Books: Masters of the Guild

L >> L. Lamprey >> Masters of the Guild

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Days passed, and Brother Basil had not returned. The uneasiness among the
monks was growing. It was said that the Abbot himself was as much in the
dark as they were. Padraig had just made up his mind that he could endure
it no longer, when the Abbot sent for him.

It had been decided, Padraig learned, that he, as Brother Basil's wonted
companion on such excursions, would have the best chance of finding him
now. All that any one knew was that he had gone out of the great gate one
morning early, and no one had seen him since.

"Nobody would," said Padraig, "if he went straight north into the hills.
No one lives near the old road through the forest."

It was in that direction that all the wolf-tracks had led from the sheep-
fold, and the country was a wilderness of marsh and mountain. The Abbot
looked at the boy keenly, kindly.

"Are you willing to go alone?" he asked.

"It is the best way," Padraig replied quickly. "One can get on faster,--
and there are not many here who can climb like him. I think he must have
met with an accident far from any dwelling."

"He is well beloved by the people. If any one had found him we should have
heard. And you have no fear?"

Padraig hesitated. "There are many frightful things in the world," he said
slowly. "Long ago I knew that if I let myself fear, fear would be my
master all the days of my life. But I am not like the others. I am his
dog. I will find him if I live."

"Go, my son, and God be with you," said the Abbot solemnly. And Padraig
went.

He took three days' provision in a leathern bag, and a pike such as the
countrymen used, and headed straight toward the hills. He knew that copper
was to be found in some parts of the range, but why Brother Basil should
go there alone, particularly just at this time, Padraig could not see.

He trotted over the slopes of tilled land near the Abbey, forded the
river, circled a pond, and crossed a bog by froglike leaps from hassock to
hassock. In time he came to the base of a steep rocky height, almost a
precipice. On the left was a black mud-hole; to the right were craggy
masses of rock. A long slanting break in the cliff led upward to the left.
He thrust his staff in this and began to climb.

Thus far there was no choice, for this was the only direction Brother
Basil could have taken without some one having seen him on the way. From
the height it might be possible to make observations.

Only a gossoon of the hills could have gone up the face of the rock as
Padraig did, and he presently found himself on a ledge about twenty feet
up, above the quagmire. It was less than a foot wide at first, but widened
toward the left, and seedling trees had formed a growth which appeared to
merge into the densely wooded hill beyond. He pushed his way along this
insecure foothold until the trees began to thin as if there were an open
space beyond. Then directly in front of him sounded the unmistakable snarl
of a wolf.

There was no time to think. He braced himself against the cliff, and
grasping his pike, awaited the assault of the beast. Either he or the
wolf, or both together, would be tumbled into the slough. But there
followed only a guttural word of command in Irish. Then a voice that he
knew called, "Padraig, my son, is that you?"

Nothing in heaven or earth could have stopped Padraig then. He broke
through the thicket into the clearing, and halted, breathless and amazed.

Brother Basil, unharmed and serene, sat upon a rude wooden bench at the
entrance of a cave, and around him were gathered wolves and wolf-like
human beings clad in wolf-pelts. One, who seemed the leader, stood erect,
broad-shouldered and muscular, in a mantle made of the hide of a giant
wolf, the head shaped into a helmet to be drawn mask-like down over the
face. A fire smoldered in the cave's black throat, and meat--mutton-bones-
-roasted on a sharpened stake thrust into a crevice of the rock. An old
woman, wasted and wrinkled, wrapped in a yellow-gray wolfskin lined with
lamb's wool, lay on a pile of leaves near the fire, and savage heads
emerging from the undergrowth might have been those of wolves, or of men
in the guise of wolves.

In the craziest legends of the chronicles there was no such scene as this.
For one whirling moment Padraig believed everything he had heard or read
of werewolf or of loup-garou. In the name of Saint Kevin, what could this
be but the very lair of the beast? Yet Brother Basil showed neither fear
nor aversion. Padraig knelt to kiss the outheld hand.

"Father," he faltered, "they sent me to find you."

"It is well that you have come," the monk answered with his untroubled
smile, "you and no one else. I stumbled upon this place,--really stumbled,
for a stone rolled under my foot,--and here I had to stay until this
troublesome lame knee would permit me to walk."

