The Serf Part 21

As he saw his last two comrades go to their death, Huber gave a loud despairing cry, wrung from his very heart. Then he started slowly and laboriously, for his strength was fast failing, to swim to the boat.

By this time Hyla and Cerdic were in a safer position. The long-armed little man had made a great leap out of the water from Cerdic's shoulders. He pushed his friend far down beneath the surface with the force of his spring, but the slight resistance of Cerdic's body had given him the necessary impetus, and his strong arms clutched the keel.

He was very soon astride it, and when Cerdic came spluttering up again he too was easily a.s.sisted into comparative safety.

Suddenly Huber saw the two seated there, and his white face became drawn and furrowed with despair as he saw his last hope gone.

"Hyla! Cerdic!" he called quaveringly, "ye two have beaten twelve brave men, and me among 'em. Ye have G.o.dis grace with you, curse you! and I am done and over. Give you good-day."

"You fool, Huber!" said Hyla in concern, "think you we are foes in this pa.s.s? Wait, man, keep heart a little while!" He lifted his leg from the other side of the keel and dived into the water, sending the boat rocking away for yards as he did so. He made the exhausted archer place two hands upon his shoulders, and in ten exhausting minutes the three were perched upon the boat keel, the sole survivors of that ill-fated crew. The sun began to be hot, and they saw they were near land by now.

"I will just make a prayer," said Cerdic, with some apology. "It will do no harm, and perhaps please Our Lady, who, I wist, has done this for Hyla and me and Huber."

With that he fell fervently to uncouth thanksgivings, while the sun came rus.h.i.+ng up and dried them all.

Hyla and Huber glanced at each other in mute admiration of his eloquence.

CHAPTER XII

"Through the gray willows danced the fretful gnat, The gra.s.shopper chirped idly from the tree, In sleek and oily coat the water-rat, Breasting the little ripples manfully Made for the wild-duck's nest."

They won to land, with the aid of a floating oar. Hyla and Cerdic were for getting back to Icomb and explaining what had befallen them to the fathers, but Huber flatly refused to accompany them. He said it was his duty to go back to Hilgay and say what had become of his comrades, and how they had met their end.

"But if you tell Lord Fulke how you have eaten and slept in friends.h.i.+p--for we must rest and eat before we go--with those that did kill his father, what then?" said Cerdic.

"Lord Fulke would not dare harm me for that, even were I to tell him. I am too well liked among the men. Natheless, I shall say nothing. I shall say that I clomb on the boat, and won the sh.o.r.e, and so made my way home. Look you to this. Can I give up the only life I know, and my master, and eke my wife to serve the priests, or live hunted and outlaw in the fens with you?" He argued it out with perfect fairness and good sense, and, with a sinking of the heart, they saw that their ways must indeed lie very far apart.

Material considerations made the whole thing difficult. They were in an unenviable position, and one of great danger, and their only means of transport was the one boat. "There is only one way," said Cerdic, "and that is this: we must row over the lake to the Priory first, and then leave the boat with Huber to make his own way back over the lake and through the fenways."

The man-at-arms crossed himself with fervour.

"Not I," he said. "I would not venture again upon that accursed lake for my life. It is cursed. You have heard of the Great Black Hand? It is an evil place, and has taken many of my good comrades. Leave you me here and go your ways. I will try to get back through the fen."

"Art no fenman, Huber, and canst scarcely swim. Also, that is the most dangerous part of the fen, the miles between the river and this lake.

It's nought but pools, waterways, and bog. You could not go a mile."

"Then I will stay here and rot. There is no mortal power that shall make me upon that water more."

There was such genuine superst.i.tious terror in his face and voice that they felt it useless to attempt persuasion, and they cast about in their minds for some other solution of the difficulty. It was long in coming, for in truth the problem was very difficult. At last it was solved, poorly enough, but with a certain possibility of safety.

The three men had landed but a few hundred yards from the opening of the waterway which led to Hilgay, winding in devious routes among the fen.

To regain the monastery there were two ways--One, the obvious route, by simply crossing the great lake, for the Abbey was almost exactly opposite, and the other, most difficult and dangerous, to skirt the lake side, where there was but little firm ground, and go right round it to the Priory.

Seeing no help for it, they decided on attempting that. Huber was to have the big, heavy boat, and as best he could, make his way back to Hilgay. It was a curious decision to have arrived at. By all possible rights, Hyla and Cerdic should have kept the boat for their own use, and let Huber s.h.i.+ft as best he could. He was, or rather had been, an enemy; they had not only treated him with singular kindness, but he owed his very life to them. It is difficult to exactly gauge their motive.

Probably their long slavery had something of its influence with them.

Despite their new ideals and the stupendous upheaval of their lives, it is certain that they could hardly avoid regarding Huber from the standpoint of their serfdom. He had been one of their rulers, and there still clung to him some savour of authority. Yet it was not all this feeling that influenced them. Some n.o.bler and deeper instinct of self-denial and kindness had made them do this thing.

