Books: Masters of the Guild
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L. Lamprey >> Masters of the Guild
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VI
THE FAIRIES' WELL
What a beautiful place this is," Lady Philippa said softly. She was
standing with her husband near the great stone keep, looking out across a
half-built wall at the hills and valleys of his wilderness domain. It was
one of those mornings of early summer when the air is cool yet bright with
sunshine, and the unfolding beauty of the world has something of heaven in
it. Birds were singing everywhere, and the green of new leaves clothed the
land in elvish loveliness. "Your England is very fair, Gualtier."
"It is good that you find it so, love," answered the knight. He had had
misgivings a-plenty in bringing his gently-bred Provencal wife to this
rough country. Often he had to be absent from dawn to moonrise, riding on
some perilous expedition. He and his little force of men-at-arms and
yeomen were doing police work on the Welsh border, and no one ever knew
just when the turbulent chiefs of those mountains would attempt a raid.
Lady Philippa never complained. She ruled her household as he ruled his
lands, wisely and well. She called her husband Gualtier instead of Walter,
because he liked it, and sang to her lute the canzons and retronsas of her
country, but she seemed to love his England as he did. She talked to the
woodcutters' wives and the village women and farm people as if she had
played in childhood about their doors. In fact the knight had a shrewd
notion that if he had been a bachelor the taming of his half-British,
half-Saxon peasantry would have been far less easy.
He had not wished to dominate and overawe the people, but to win them to
true loyalty. He had known exactly what he wanted when he selected the
place for his castle, and a man who knows his own mind can usually find
men to do his work.
A castle in that place and time was a little town in itself, and it must
be able to exist by itself when necessary, without markets or factories or
outside help of any kind. Like most Normans the knight was a born builder,
and had taken care to make his castle as proof against attack, and as
scientifically built, as castle could be. Each landowner had to be his own
architect. Certain general rules were followed, of course. The keep, the
fosse, the inner and outer bailey, the general construction, were much the
same in all fortresses of Normandy or Norman Britain. But no two sites
were alike, and the work had to be planned not only according to the shape
of the hill but with reference to the material to be had, the amount and
quality of labor at hand, and the climate. This castle was on a hill not
high originally, but made some fifty feet higher by heaping up earth and
stone to bring the whole top somewhere near the level of the huge rock on
which the keep was built. On that side the river flowed almost under the
precipitous western face of the mount, so that a stone could be dropped
from the battlements into the water. The young page, Roger, thought he
could fish from his window if he could get a line long enough. The keep
was still the living-place of the family, but the double line of stone
wall encircling the mount was finished, and at exposed points small watch-
towers were placed, known as the mill-tower, the armorer's tower, the
smith's tower or the salt-tower, according to their use. If the castle
should be attacked each one of these outworks would be the post of a small
garrison and stubbornly defended, while the keep could be held almost
indefinitely. The deep cellars would hold grain and salt meat enough for
months, and there was a spring within the walls. Even the narrow windows
were so shaped that an arrow aimed at one of them would almost certainly
strike the cunningly-sloped side and rebound, instead of entering the
building. The gate was of massive timbers held together by heavy iron
hinges and studded with nails, and above it was a projecting stone gallery
connecting the two gateway towers. This gallery was machicolated, or built
with a series of openings in the floor, through which the defenders could
shoot arrows upon the besiegers, or pour boiling pitch down upon them.
This was a Saracen contrivance, and had been suggested and supervised by
Sir Hugh l'Estrange, who had seen the like in Spain.
There was one place where all plans had gone wrong, and that was a part of
the wall near the keep, almost under the windows of the well-chamber. It
had been built three times, and always, before it was done, the stones
would begin to slip and sink. Yesterday a section of wall had gone clean
over into the river and carried a mason with it. Fortunately he could
swim, and though nobody thought he would come out alive, he had scrambled
up the bank very cold, somewhat bruised, and sputtering like a wet cat.
That brought the matter to a crisis. There were uneasy whispers of a curse
on the mount, a tradition that no castle built there would ever be
finished, an old custom of sacrificing some human being to be buried under
the foundation of a castle for the pacifying of the ancient gods. And all
of this uncanny terror was somehow connected with a hill some distance
away toward the forest-clad mountains, where a low brown-tiled cottage
crouched like a toad, under a poplar whose leaves were ever twinkling in
the sun.