"That is not the whole of it," growled the leader of the wolf-people. "Our
dogs winded him, and had he been like any other monk who ever told beads
he would have been pulled down. But he spoke to them in our own tongue,
and my mother, hearing his voice, would have him come to her, for she had
seen no priest for many years. When he heard our story he said that he
would be our friend. And so he would, I believe, had we been what the
foolish have thought us."

"Then," stammered Padraig, "it is not true that--that--"

"That the loup-garou is abroad in the land?" finished Brother Basil with
delicate scorn. "No. Wolves are wolves, and men are men,--and some men are
thieves."

"He means," snapped the wolf-man, "that one of your own stewards opened
the gates to us, using our tracks to hide his own."

Padraig grinned knowingly. "Simon," he said. "Simon."

"Even so," said Brother Basil.

"He was very zealous about those wolves," said Padraig, reflectively,
"especially about using spiritual weapons and not slings and spears
against them. But how--"

"It was the thieving of young lambs of the choicest breed that set the
shepherds to thinking there must be more than wolves abroad," the wolf-
leader went on. "But for your Simon, with his long tongue, they might have
driven us away, for Abbot Cuthbert is no coward, nor has he patience with
cowards. But Simon came upon us one night, when we had broken into the
sheep-fold and were making off, and he was not too frightened to choose
for himself out of what was left. Then when we came again he gave us the
meat we came for, taking certain fine fleeces and lambskins for himself.
We stole as the wild creatures do, for food; we have no use for parchments
or carded wool. We killed as they kill, to fend off our enemies. The
Danish sea-wolves and the armored wild beasts of Strongbow and de Lacy
hunted us as if we were wolves indeed. What could we do but hunt as the
wolves hunt, snatch our meat where we could, hide like foxes in the holes
of the mountain, make ourselves dreaded that we might live, and not die?
The Normans brought to Dermot MacMurragh two hundred heads of the men of
Ossory for his delight. All my mother's children were killed by them save
only myself. Well for you that you are no Norman, young clerk with the red
head, or not the word of a hundred priests had saved you."

"And sooner or later the Norman cross-bows would find you, even as they
search out hart or heron," interposed Brother Basil sternly. "I have
warned you, Ruric, that this harrying and plundering must cease. Turn from
your wickedness and bear yourselves hereafter as Christian men, and your
souls shall live. And because ye were sorely tried, with God's help a way
may he opened for you to escape your enemies.

"Padraig, you see here a remnant of the men of Ossory, whom the Normans
drove into the inhospitable haunts of the forest. The quarry of that evil
hunting ran wild like the dogs who followed their masters. As the country
grew more settled, these half-bred wolf-hounds found out the sheepfolds,
and led their masters to the spoil."

"Even a Norman gives the road to the werewolf," said the Ossorian with a
harsh laugh. "The mercy they deny to man or wolf, they granted us when
they thought us neither man nor wolf. Aye, we chased them roaring to the
very gates of their castles. Had our own people known the truth some of
them might have betrayed us, being very poor. Therefore, we made it
easiest for them to keep within doors after nightfall, and in this the
priests and monks were of great help. Until you, Father, came to seek us
out, believing that God had thought even for a man who had lost his human
birthright, none hunted or hindered us. We were the masters, being without
hope and without fear of God or man."

"Peace, my son," said Brother Basil gently. "Padraig, you will go to the
Abbot and tell him what you have seen, and ask him of his charity to
reveal nothing until I return. I would send him a letter, had I not lost
my scrip with my tablets in my encounter with the dogs. Things being as
they were, it would not have been safe to send any of Ruric's folk with a
message."

"No,--not with Simon watching the gate," agreed Padraig, cheerfully. "I
wonder does he know how many lies he has told in this matter?"

"He will have enough to do in accounting to the Abbot for those that are
known," said Brother Basil with a certain edge to his voice that Padraig
knew well. "I think, however, that he really believes he has had dealings
with the werewolf. There are men who would run, shaking with terror, to
pledge their souls to the foul fiend if they saw their profit in it. If he
knew the truth he could sell his knowledge easily, and I am not disposed
to undeceive him now. Since Ruric gave me his promise to end this evil I
have thought much of the matter, and I believe that the Abbot will approve
my plan. Let him send men with a hurdle to the foot of the cliff to-
morrow. No one need be told more than that I am lame through an accident."

"Some of them will look foolish when they hear that," Padraig observed
with satisfaction. "I grieve for your lameness, Father, and yet I could
leap and sing all the way home for joy that it is not as we feared."

