Chapter IV

How vainly they, who fall into the Devil’s snare, may hope to give him the slip at last, was made plain and evident to all men’s sight the next morning, when the Parson and the Bailiff crept through the priest’s garden to the Church to see how it had fared with the Doctor.

They found the great door locked, whereat Sir John was at first mightily pleased, saying that the Gates of Hell should not prevail against the Sanctuary of the Most High. Then he called repeatedly, through the key-hole, telling the Doctor that all was well and that he should open to them. But the Doctor opened not, whether absorbed in prayer or overcome by fasting they knew not, so they were fain to send for the smith, and he, after two hours’ labour forced open the door with much difficulty and effort.

Then they searched the Church and, finding no trace of the Doctor, they were forced to conclude that the Devil had carried him off after all, even from the altar itself, whereat Sir John’s jaw drooped lamentably. Moreover, they discovered that the foul Fiend had spirited away with him also the fair silver pyx, which Sir Geoffrey had given to the Church for ever, and which indeed no man hath seen since, nor the eight pennies which were in the parish chest, nor the rich vestments used by Sir John on Holy Days, nor the three pounds of best wax candles, which the Churchwardens had purchased against Candlemas.

Lo, how wondrous is God’s providence, for at that very time when the Devil carried off Doctor Montalto, he carried off also his man Martin, so that these two and their goods vanished altogether into thin air and could never be heard of afterwards. Whereat Mistress Dogtooth was much vexed, inasmuch as they had not paid her reckoning. But the village folk laughed when she complained thereof, and said the Doctor would pay her reckoning hereafter.

The Crusader

Two miles out of town, reckoning from our Lord’s mill on the greater stream, lies Garstang Hill, and sharply over against it is Hart Hill. Both these lie to the north-west, and they are very steep and very difficult to climb. Moreover, they are covered with dense wood, much bogland lying in the low-lying places, and it is said that many wolves lurk there, whence in winter-time they have been known to come down to the sheep-cotes in the village. Therefore, folk go there but little, unless it be to gather wood (for the land is waste and common), and even for this they go seldom, unless good fuel cannot be got nearer town. But on the low-lying slopes the swineherds sometimes drive their herds in autumn, when the acorns lie thick under the oaks. Between Hart Hill and Garstang lies a long narrow valley, and the ground of that valley is very fertile. Here Thomas the Freeman dwelt once, although none dwell there now. Thomas’s father, and his father, and his father’s father, had lived there as long as man could tell, and they held first from King Alfred, the wise king, whose words are, even now, common in men’s mouths. They paid to Earl Ranulf yearly at the Manor House the value of twenty sheep besides a trained hawk, and they took Ranulf to be their Lord.

It is barely twenty years since Thomas the Freeman held there a good hide of good land, on which he drove a great plough, beside having fair meadow-land down by the brook. And in harvest-time he has paid ten men a penny a day to gather in corn, and given them meat and drink as well. But now the place lies all waste and desolate, and the whinberry and blackberry grow thereon, and trees have taken root there, so that the waste has almost won it back to itself.

There was no one who knew Thomas very well, for he came seldom to the village except on Court days or Market, and he was by nature a silent man. He was tall above usual and stoutly made, with heavy shoulders, hands large as hoofs, and legged like a stork. He walked and moved like an ox, slowly and clumsily. But he was powerful of his body, and I have seen him lift a horse as lightly as an infant at the breast. (That was on the day when Sir John’s wain and horses were in the Great Bog.) Yet for all that, he was a mild mannered man, slow of reproach, sparing of oaths, honest in his dealings, punctual in paying his dues and in his charity to the poor, no haunter of taverns, nor gamester or ribald. Yet he seemed to hold himself aloof from folks, and in the days of which I speak, reckoned little of religion or his immortal soul, though, as to that, you shall hear later how the Lord in His infinite mercy afterwards touched his eyes, so that he should see, and seeing, walk into the way of peace. He lived in his house in the valley to himself and his wife and his children. He rose early and worked long and laboriously in the good light, and when his day’s labour was done he would return from his fields to sit by the great fire and dandle his babies. I have heard that even in the long winter evenings, when he sat at home with his family around him, he had little to say. He would sit with his little girl on his knee, singing old women’s songs of the countryside--‘Hey, northern wind, how dost thou blow?’ or ‘Janikin came to dress our well’--as though he had been a tender, nursing-mother himself instead of a mighty figure of a man, the measure of two bowshafts long. Then he would say to Katherine, his wife, ‘Lo, Kat, how the young one grows; he can nearly walk,’ and she would answer, ‘Yea, he groweth out of knowledge. But all our family made fine babies.’

Then there would be a long silence of about an hour or thereabouts between them, while the children would play and laugh at their feet and the goodwife would get on with her spinning. Perhaps Thomas would show Thomas and Robert how to build a great castle, like that of Earl Ranulf, out of the wooden fire-blocks, or would amuse them smilingly at the game which is called ‘Cat’s Cradle.’ Then, as they grew sleepy one by one, he would take and lay them gently on the soft straw in the warm corner.