"Gualtier," queried Lady Philippa, her eye following his, "what is it
about old Mother Izan? The maids have been telling all sorts of foolish
tales about her enchantments. What has she been doing?"
The knight laughed, but not very mirthfully. "Nothing whatever, in my
opinion. But I may as well tell you--they say that she has overlooked the
mount so that we shall never be able to finish this corner of the wall. It
is vexatious, because I meant that nook for your garden. It is the only
place that is sheltered from the wind and at the same time has sunshine
and a good outlook. But the wall has thrice been all but finished, and
each time the stones have begun to sink and topple. This time Howel the
mason was nearly killed. Of course, a feeble bent old woman who can hardly
hobble ten rods cannot have undermined a wall at this distance. That is
absurd. But the panic the men have got into is not. That wall will have to
be finished--somehow."
Lady Philippa looked at the tumbled masses of stone. "It would be a
charming place for roses," she mused, and looked again at the cottage,
where beside the door a gleam of water caught the light. "That is the
spring they call the Fairies' Well."
"Yes; it is one of the oldest wells in this part of England. The water is
pure as the sunlight, and never fails. Hugh thinks it may be one of the
places the heathen priests held sacred. It is not so very long since the
people worshiped pagan gods."
The lady traced a pattern in the dust with the point of her slender shoe.
"I think," she said, "that I will take the children and ride over to see
Mother Izan."
The knight made no objection, for the country was quiet, and he could see
the party from the castle mount as they set forth, Lady Philippa on her
black Arabian jennet, Eleanor and Roger on their forest ponies.
The children had had their own discussion about that wall the day before,
and returned to it as they rode along the trail that led to Mother Izan's
cottage. It was a longer way than it seemed from the height, for a marsh
full of tall reeds almost encircled the hill on which the Fairies' Well
was, and the trail kept to the high moorland above.
"I do wonder what is the matter with the wall," mused Eleanor. "Do you
suppose it can be bewitched, Roger?"
"Maybe," Roger admitted. "But if Mother Izan can't keep her cow out of the
bog I don't see how she could pull down a stone wall. It's like the story
of Dinas Emrys father told me," he added with relish. "King Vortigern was
building a castle on Snowdon, and every night whatever they had built in
the daytime fell down. After awhile they sent for old Merlin to see what
the matter was. And it was two great serpents in a pool away down under
the foundation. One was white and one was red, and they fought all the
time. First the white one had the best of it, but the red one beat him at
last, and chased him out of the pool. Merlin told them that the red
serpent meant the British and the white serpent the Saxons, and the
British would drive the Saxons out. But they haven't done it yet."
This was deliciously horrible. "You don't suppose there are snakes under
our castle, do you, Roger?"
"Of course not," said Roger, pulling in his lively pony. "That was nothing
but a tale. I wish I could bore a hole into the cliff, and see."
"Collet says Mother Izan is a witch," said Eleanor, abandoning the subject
of snakes. "She hated it, when mother used some of her herb drinks last
year."
"I like Mother Izan," said Roger sturdily. "She cured my leg once, when a
stone fell on it--long before you came, when I was a little fellow." Roger
was not quite ten. "She knows more about plants and animals than anybody.
Ruric let her doctor his dog, the big one he calls Cuchullin."
"Collet doesn't like Ruric either," said Eleanor.
"She doesn't like anybody here really, except mother and me. I never mind
very much about what she says. There's Mother Izan in the doorway,--and
oh, what has she got hanging up in the big tree?"
The old woman was a queer bent creature with greenish eyes like a cat's,
and white unruly hair that would not stay under her coif. In fact she
looked not unlike a gaunt, grim old puss who had all her life fought what
crossed her path, from snakes to staghounds. She was so old that the
village people could not remember when she had been young, and her
grandsons were elderly men.
A wicker basket hung from the lowest branch of the poplar tree. In it,
cradled in close fine-woven osiers with a lining of rabbitskin, lay a
solemn black-eyed baby, looking almost as old as the old woman herself.
"It's like a changeling," thought Eleanor, looking with fascinated eyes at
the weird little being. Lady Philippa smiled, and laid her hand softly on
the furry black head. "This is an unusual sight in your cottage," she
said. "Whence came it, Goody?"
"Tis none of mine," old Izan grumbled, "'tis the brat of a scatter-brained
woman--Kate, wife to Howel the mason. She came screeching at me saying the
babe was a changeling I had left in place of her child of two years, and I
should care for it. I have no mind for the tending of babes at my time of
life, but I could not let the creature starve. Natheless 'tis but ill fed,
for my cow was lost in the marsh, and none will let me have milk for it.