"There would be naught to laugh at if any other man had found us out, I
warrant you," Ruric said gruffly. "The Father won my promise from me by
his gentle and comforting words to my old mother in her distress, for she
feared to die, knowing how we had lived. I had not thought there could be
such fearless faith and kindness in any man. Say to your Abbot moreover
that if he, or you, or any of your folk play us false they will find that
a werewolf can hunt down anything that runs."

"If I deceived ye," Padraig answered gravely, "I would throw myself
straightway into the river to cheat your vengeance." As he tightened the
straps of his sandals he looked once more at the strange and savage
assembly. There were some thirty men and women and several half-grown
youngsters, garbed in wolfskins so shaped as to leave them free to run or
climb. Shoes were skilfully fashioned like a great wolf-paw; skins were
joined so cunningly that when the wearer loped along a hillside in the
chill pale gold of the winter sunset, or skulked among the shadows of
summer woods, any one would swear that what he saw was a lurking wolf. The
wolf-mask with its long muzzle and furry ears concealed the face, the
unshorn beards and hair mingled with the shaggy shoulder-fur of the
tunics. A shepherd looking for missing lambs would find only wolf-tracks
to guide him. Traps had been sprung or smashed, storehouses rifled,
watchdogs killed. Even the hard-headed and harder-hearted Norman huntsmen
turned back one day, when they discovered their hounds baying at the foot
of a tree.

Padraig knew all about the slaughter done by Dermot MacMurragh and his
Norman allies, up and down Ossory. Fierce in their despair, vengeful in
their cunning, these refugees had run wild like their dogs. The huge
untamed brutes were stronger than collies and wiser than wolves, and
nothing could have kept them from raiding any sheepfold that they scented.

The Abbot heard Padraig's story through without comment, his eyes blazing
under their shaggy brows. If any one but Brother Basil had asked him to
stay his hand, he would not have given two thoughts to it, but it was
Brother Basil, and the matter must be considered.

"These men," he said grimly, "are outlaws, red-handed robbers. They have
broken the law of God and man. They deserve justice, not mercy."

"If they can be caught," ventured Padraig.

"You think they cannot be taken?"

Padraig shook his head. "I stood as near them as I am to you, and I did
not see them until they wished to be seen. They run like foxes and climb
like cats. They will be killed or kill themselves, every man and woman of
them, rather than be taken. Were it not better they should live like
christened souls than be hunted like beasts?"

The Abbot rose and began to pace the floor. "Go, my son," he said not
unkindly, "and send Simon, the steward, to me."

But Simon was not to be found. Brother Mark, the librarian, being of a
distrustful disposition, had been asking many questions of late regarding
the parchments prepared for the scriptorium. Simon had perhaps taken
fright. He had not returned, in any case, from the nearest market-town,
whither he had gone that morning. When it was found that everything upon
which he could lay his hands had gone with him, some of the brethren were
inclined to think the whole werewolf panic an invention of the steward's
to hide his thieving. Padraig went to the foot of the cliff, accompanied
by two men with a hurdle, and found Brother Basil safe and in good
spirits, but neither wolf, wolfling nor wolf-man was to be seen. Not so
much as the sound of a wolf's howling was heard about the sheep-folds, and
shepherds and sheep-dogs tended the lambs that spring undisturbed. There
were those who said that the werewolves had been driven away by the
prayers of Brother Basil when he visited the forest. After awhile a legend
grew up and was told to the Welsh clerk Giraldus, about a werewolf who met
a priest in the forest and begged him to give Christian aid and comfort to
his dying mate. The story goes that the priest remained all night
conversing with the unfortunate man, who behaved rather as a man than as a
wolf.

When spring stirred the travel on the Irish roads a party of forest folk
appeared one day at the Abbey and asked for baptism. Their children had,
it appeared, grown up in the wilderness without knowledge of religion.
Such things were not unheard of in those days, and after baptism the party
went down to the seaport and took ship for England, where they lived for
some years in the service of a Norman knight, Hugh l'Estrange. When
finally a sort of peace was patched up in Ireland between the Normans and
the Irish chiefs, Ruric and his folk returned. But no more was heard of
the wolves of Ossory.