‘Kat,’ he would say, or some such matter, ‘methinks I will take little Thomas with me to the Longacre in the morning and let him aim at the crows with his sling.’

‘Do, good husband,’ she would answer, ‘the boy dearly loves the sport.’

Then they would to bed themselves.

So Thomas lived innocently enough, but overmuch immersed in secular employment, and seldom troubling himself to come to Mass, even on Holy Days, except it were Easter or Christmas, or when he brought a child to the christening. Whereby Sir John, our priest, was somewhat troubled, and at times exhorted Thomas that he should come to Church more regularly, as befitted a Christian. To which Thomas would answer that the way was something long to the Church from his house, and he trusted he served God all the same, and so, smiling gently, he would home to his wife and babes and little amendment made.

But in the spring of the year of our Lord eleven hundred and eighty-nine, there came a wandering man of religion to the town, who was destined to be the means whereby, under God, a great miracle should be wrought in this man. For it was in that year that our sovereign Lord and King, Richard, being moved by the wrongs which Christ suffered at the hands of the heathen and accursed Saracens, in Jerusalem, the town of His Passion, made a strong vow, assumed the cross and proclaimed that he would set out with a great company of Christian knights and men-at-arms to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the unbelievers. Many holy men therefore, moved thereto by the Pope and the Bishops, went about all Christendom, exhorting the people to take up the Cross and follow the pious King overseas. Of these devoted preachers, came one Master Benedict to our village, and, having obtained permission, as was seemly, of Sir John, he preached daily to the people.

Master Benedict was truly a man filled with the Holy Ghost, and his sermons and speeches cast a spell over the town. ‘O ye people, sons of God,’ he would cry, ‘why will ye make it your only care that your swine and cattle increase, that your corn shall ripen, that your grass wax strong and long in the water meadows, when your Lord is day by day crucified afresh in His Holy City at the hands of idolaters and blasphemers?’ He told of the bitter wrongs which Christian pilgrims suffered when they visited our Lord’s Sepulchre; then men shook and wept with grief. He told how our King had entered on that glorious enterprise first of all Christian Princes, and asked if they desired him to set out to that sacred slaughter single-handed and with no following of his liege people; then men’s eyes flashed with holy devotion and loyalty, and they cried out vehemently, ‘Nay, nay.’ He told how the Holy Father had offered a plenary indulgence to all who took the Cross, and how the souls of all Christians who suffered death on the Crusade would be borne instantly to Paradise; then the people fell down on their knees and cried out with fierce sobs, ‘Holy Cross, Holy Cross; we will follow the Cross.’

So in one week twenty-three men had vowed themselves to the Holy Land, and I myself was so moved by the Monk’s words, that I would have vowed, had it not been for a matter of importance I had on hand with William of Mousehill about a field which was used for pasture at Houghton. As it was, however, I bought from Master Benedict for twenty-two Easterling shillings, a phial containing a feather from the wing of the Archangel Michael, which he had gotten from Jerusalem, and I am assured that as often as I say a _Pater_ _Noster_ and kiss this precious relic, so often do I partake the more amply of Our Saviour’s merits. Moreover, when Master Benedict went forth from our village, he took with him certain gold and silver ornaments and cloths of brocade, fine silk and cambric, which the people, coming together, offered of their own free will towards the expenses of the Blessed Expedition.

However, of the twenty and three men who had taken the Cross, it is shameful to relate that more than half of them were absolved of their vow by the Archdeacon, some paying fines for that purpose up to twelve shillings. In the end something under half a score went from the village, and those not such men as we could have wished, being for the most part wastrels and ne’er-do-wells instead of such as truly feared and wished to serve God. One man, Nick the Carpenter, went, as folk shrewdly thought, because he was suspected of a certain man-slaying at Houghton, and two other men, Hick of the Hill and Eddie of the Townsend, had vowed when they were overfull of strong drink and had not afterwards the wherewithal to absolve themselves with the Archdeacon.

It happened by chance that Thomas the Freeman was in town to market the first morning when Master Benedict spoke, and having sold a couple of swine, he stood afterwards listening at the edge of the crowd round the Market Cross. At first he looked on unconcernedly, leaning heavily on his staff, as was his wont, and once or twice turning, as though to go home again. But Master Benedict began to warm to his preaching, crying out ‘Ah, Little Child, that criest from Thy Mother’s arms, shall we not hear Thee? Ah, little Babe, that bore such pangs for us in Thy tender flesh, shall we not suffer a little for Thee? Ah, little Holy Boy, Who gavest Thyself for us, shall we not give ourselves for Thee?’ and then Thomas, too, could not withdraw his eyes from the Monk’s passionate face, and as he gazed his breath came thick and fast through his lips, and the great tears began to roll down his cheeks, although he made no manner of outcry as most of the people did, sobbing and striking themselves in their grief, and even falling prostrate on the ground and heaping dirt and stones on their heads. As the Monk finished, several made oath and took the Cross, but Thomas only sighed and turned heavily homeward, without a word to any man. The next day, however, he came again to the preaching, and the next day also, and so every day until the end of the week, when Master Benedict departed to preach his mission in other villages.