Kate she's dead of a fever, and Howel will have naught of the young one,
so I have made shift as I could, with bread soaked in herb drink."
Lady Philippa was twisting a vine-garland into a leafy canopy to keep the
sun from the baby's eyes. "'Tis a pretty baby," she said, "though so
small. The cow that was lost in the marsh--how did that happen?"
The old woman's eyes blazed with hatred. "My lady, the lads of the village
drove her there, and the poor hunted beast floundered into a quagmire. I
cursed them well for it, but that does not bring back the good cow. And
Howel will do nothing for me because the child is so weazened and so
small."
The lady frowned. "It is all wrong," she said, "the lads' cruelty and the
cursing of them and the blame of the woman who thought you had witched her
child. Sir Walter shall send you a goat that you can tether within sight
of the cottage. In my country the folk often feed their babes on goat's
milk, and I would like well to taste goat's milk cheese again. Is Howel at
work now?"
"He was, my lady, but since he fell into the water he swears that he will
work no more on the wall."
Lady Philippa spoke but with winsome frankness,--"The men say, good
mother, that the wall is witch-ridden because it has fallen thrice. They
are afraid, that is why they do not reason. Surely in God's world we
should be safe from such evil, if we serve Him. Perhaps if the baby grows
fat and merry, Howel will be kinder. Has it been christened yet?"
"Nay--what have we to do with such gear? But my lady--heard ye never the
old rhyme--
"'Overlook the Fairies' Well--
None did that since Adam fell;
Overlook the Fairies' Hill--
Then Old Nick shall have his fill.'"
"That has naught to do with our castle," said the lady wonderingly. "Look-
-the keep is no higher than your roof-tree. My lord chose not the site for
its loftiness but for the sure foundation."
"Aye," chuckled the old woman, "you say well, 'tis a good foundation. All
but that corner. Tell your lord to raise no towers on that corner."
"I am sorry the wall has given so much trouble," Lady Philippa said
regretfully, "for that is the only place for my garden--my roses and
violets and herbs. My lord will try once more to finish it. If I might
have but that piece of garden it would be like a bit of my old home, and
that is a dear treasure, Mother Izan, in a foreign land."
Her voice trembled as she spoke, and Eleanor pressed close to her mother's
side and held her hand. She had never heard a word before about her
mother's longing for Provence.
As the three rode away old Izan stood for a long time, shading her eyes
and gazing after them. Next morning a village boy in charge of Roger came
up the path to her door, leading two bleating bewildered goats, which were
securely fastened to a stake to graze at will.
"I came myself," said Roger loftily, "because I meant to make sure that it
was all right. I haven't forgotten the time you cured my leg, Mother Izan,
and neither has father. Have those blue-tit eggs hatched yet?"
The old woman's brown withered face crinkled in a smile. "Trust you,
Master Roger!" she muttered. "Come still."
She hobbled around to the rear of the cottage and paused to draw aside a
branch. Roger cautiously peered through the leaves, and a hiss like that
of an angry snake sounded within.
"If I didn't know it was a bird I should think there was a snake or a
cross cat in there," said Roger, after he had had a look at the small but
spirited bird-mother. "What ever makes her do that, Mother Izan?"
Old Izan put out a gnarled hand to feed the titmouse a few live insects.
"Same as an old woman don't mind folk saying she's a witch so they let her
alone, mayhap," she said. "You'd not reach your hand in there if 'twas an
adder's nest, I reckon."
"I'm teaching Eleanor all the birds' names," went on Roger, quite at his
ease, munching a bit of flag-root. "They don't have the same names here
that they do in Normandy, you know. Old Jehan--the gardener that used to
know Eleanor's grandfather--taught me all their names when I was there.
The nuthatch is Pic Macon, and the mum-ruffin is Pendolin, and the robin
is Marie-Godrie. I'm going to show Eleanor the nest next time we come, if
you don't mind."
To the surprise of everybody old Izan rode up the castle mount one day on
a borrowed donkey. "Howel he loaned it to me," she explained dryly. "Seems
like he has less fear of witches since little Gwillym began to fat up. I
have secret things to speak of to my lord, Master Roger. Will 'ee take him
word?"
In private, with only Sir Walter and Lady Philippa to hear, the old woman
told her secret.
