," said he. "A moment later and they
would have slain me."
"But there should be another one," cried the man in the purple
coat. "There should be a black man. A shipman with St.
Anthony's fire, and a black man who had served him as cook--those
are the pair that we are in chase of."
"The black man fled over to that side," said Alleyne, pointing
towards the barrow.
"He could not have gone far, sir bailiff," cried one of the
archers, unslinging his bow. "He is in hiding somewhere, for he
knew well, black paynim as he is, that our horses' four legs
could outstrip his two."
"Then we shall have him," said the other. "It shall never be
said, whilst I am bailiff of Southampton, that any waster,
riever, draw-latch or murtherer came scathless away from me and
my posse. Leave that rogue lying. Now stretch out in line, my
merry ones, with arrow on string, and I shall show you such sport
as only the King can give. You on the left, Howett, and Thomas
of Redbridge upon the right. So! Beat high and low among the
heather, and a pot of wine to the lucky marksman."
As it chanced, however, the searchers had not far to seek. The
negro had burrowed down into his hiding-place upon the barrow,
where he might have lain snug enough, had it not been for the red
gear upon his head. As he raised himself to look over the
bracken at his enemies, the staring color caught the eye of the
bailiff, who broke into a long screeching whoop and spurred
forward sword in hand. Seeing himself discovered, the man rushed
out from his hiding-place, and bounded at the top of his speed
down the line of archers, keeping a good hundred paces to the
front of them. The two who were on either side of Alleyne bent
their bows as calmly as though they were shooting at the popinjay
at the village fair.
"Seven yards windage, Hal," said one, whose hair was streaked
with gray.
"Five," replied the other, letting loose his string. Alleyne
gave a gulp in his throat, for the yellow streak seemed to pass
through the man; but he still ran forward.
"Seven, you jack-fool," growled the first speaker, and his bow
twanged like a harp-string. The black man sprang high up into
the air, and shot out both his arms and his legs, coming down all
a-sprawl among the heather. "Right under the blade bone!" quoth
the archer, sauntering forward for his arrow.
"The old hound is the best when all is said," quoth the bailiff
of Southampton, as they made back for the roadway. "That means a
quart of the best malmsey in Southampton this very night, Matthew
Atwood. Art sure that he is dead?"
"Dead as Pontius Pilate, worshipful sir."
"It is well. Now, as to the other knave. There are trees and to
spare over yonder, but we have scarce leisure to make for them.
Draw thy sword, Thomas of Redbridge, and hew me his head from his
shoulders."
"A boon, gracious sir, a boon!" cried the condemned man. What
then?" asked the bailiff.
"I will confess to my crime. It was indeed I and the black cook,
both from the ship `La Rose de Gloire,' of Southampton, who did
set upon the Flanders merchant and rob him of his spicery and his
mercery, for which, as we well know, you hold a warrant against
us."
"There is little merit in this confession," quoth the bailiff
sternly. "Thou hast done evil within my bailiwick, and must
die."
"But, sir," urged Alleyne, who was white to the lips at these
bloody doings, "he hath not yet come to trial."
"Young clerk," said the bailiff, "you speak of that of which you
know nothing. It is true that he hath not come to trial, but the
trial hath come to him. He hath fled the law and is beyond its
pale. Touch not that which is no concern of thine. But what is
this boon, rogue, which you would crave?"
"I have in my shoe, most worshipful sir, a strip of wood which
belonged once to the bark wherein the blessed Paul was dashed up
against the island of Melita. I bought it for two rose nobles
from a shipman who came from the Levant. The boon I crave is
that you will place it in my hands and let me die still grasping
it. In this manner, not only shall my own eternal salvation be
secured, but thine also, for I shall never cease to intercede for
thee."
At the command of the bailiff they plucked off the fellow's shoe,
and there sure enough at the side of the instep, wrapped in a
piece of fine sendall, lay a long, dark splinter of wood. The
archers doffed caps at the sight of it, and the bailiff crossed
himself devoutly as he handed it to the robber.
"If it should chance," he said, "that through the surpassing
merits of the blessed Paul your sin-stained soul should gain a
way into paradise, I trust that you will not forget that
intercession which you have promised. Bear in mind too, that it
is Herward the bailiff for whom you pray, and not Herward the
sheriff, who is my uncle's son. Now, Thomas, I pray you
dispatch, for we have a long ride before us and sun has already
set."
Alleyne gazed upon the scene--the portly velvet-clad official the
knot of hard-faced archers with their hands to the bridles of
their horses, the thief with his arms trussed back and his
doublet turned down upon his shoulders. By the side of the track
the old dame was standing, fastening her red whimple once more
round her head. Even as he looked one of the archers drew his
sword with a sharp whirr of steel and stept up to the lost man.
The clerk hurried away in horror; but, ere he had gone many
paces, he heard a sudden, sullen thump, with a choking,
whistling sound at the end of it. A minute later the bailiff and
four of his men rode past him on their journey back to
Southampton, the other two having been chosen as grave-diggers.
As they passed Alleyne saw that one of the men was wiping his
sword-blade upon the mane of his horse. A deadly sickness came
over him at the sight, and sitting down by the wayside he burst
out weeping, with his nerves all in a jangle. It was a terrible
world thought he, and it was hard to know which were the most to
be dreaded, the knaves or the men of the law.