Then the Lord began to work mightily upon Thomas the Freeman. Now he entirely forsook his former and too secular habits and began to come most often to Church. Many a time I have seen him kneeling before the painted Christ with his head in his hands, bowing himself and quivering from head to foot, as though in agony of spirit; and the villeins, driving their teams afield in the first light of morning, have seen him hurrying on his way to early morrow mass, anon crying out and anon muttering to himself, like a man possessed. Now he worked little about the homestead and in the fields as he was wont to do, but wandered all alone in the forest on Hart Hill, and often forgetting to return even at meal-times. Now he spoke less than ever to Katherine his wife, and you might see in his face the terrible conflict betwixt duty and created pleasure which raged within him. Of a night, he played no more with the children nor dandled them on his knee, but sat with a perplexed brow, ever and anon calling upon God, Our Lady, and the Blessed Saints. When his wife asked what ailed him that he was not as he was wont to be, he answered, ‘The words of the man of God are eating out my heart.’

When his wife understood that, she burst into a loud cry, saying, ‘I would to God that Monk had never come to the village, for, but for him, I had been the happiest woman alive.’

Thomas groaned as if his heart would break. Then he said, ‘Let us pray that God will guide us even as it seemeth best to Himself.’

So they prayed together with many tears, and after that Katherine felt easier in her mind.

For many days Thomas struggled with the fierce prompting which the Monk had put into his heart and strove to put it by him, saying to himself, ‘I would gladly take sword and buckler and do service for Jesus Christ, but verily I am a married man and I must needs look to my wife and my four young children.’

But ever he would be answered from within himself, ‘If thou settest thy hand to the Lord’s work, shall the Lord forsake thee and thine?’

One day, as Katherine was plucking a fowl, he came in from the village, whence he had been to Church. His face was calm and set, and a solemn smile played about his countenance. Katherine had not seen him so pleasant for many a long day, and she was glad in her heart. But she fell also into some little awe of him, for he was, as it were, lifted far off from her.

‘Ay, Thomas, but thou lookest kindly,’ she said.

‘Katherine, do not blame me overmuch; forgive me that I cannot but put sore trouble upon thee. The Lord hath strictly told me that I must go and serve Him in the Holy Land, and I have this morning made oath to Sir John, our priest.’

‘Holy Mother, have pity, have pity,’ cried Katherine. ‘Oh husband, thou must not leave me, not after all these years. Say thou wilt not go.’

‘Dear Katherine,’ he said sweetly, ‘I must go. I have not been able to escape God these many days, and I must not disobey Him. It is He that hath commanded me.’

‘Ah, dear God. And is this all thy love for me and thy little ones, to leave me now for these cursed wars? I shall not see thee again, I know I shall not, and I and my little ones shall all perish. Thou never lovedst me or thou wouldst not desert me now.’

‘Dear Katherine, I love thee now more than ever I did, but I cannot refuse my God; I must go.’

‘But the children that you have made so much of? Oh husband, bethink thyself; thou mayst wipe out thy oath by a fine to the Archdeacon.’

‘That I may not do, dear Katherine, for I have made my oath to God. As for the children, He knows how heavy my heart is to leave them, but Sir John has given me a word of comfort from Holy Writ, that the Lord is mindful of His own.’

The tears burst from Katherine’s eyes, and she flung herself at his feet, convulsed with great sobs and clinging to his knees.

‘Don’t go, don’t go!’ she cried, but her husband sadly raised her, kissing her again, and said,’I must; I must.’

Then Thomas gently disengaged her arms from his body and laid her on the settle, and went forth to prepare for his journey. Going to town, he sold a herd of swine for coined silver, and exchanged thirty parcels of wool with a Flanders merchant, who happened to be in the village, against a gold Byzant. Having thus furnished himself with ready money to pay his way across the sea, he returned home and fetched down his leather and iron jerkin from the wall, and furbished his great sword and shield.

Two days later, he set out alone to join King Richard, going first to Southampton, thence to take ship for France. At his house door Katherine wept on his bosom, and held him to her as strongly as she might, that at last he had to burst from her by main force. Then she clung gasping and nigh fainting to the door-post, and had no strength to wave him farewell. The children ran after him, crying, ‘Father, father,’ in shrill misery. Three times he turned back and took them up in his arms and blessed and kissed them, before he could drag himself away. He did not dare to look back down the forest pathway to his wife upon the threshold of the house, but he said to himself crazily, ‘For the Lord is mindful of His own; He remembereth His servants.’

Katherine fell in a swoon across the doorway. The children thought she was dead, and knelt round the senseless body, screaming in their desolation.

* * * * *

Evil things happened in the year that followed, for there befell a great feud between Earl Ranulf and William of Beeston. One winter’s night William of Beeston’s men came down by Hart Hill, and they ravished as far as they dared up to Earl Ranulf’s castle, and they burnt Thomas the Freeman’s house, and slew his wife and children, therein showing themselves more like beasts than Christian men.