"'Tis the Fairies' Well that drags down your wall," said she. "My
grandfather told me the tale, and he had it from his father. The outlet is
a hidden stream that runs underground to the river, and not the stream in
the marsh as folk think. The underground channel goes under a corner of
your mount. When the snows melt and the waters are strong in mountain and
in valley, then rises the water in this channel, deep under the mount, and
heaves at the rocks above it and throws down your wall. That is all the
witchcraft of it. So long as 'twas your stones and battlements that fell I
cared no whit, but when my lady told me that she would have her garden
there I could not bear to think of the peril for her and the younkets. I
am no witch, my lord, unless it be Satan that gives us to know more than
others. But I have hated the Normans who came here to steal our land, and
have helped my people to harass them in years gone by. All but you and Sir
Hugh l'Estrange, they have despoiled and plagued the folk. But build no
wall above the stream, for 'twill fall--'twill fall--'twill fall. The
waters will pull it down."
The knight sat thinking, his hands on the arms of his tall carved chair.
"I am not so sure," he said. "Maybe we can lift the curse on the mount and
make the wall secure. You shall dwell in peace by your well so long as you
may live, and your children after you, if you will show me where this
channel goes and keep the secret. Tis in my mind that it is best to keep
it secret still."
The old woman looked up with bright inquiring eyes.
"See you," the knight went on, "if we dig a channel to let the waters run
to the river by a shorter swifter way there will be no more trouble. I
think that we will make an excuse of draining the marsh. Then if we can,
when the underground way is no more the channel of the stream, we will
wall it in to make a secret passage from the castle in time of need. You
have kept the secret so long that I may trust it with you--and there will
be no more talk of the powers of evil taking toll of my people."
Sir Walter rose and went his way, and in due time consulted with his head
mason about the canal to the river. But Lady Philippa came and took both
old Izan's work-hard hands in hers, and thanked her, with tears in her
eyes. Thereafter no more masonry fell above the hidden waters, and the
cottage by the Fairies' Well was left in peace.
LULLABY OF THE PICT MOTHER
Hush thee, my baby O! never thee cry,
Cradled in wicker, safe nested so high.
Never gray wolf nor green dragon come near,--
Tree-folk in summer have nothing to fear.
Hee-o, wee-o, hear the wild bees hummin',
See the blackcock by the burnie drummin',--
Wattle-weaving sit we snug and couthie,--
Hee-o, wee-o, birdling in our boothie!
Hush thee, my baby O! dark is the night--
Cuddle by kiln-ring where fire burns bright.
Trampling our turf-roof wild cattle we hear--
Cave-folk in winter have nothing to fear.
Kling-klang, ding-dong, hear the hammers clinking--
Stone pots, iron kettles, copper cups for drinkin'!
Elf-shots for bowmen plough a mighty furrow--
Hee-o, wee-o, foxling in our burrow!
Hush thee, my baby! The Beltane's aglow,
Making the deasil the wiseacres go.
Brewing our heather-wine, dancing in round--
Earth-folk are we, by her spells are we bound.
Hee-o, wee-o, hear the pipes a-croonin',
Like the dragon's beetle-wings a-droonin',
Dyeea guard us from the Sword-man's quellin',--
Hee-o, wee-o, bairnie in our dwellin'!
Hush thee, my baby O! hear the dogs bark,
Herdin' the lammies home out o' the dark.
Cradled and christened frae goblin's despite,
House-folk we hear the kirk bells through the night.
Hee-o, wee-o! hear the cricket chirrin',
Hear auld Bawthrens by the ingle purrin',--
Christ us keep while daddie's gone a-huntin'!
Hee-o, wee-o, bonnie Babie Buntin'!
The winds and the waters our Father shall praise,
The birds, beasts and fishes shall tell o' His ways.
By seashore and mountain, by forest and ling,
O come all ye people, and praise ye our King!
VII
THE WOLVES OF OSSORY
Philosophers generally incline to the opinion that the werewolf has no
tail. Therefore, this being the sign--"
"Nennius positively states that in certain Irish families, the power to
change at will into a wolf--"
"And who knows how numerous may be these abominable wizards?"
Padraig, the scribe, sat listening intently while the company around the
guest-house fire discoursed in monk-Latin of werewolves in Ireland. "In
saecula saeculorum"--"ab incunabilis horrendum"--"quocunque nomine
notandum"--"coram diabolo"--the sonorous many-syllabled phrases clattered
like the noise of rooks in treetops. It was January, the "wolf-month" of
old English shepherds. Meadows ran floods of icy half-melted snow;
mountain winds were screaming about the cloisters, and for two days
travelers had been weather-bound at the Abbey.
