CHAPTER XXVII FRUSTRATED
Had the Abbot of Reading seen fit, or rather had the business on which he came to Lollingdune allowed him to return home on the day in which he had decorated Osric with the red cross, it had been well for all parties, save the writer; for the entangled web of circumstance which arose will give him scope for another chapter or two, he trusts, of some interest to the reader.
As it was, Osric was thrown upon his own resources for the rest of that day, after the Mass was over; and his thoughts not unnaturally turned to his old home, where the innocent days of his childhood had been spent, and to his old nurse Judith, sole relict of that hallowed past.
Could he not bid her farewell? He had an eye, and he could heed; he had a foot, and he could speed—let Brian's spies watch ever so narrowly.
Yes, he must see her. Besides, Osric loved adventure: it was to him the salt of life. He loved the sensation of danger and of risk. So, although he knew that there must be a keen hunt on foot from Wallingford Castle after the fugitives, and that the old cottage might be watched, he determined to risk it all for the purpose of saying good-bye to his dear old nurse.
So, without confiding his purpose to any one, he started on foot. He passed the old church of Aston Upthorpe, where his grandfather lay buried, breathing a prayer for the old man, as also a thanksgiving for the teaching which had at last borne fruit, for he felt that he was reconciled to God and man, now that he had taken the Holy Vow, and abandoned his godless life at Wallingford Castle. Then passing between the outlying fort of Blewburton and the downs, he entered the maze of forest.
But as he approached the spot, he took every precaution. He scanned each avenue of approach from Wallingford; he looked warily into each glade; anon, he paused and listened, but all was still, save the usual sounds of the forest, never buried in absolute silence.
At length he crossed the stream and stood before the door of the hut. He paused one moment; then he heard the well-known voice crooning a snatch of an old ballad; he hesitated no longer.
"Judith!"
"My darling," said the fond old nurse, "thou hast come again to see me. Tell me, is it all right? Hast thou found thy father?"
"I have."
"Where? Tell me?"
"At Dorchester Abbey of course."
Judith sighed.
"And what did he say to thee?"
"Bade me go on the Crusades. And so I have taken the vow, and to-morrow I leave these parts perhaps, for ever."
"Alas! it is too bad. Why has he not told thee the whole truth? Woe is me! the light of mine eyes is taken from me. I shall never see thee again."
"That is in God's hands."
"How good thou hast grown, my boy! Thou didst not talk like this when thou camest home from the castle."
"Well, perhaps I have learnt better;" and he sighed, for there was a reproach, as if the old dame had said, "Is Saul also amongst the prophets?"
"But, my boy," she continued, "is this all? Did not Wulfnoth—I mean Father Alphege—tell thee more than this?"
"What more could he tell me?"
She rocked herself to and fro.
"I must tell him; but oh, my vow——"
"Osric, my child, my bonnie boy, thou dost not even yet know all, and I am bound not to tell thee. But I was here when thou wast brought home by Wulfnoth, a baby-boy; and—and I know what I found out—I saw—God help me: but I swore by the Black Cross of Abingdon I would not tell."
"Judith, what can you mean?"
"If you only knew, perhaps you would not go on this crusade."
"Whither then? I must go."
"To Wallingford."
"But that I can never do. I have broken with them and their den of darkness for ever."
"Nay, nay; it may be all thine own one day, and thou mayst let light into it."
"What can you mean? You distract me."
"I cannot say. Ah!—a good thought. You may look—I didn't say I wouldn't show. See, Osric, I will show thee what things were on thy baby-person when thou wast brought home. Here—look."
She rummaged in her old chest and brought forth—a ring with a seal, a few articles of baby attire, a little red shoe, a small frock, and a lock of maiden's hair.
"Look at the ring."
It bore a crest upon a stone of opal.
The crest was the crest of Brian Fitz-Count.
"Well, what does this mean?" said Osric. "How came this ring on my baby-self?"
"Dost thou not see? Blind! blind! blind!"
"And deaf too—deaf! deaf! deaf!" said a voice. "Dost thou not hear the tread of horses, the bay of the hound, the clamour of men who seek thee for no good?"
It was young Ulric who stood in the doorway.
"Good-bye, nurse; they are after me; I must go."
"What hast thou done?"
"Let all their captives loose. Farewell, dear nurse;" and he embraced her.
"Haste, Osric, haste," said the youthful outlaw, "or thou wilt be taken."
They dashed from the hut.
"This way," said Ulric.
And they crossed the stream in the opposite direction to the advancing sounds.
"I lay hid in the forest and heard them say they would seek thee in thine old home, as they passed my lurking-place."
"Now, away."
"But they may hurt Judith. Nay, Brian has not yet returned, cannot yet have come back, and without his orders they would not dare. He forbade them once before even to touch the cottage."
They pressed onward through the woods.
"Whither do we go?" said Osric, who had allowed his young preserver to lead.