ST. HUGH AND THE BIRDS

When good Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Was a boy in Avalon,
He knew the birds and their houses
And loved them every one,
Merle and mavis and grosbeak,
Gay goshawk, and even the wren,--
When he took Saint Benedict's service
It wasn't the least different then!
"They taught me to sing to my Lord," quo' he,
"And to dig for my food i' the mould
And whithersoever my wits might flee,
To come in out o' the cold."

When wise Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Was a bishop wi' crosier tall,
A wild swan flew from the marshes
Over the cloister wall,
Crooked its neck to be fondled--
Giles, that was vain of his wit,
Said, "Here is a half-made Bishop!"
--But the Saint never smiled a bit!
"My swan will fight for his lord," quo' he,
"And remember what he has heard.
He flies to my gatepost and waits for me--
My friends, make a friend of the bird!"

VIII

THE ROAD OF THE WILD SWAN

"Four larders God gave man, four shall there ever be--
The mountain, the valley, the marsh, and the sea."

Roger hummed the old rhyme absent-mindedly and then took to whistling the
air, while his small strong fingers pulled and knotted at the hawk's lure
he was making. Just now the training of young falcons was absorbing all of
his leisure time. The falconer, Marcel, had showed him how to make the
lure, which was shaped something like a pair of wings made of quilted
leather and thickly fledged with the wing-feathers of game-birds. When the
falconer, who carried it fastened to his wrist by a long cord, gave it a
peculiar toss in the air, it looked very like a flying bird. He did this,
giving at the same time a certain call, when he wished to bring back the
hawk or falcon after flight.

This particular lure was intended for the education of a young merlin of
great beauty and promise, destined for Eleanor's use. The merlin was a
type of falcon well adapted to a lady's purpose, and hawking parties were
common among the Norman-English families of the neighborhood--often
including dames and demoiselles who flew their own falcons. Roger was
rather proud of the fact that Eleanor could ride as well almost as he
could, and was quite as fearless. The bright-eyed sleek-plumaged Mabonde
had been her pet for weeks, and would already answer her call and eat from
her hand. The little round bells of silver, the jesses and hood of Spanish
leather, for the falcon's hunting-gear (Sir Walter's gift) were laid away
in Eleanor's own coffret. She looked forward happily to riding forth some
day with the falcon perched on her small gloved fist, alert for flight.

"Roger," she said, frowning a little in her puzzle, "that song is true
enough, about the mountains and the valleys and the sea--the river, that
is,--but what do we get out of the marsh? You can't even go in there with
a boat."

Roger sloped whistling and gave the matter thought. "We get something out
of it when we go hawking," he decided. "Herons and swans and ducks and
wild geese,--widgeon,--all sorts of water-birds nest there. Maybe there
used to be other game--when they made the song."

Most of Sir Walter's domain was fertile valley, dense forest or barren
moorland, but there was an area of marsh whose usefulness was not yet
clear. A swampy shallow strip was thick with osiers from the blown catkins
of the pollard willows; reeds grew thick as wheat and higher than a man's
head--if any man could have walked on the black oozy quagmire; and as
Roger had said, the water-fowl, secure from dogs or bowmen, were nested in
that wet paradise by scores. There was a heronry among the trees on the
edge of it, but otherwise the marsh was not used save as a storehouse for
the basket-makers. They made paniers, hampers, mews or wicker cages in
which the hunting birds were kept when moulting, and even small boats from
the osiers and reeds. But the greater part of the swamp was impassable to
a boat and too insecure for foot-travel. In very rainy weather any one
looking down upon it from a height could see that there was a sort of
islet in the middle, but no one could have reached it with a boat unless
in flood-time; and in very dry weather, when some of the ridges lay
uncovered, the water-channels became thick black mud.

Nothing in all this, however, gave serious cause for uneasiness. A natural
preserve for game-birds was a good thing to have. Forty or fifty varieties
of water-fowl were found on Norman tables at one time or another. The
objection to that marsh was that it was too convenient a refuge for
runaways.

The serfs upon the land were not slaves, in the sense of being bought and
sold like cattle. They belonged with the land. A nobleman who became owner
of an estate took over with it the right to the obedience and service of
its people. When he had a proper sense of his own obligations there was
very little trouble, as a rule. If the shock-haired peasants toiled and
sweated over the building of a castle, their own thatched cottages were so
much the safer from invading enemies. If they paid rent in grain, cattle
and fowls they shared in the feasting and gayety on any great occasion.
The castle, with its large household and numerous guests, was a market for
the neighborhood. It gave the people a chance of winning a better living
than the stubborn soil alone would yield. Children growing up knew that if
a boy could ride or fight or do any sort of work especially well, his lord
would have use for him; if a girl could spin, weave, sew or had a knack
with poultry, her lady would have a place for her. The country folk
hereabouts had grown proud of belonging to the Giffard lands.