Some time before, there had been rumors of wolves infesting the hills and
displaying in their forays an all but human boldness and cunning. Then
other tales began to be whispered. The peasantry huddled early about their
turf-fires, and the shepherds of the Abbey sought counsel from their
superior. They got small comfort from the Abbot, who curtly ordered them
to attend to their duty and avoid vain babblings.
All the same, among the manuscript volumes in the nest-egg of a library
the monks possessed, there were chronicles that mentioned the werewolf.
Marie de France in her "Lays" included the Breton romance of Bisclaveret,
the loup-garou. The nerves of the weaker ones began to play them tricks.
It was less and less easy to keep unbroken the orderly round of monastic
life.
This little religious community, toiling earnestly and faithfully under
wise direction, might in time bring some comfort and prosperity into a
desolate land. Ireland had once been known as the Isle of Saints. Now,
despoiled by warring kings, pagan Danes and finally the Norman adventurers
under Strongbow, the people were in some districts hardly more than
heathen. This Abbey, set by Henry Plantagenet in a remote valley, was like
a fort on the frontier of Christendom. The people were sullen, suspicious,
ignorant, and piteously poor. To deal with them demanded all that a man
had of courage, faith and wisdom. And now came these rumors of men-wolves.
When the floods had gone down and the guests departed, Brother Basil in
the scriptorium found Padraig diligently at work on a new design for the
border of the manuscript he was illuminating. The central figure was that
of a wolf crouching under a thorn-bush to slip out of the shaggy skin
which disguised his human form. Under his feet lay a child unconscious. At
a distance could be seen the distracted mother, and other wolves pursued
terrified people flying to shelter. Once, before he came to the Abbey,
Padraig had been chased by wolves, and had spent the night in a tree. He
drew his wolf with a lifelike accuracy, inspired by the memory of those
long, cold hours under a winter moon.
Instead of pausing with a word of criticism or suggestion, as usual,
Brother Basil took up the drawing and put it in his scrip. All that he
said was, "Find another design, Padraig, my son."
To others Padraig might seem an unruly spirit, neither to command nor to
coax, but the word of Brother Basil was his law and his gospel. He began
to draw new figures on fresh parchment, but he could not quite put out of
his mind the unlooked-for fate of his wolf. Current gossip often gave
hints for the work of the illuminators, and he knew the work had been
good.
It was plain enough that Brother Basil was in one of his absent-minded
fits. There was no beguiling him into talk at such times. If any of those
under his direction presumed upon his mood to do careless or ill-judged
work, they found his eye as keen and his word as ready as usual. But his
mind--his real self--was not there. Padraig wondered whether this could
have any connection with the unlucky picture.
Next day there was deeper concern in the scriptorium. Brother Basil was
not present at all. The work went on under Brother Mark, the librarian,
but the heart of it was not the same. The untiring patience, brilliant
imagination and high ideals of the man who was not only their master but
their friend, had made him the soul of the little group of artists. He
could not be away for a morning without every one feeling the difference.
At times he had gone afield for a day or even longer, searching for
balsams, pigments, minerals and other things needed for the work, but he
had nearly always taken Padraig with him. This time he had gone alone.
Padraig was as curious as a squirrel and as determined as a mink, and he
wished very much to know what this meant. He did not exactly believe the
werewolf story, although it had so impressed him that he could not help
making the picture; but he did not like to think of it in connection with
the mysterious absence of Brother Basil. A priest of the Church might be
able to defy a loup-garou, but if the wolves were real ones they might not
know him from any ordinary man.
There is no land so full of fairy-lore and half-forgotten legends as
Ireland. Princes in their painted halls and slaves in their mud cabins
listened to the shanachies or wandering story-tellers, with wonder, terror
and delight. Cluricaunes, banshees, giants, witches, monsters, pookas and
the little red-capped people of the fairy rings, were known to the
dwellers in many a wattled hut where Padraig had slept. Old people who
spoke no language but their own luminous Irish winged his young
imagination with tales far more marvelous than those of Nennius, the monk
of Bangor.
Still, Padraig had never himself seen any of these extraordinary beings.
He also suspected that Brother Basil would not vouch for the truth of
everything in the Latin books he taught his pupils how to read.
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