In a closed locker, in the stern of the boat, they found some fis.h.i.+ng lines, and a flint for making fire. It was easy to get food, and they spent the day resting and fis.h.i.+ng. At length night fell softly over the wanderers, and they fell asleep round the fire, while the other went sc.r.a.ping among the reeds searching for fresh-water mussels, and the night wind sent black ripples over all the pools and the great lake beyond.

They were early up, catching more fish for breakfast, and, rather curiously for those times, they bathed in the fresh cold water, whereby they were most heartily refreshed and put into good courage. Then came the time of parting. It was fraught with a certain melancholy, for they had seemed very close together in their common danger.

"I doubt we shall ever clap eyes on you again, Huber," Hyla said.

"Cerdic and I are not likely to trouble Hilgay again, unless indeed my lord catch us again, and I think there is but little fear of that."

"No, friend Hyla," said the man-at-arms; "we must say a long good-bye this morn."

"You will get back in a day," said Cerdic, "though boat be heavy and the way not easy. What tale will you tell Lord Fulke?"

"Just truth, Cerdic, though indeed I shall not tell all the truth. I shall tell how my good comrades died, and how I did win to land with you two, and left you by the mere. I shall tell Lord Fulke that I could not over-come you, for that you were two to my one, and eke armed. That you saved me from the water I must not say, though well I should like to do so. They would think that I was in league with you, and had failed in my duty, if I said anything to your credit."

"Without doubt," said Hyla.

"You are right, Huber. But I do not look to see Hilgay again."

"And I pray that you never may, friend, for your end would be a very terrible and b.l.o.o.d.y one. And now hear me. You have taken me to your hearts that did come to use you shamefully. My life is your gift, and I will save pennies that prayer may be made for you by some priest that you be kept from harm, and win quiet and safety. Moreover, never will I do ill to any serf again, for your sakes. For you are good and true men, and have my love. Often I shall remember you and the lake and all that has come about, when I am far away. And give me your hand and say farewell, and Lord Christ have you safe."

They said the saddest of all human words, "farewell," and turning he left them. The big boat moved slowly away among the reeds until it was hidden from their sight. Once they thought they heard his voice in a distant shout of farewell, and they called loudly in answer, but there was no response but the lapping of the water on the reeds.

"A true man," said Hyla sadly.

"I think so," said Cerdic, "and there are many like him also. We have never known them, or they us, but chance has changed that for once.

Nevertheless I am not sorry he has gone. We are of one kind and he of another, and best apart. Let us set out round the lake; we have a long task before us, and I fear dangerous."

They gathered up their fis.h.i.+ng lines and the remaining fish, which they had cooked for their journey, and set out upon it.

They were full of hope and courage, resolute to surmount the perils and difficulties which were before them, and yet, all innocent of fate, one was going to a sudden death and the other was moving towards an adventure which would end in death and torture also.

It is surely a very good and wise ordering of affairs, that we do not often have a warning of what shall shortly befall us. Only rarely do we feel the cold air from the wings of Death beat upon our doomed faces.

Now and then, indeed, we get a glimpse of those unseen princ.i.p.alities and powers by whom we are for ever surrounded. Women in child-birth have, so it is said, seen an angel bearing them the new soul they are going to give to the world, as G.o.d's messenger came to Our Lady of old time.

More often the black angel, who is to take us from one life to another, presses upon a man's brain that he may know his near translation.

Visions are given to men who have lived as men should live, and have beaten down Satan under their feet.

A wise and awful hand moves the curtain aside for them. And it is sometimes so with a great sinner. When that arch scoundrel Geoffroi was close upon his end, he also had a solemn warning. Fear came to him in the night and whispered, as you have heard, that he was doomed.

But these two children were given no sign. It was not for them; they could not have understood it. G.o.d is a psychologist, and He watched these two simple ones very tenderly.

A mile of heavy going lay behind them. Over the quaking fen bright with evil-looking flowers, as beautiful and treacherous as some pale sensual woman of the East, they plodded their weary and complacent way.

Lean, brown, old Cerdic was to die. Radiance was waiting for this poor man, as the sun--how dull beside that greater radiance which was so soon to illuminate him!--clomb up the sky.

They crossed various ditches and water-ways, leaping some and wading breast-high through others, covered with floating sc.u.m and weeds. Once or twice a wide pool of black water alive with fish brought them to a check, and they had to swim over it or make a long detour. After about three hours their journey became more easy. There was not so much water about, and the ground, which was covered with fresh, vividly green gra.s.s in wide patches, was much firmer.

Cerdic went on in front with a willow-pole, probing the ground to see if it was safe for them to venture on, a most necessary precaution in that land of bog and mora.s.s.

They were pa.s.sing a clump of reeds when, with a quick scurry, a large hare ran out almost under their feet. Something had happened to one of its forelegs, for it limped badly, and scrambled along at no great rate.