There were exceptions. One was Tammuz at the Ford. He and his black-a-
vised kinfolk had little to do with the villagers, and the village had
even less to do with them. It was said that they occasionally helped
themselves to a sucking-pig, a fowl, or other produce, and if punishment
was attempted, were none too good to burn ricks and maim cattle. It was
said also that they had a hiding place in the swamp.

If the marsh became a den of runaway serfs it would not be well for the
peace of the neighborhood. Sir Walter Giffard's patience was growing
short. He thought of draining the marsh if possible, when the reeds could
be burned and the land reclaimed.

In this way many a fenny district of England had been made into fat
meadow-land by patient and efficient monks. The knight was glad to
encounter one day in a neighboring castle a Carthusian prior whom he had
once known in Normandy,--Hugh of Avalon. He invited this churchman to
visit him and discuss this and more important matters. It so happened that
soon after his arrival Marcel the falconer, Eleanor and Roger, and the
squires, Ralph Courtenay and John Lake, were going to try the young
falcons on the border of the marsh. There was nothing strange in Sir
Walter Giffard suggesting that he and Prior Hugh ride along with the
party, for hawking was a sport considered very suitable for churchmen. But
on the way to the marsh the knight and the Prior paid little attention to
the diversion of falconry. They were deep in consideration of the best way
to drain the swamp and deal with it generally.

Eleanor's heart beat fast as they neared the heronry. It was not a heron,
however, which claimed the maiden flight of Mabonde. It was a woodcock
flushed in the edge of a copse. Instantly Roger unhooded the cherished
hunting-bird, Eleanor gave her a toss into the air, and both sat their
horses, eagerly watching her flight. Aloft she soared, the little bells
singing like fairy chimes--then dropped like a plummet. There was a ripple
in the undergrowth where she pounced, she was recalled to her perch, and
presently Marcel, smiling broadly, came up with the woodcock, its gray-
brown feathers hardly even ruffled, though it was quite dead.

Then Eleanor remembered something. "Oh!" she said pitifully. "O-h!"

She was recalling a summer day when she and Roger had startled a mother
and her chicks from their nest of dead leaves among the grass, the
cleverness with which the tiny balls of fluff had matched themselves with
the foliage and the utter audacity of the mother bird as she carried them
off one by one to safety, under the very eyes of her giant foes. And now
she was setting Mabonde to kill those dainty chicks for her own pleasure!

Roger had gone off with the squires after a tercel of which great things
were expected, but Sir Walter Giffard, coming up just then, caught sight
of his daughter's woe-begone face. "What is the matter, my little maid?"
he asked.

"Nothing," Eleanor answered, swallowing with some difficulty and winking
very fast, "but--I--don't think I care to hunt any more to-day, father.
Will you please take Mabonde?"

The knight's eyebrows lifted rather quizzically, but he did not question
this sudden decision. "Ride with me instead, daughter," he said kindly,
and Eleanor, very subdued and thoughtful, paced along by her father's
side.

On the edge of the fen a cottager came out to beg audience of the knight,
and the Prior began talking with Eleanor about the birds of that region.
She found that he knew them both by their French and English names, and
seemed to love them well. He told her that in the Carthusian monastery he
lived, as did the other monks, in a little cell opening on a narrow
garden-plot. In this garden he toiled during certain hours each day,
tending the pulse, kale, and herbs which made a great part of his food.
One evening a little bird came to share his simple supper, and returned
each day. He fed her, and she earned her food by keeping his garden clear
of grubs, worms and insects. Then for a long time she did not appear. He
feared she had been killed, but at last she came proudly back with three
nestlings just able to fly. This monk had always from his boyhood had
bird-companions. The latest was a wild swan that came out of the marshes
to follow him about. When he went away the swan would disappear in the
marsh, but watched for his return and was always there to welcome him.

"Sometimes I think," he added, half to Eleanor and half to her father,
"that there are people like that in this ancient stubbed land--men like
the bittern and the eagle, who will not be tamed. They come to you
sometimes, but they will not be driven."

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