"To our haunt in the swamp."
"You have saved me, Ulric."
"Then it has been measure for measure, for didst thou not save me when in direful dumps? Wilt thou not tarry with us, and be a merry man of the greenwood?"
"Nay, I am pledged to the Crusades."
Ulric was about to reply, when he stopped to listen.
"There is the bay of that hound again: it is one of a breed they have trained to hunt men."
"I know him—it is old Pluto; I have often fed him: he would not hurt me."
"But he would discover thee, nevertheless, and I should not be safe from his fangs."
"Well, we are as swift of foot as they—swifter, I should think. Come, we must jump this brook."
Alas! in jumping, Osric's foot slipped from a stone on which he most unhappily alighted, and he sank on the ground with a momentary thrill of intense pain, which made him quite faint.
He had sprained his ankle badly.
Ulric turned pale.
Osric got up, made several attempts to move onward, but could only limp painfully forward.
"Ulric, I should only destroy both thee and me by perseverance in this course."
"Never mind about me."
"But I do. See this umbrageous oak—how thick its branches; it is hollow too. I know it well. I will hide in the tree, as I have often done when a boy in mere sport. You run on."
"I will; and make the trail so wide that they will come after me."
"But will not this lead them to the haunt?"
"Water will throw them when I come to the swamps. I can take care."
"Farewell, then, my Ulric; the Saints have thee in their holy keeping."
The two embraced as those who might never meet again—but as those who part in haste—and Ulric plunged into the thicket and disappeared.
Osric lay hidden in the branches of the hollow tree. There was a comfortable seat about ten feet from the ground, the feet hidden in the hollow of the oak, the head and shoulders by the thick foliage. He did not notice that Ulric had divested himself of an upper garment he wore, and left it accidentally or otherwise on the ground. All was now still. The sound of the boy's passage through the thick bushes had ceased. The scream of the jay, the tap of the woodpecker, the whirr of an occasional flight of birds alone broke the silence of the forest day.
Then came a change. The crackling of dry leaves, the low whisper of hunters, and that sound—that bell-like sound—the bay of the hound, like a staunch murderer, steady to his purpose, pursuing his prey relentlessly, unerringly, guided by that marvellous instinct of scent, which to the pursued seemed even diabolical.
At last they broke through the bushes and passed beneath the tree—seven mounted pursuers.
"See, here is the trail; it is as plain as it can be," cried Malebouche; for it was he, summoned in the emergency from Shirburne, the Baron not having yet returned—six men in company.
But the dog hesitated. They had given him a piece of Osric's raiment to smell before starting, and he pointed at the tree.
Luckily the men did not see it; for they saw on the ground the tunic Ulric had thrown off to run, with the unselfish intention that that should take place which now happened, confident he could throw off the hound.
The men thrust it to the dog's nose, thinking it Osric's,—they knew not there were two—and old Pluto growled, and took the new scent with far keener avidity than before, for now he was bidden to chase one he might tear. Before it was a friend, the scent of whose raiment he knew full well. They were off again.
All was silence once more around the hollow tree for a brief space, and Osric was just about to depart and try to limp to Lollingdune, when steps were heard again in the distance, along the brook, where the path from the outlaws' cave lay.
Osric peered from his covert: they were passing about a hundred yards off.
Oh, horror! they had got Ulric.
"How had it chanced?"
Osric never knew whether the dog had overtaken him, or what accident had happened; all he saw was that they had the lad, and were taking him, as he judged, to Wallingford, when they halted and sat down on some fallen trees, about a hundred yards from his concealment. They had wine, flesh, and bread, and were going to enjoy a mediæval picnic; but first they tied the boy carefully to a tree, so tightly and cruelly that he must have suffered much unnecessary pain; but little recked they.
The men ate and drank, the latter copiously. So much the worse for Ulric—drink sometimes inflames the passions of cruelty and violence.
"Why should we take him home? our prey is about here somewhere."
"Why not try a little torture, Sir Squire—a knotted string round the brain? we will make him tell all he knows, or make the young villain's eyes start out of his forehead."
The suggestion pleased Malebouche.
"Yes," he said, "we may as well settle his business here. I have a little persuader in my pocket, which I generally carry on these errands; it often comes useful;" and he produced a small thumbscrew.
Enough; we will spare the details. They began to carry out their intention, and soon forced a cry from their victim—although, judging from his previous constancy, I doubt whether they would have got more—when they heard a sound—a voice—
"Stop! let the lad go; he shall not be tortured for me. I yield myself in his place."
"Osric! Osric!"
And the men almost leapt for joy.
"Malebouche, I am he you seek—I am your prisoner; but let the boy go, and take me to Wallingford."
"Oh, why hast thou betrayed thyself?" said Ulric.
"Not so fast, my young lord, for lord thou didst think thyself—thou bastard, brought up as a falcon. Why should I let him go? I have you both."
