第 四 章 · HOW THE BAILIFF OF SOUTHAMPTON SLEW THE TWO MASTERLESS MEN.

. 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 knights, 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 fell 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.