But the boy had been partially untied to facilitate their late operations, which necessitated that the hands cruelly bound behind the back should be released; and while every eye was fixed on Osric, he shook off the loosened cord which attached him to the tree, and was off like a bird.
He had almost escaped—another minute and he had been beyond arrow-shot—when Malebouche, snatching up a bow, sent a long arrow after him. Alas! it was aimed with Norman skill, and it pierced through the back of the unfortunate boy, who fell dead on the grass, the blood gushing from mouth and nose.
Osric uttered a plaintive cry of horror, and would have hurried to his assistance, but they detained him rudely.
"Nay, leave him to rot in the woods—if the wolves and wild cats do not bury him first."
And they took their course for Wallingford, placing their prisoner behind a horseman, to whom they bound him, binding also his legs beneath the belly of the horse.
After a little while Malebouche turned to Osric—
"What dost thou expect when our lord returns?"
"Death. It is not the worst evil."
"But what manner of death?"
"Such as may chance; but thou knowest he will not torture me."
"He may hang thee."
"Wait and see. Thou art a murderer thyself, for whom hanging is perhaps too good. God may have worse things in store for thee. Thou hast committed murder and sacrilege to-day."
"Sacrilege?"
"Yes; thou hast seized a Crusader. Dost not see my red cross?"
"It is easy to bind a bit of red rag crossways upon one's shoulder. Who took thy vows?"
"The Abbot of Reading; he is now at Lollingdune."
"Ah, ah! Brian Fitz-Count shall settle that little matter; he may not approve of Crusaders who break open his castle. Take him to Wallingford, my friends. I shall go back and get that deer we slew just before we caught the boy; our larder is short."
So Malebouche rode back into the forest alone.
Let us follow him.
It was drawing near nightfall. The light fleecy clouds which floated above were fast losing the hues of the departing sun, which had tinted their western edges with crimson; the woods were getting dim and dark; but Malebouche persisted in his course. He had brought down a fine young buck with his bow, and had intended to send for it, being at that moment eager in pursuit of his human prey; but now he had leisure, and might throw it across his horse, and bring it home in triumph.
Before reaching the place the road became very ill-defined, and speedily ceased to be a road at all; but Malebouche could still see the broken branches and trampled ground along which they had pursued their prey earlier in the day.
At last he reached the deer, and tying the horse to a branch of a tree, proceeded to disembowel it ere he placed it across the steed, as was the fashion; but as he was doing this, the horse made a violent plunge, and uttered a scream of terror. Malebouche turned—a pair of vivid eyes were glaring in the darkness.
It was a wolf, attracted by the scent of the butchery.
Malebouche rushed to the aid of his horse, but before he could reach the poor beast it broke through all restraint in its agony of fear that the wolf might prefer horse-flesh to venison, and tearing away the branch and all, galloped for dear life away, away, towards distant Wallingford, the wolf after it; for when man or horse runs, the savage beast, whether dog or wolf, seems bound to follow.
So Malebouche was left alone with his deer in the worst possible humour.
It was useless now to think of carrying the whole carcass home; so he cut off the haunch only, and throwing it over his shoulder, started.
A storm came drifting up and obscured the rising moon—the woods grew very dark.
Onward he tramped—wearily, wearily, tramp! tramp! splash! splash!
He had got into a bog.
How to get out of it was the question. He had heard there was a quagmire somewhere about this part of the forest, of bottomless depth, men said.
So he strove to get back to firm ground, but in the darkness went wrong; and the farther he went the deeper he sank.
Up to the knees.
Now he became seriously alarmed, and abandoned his venison.
Up to the middle.
"Help! help!" he cried.
Was there none to hear?
Yes. At this moment the clouds parted, and the moon shone forth through a gap in their canopy—a full moon, bright and clear.
Before him walked a boy, about fifty yards ahead.
"Boy! boy! stop! help me!"
The boy did not turn, but walked on, seemingly on firm ground.
But Malebouche was intensely relieved.
"Where he can walk I can follow;" and he exerted all his strength to overtake the boy, but he sank deeper and deeper.
The boy seemed to linger, as if he heard the cry, and beckoned to Malebouche to come to him.
The squire strove to do so, when all at once he found no footing, and sank slowly.
He was in the fatal quagmire of which he had heard.
Slowly, slowly, up to the middle—up to the neck.
"Boy, help! help! for Heaven's sake!"
The boy stood, as it seemed, yet on firm ground. And now he threw aside the hood that had hitherto concealed his features, and looked Malebouche in the face.
It was the face of the murdered Ulric upon which Malebouche gazed! and the whole figure vanished into empty air as he looked.
One last despairing scream—then a sound of choking—then the head disappeared beneath the mud—then a bubble or two of air breaking the surface of the bog—then all was still. And the mud kept its secret for ever.