The House of Walderne A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars

The opening scene of our tale is a wild tract of common land, interspersed with forest and heath, which lies northward at the foot of the eastern range of the Sussex downs. The time is the year of grace twelve hundred and fifty and three; the month a cold and seasonable January. The wild heath around is crisp with frost and white with snow, it appears a dense solitude; away to the east lies the town of Hamelsham, or Hailsham; to the west the downs about Lewes; to the south, at a short distance, one sees the lofty towers and monastic buildings of a new and thriving community, surrounded by a broad and deep moat; to the north copse wood, brake, heath, dell, and dense forest, in various combinations and endless variety, as far as the lodge of Cross in Hand, so called from the crusaders who took the sacred sign in their hands, and started for the earthly Jerusalem not so many years agone.

Across this waste, as the dark night was falling, rode a knight and his squire. The knight was a man of some fifty years of age, but still strong, tall, and muscular; his dark features indicated his southern blood, and an indescribable expression and manner told of one accustomed to command. His face bore the traces of scars, doubtless honourably gained; seen beneath a scarlet cap, lined with steel, but trimmed with fur. A flexible coat of mail, so cunningly wrought as to offer no more opposition to the movements of the wearer than a greatcoat might nowadays, was covered with a thick cloak or mantle, in deference to the severity of the weather; the thighs were similarly protected by linked mail, and the hose and boots defended by unworked plates of thin steel. In his girdle was a dagger, and from the saddle depended, on one side, a huge two-handed sword, on the other a gilded battle axe.

It was, in short, a knight of the olden time, who thus travelled through this dangerous country, alone with his squire, who bore his master’s lance and carried his small triangular shield, broad at the summit to protect the breast, but thence diminishing to a point.

“Dost thou know, my Stephen, thy way through this desolate country? for verily the traces of the road are but slight.”

“My lord, the night grows darker, and the air seems full of snow. Had we not better return and seek shelter within the walls of Hamelsham? I fear we have lost the way utterly, and shall never reach Michelham Priory tonight.”

“Nay, the motives that led me forth to face the storm still press upon me, I must reach Michelham tonight.”

An angry hollow gust of wind almost impeded his further progress as he spoke, and choked his utterance.

“An inhospitable reception England affords us, after an absence of so many years. Methinks I like Gascony the better in regard to climate.”

“For five happy years have I followed thy banner there, my lord.”

“Yet I love England better, foreign although my blood, or I had thought more of the French king’s offer.”

“It was a noble offer, my lord.”

“To be regent of an unquiet realm while my revered suzerain and friend, Louis, went upon his crusade—mark me, Stephen, England has higher destinies than France; this land is fated to be the mother of a race of freemen such as once ruled the world from Rome of old. The union of the long hostile races, Norman and English, is producing a people which shall in time rule the world; and if I can do aught to help to lay the foundation of such a polity as befits the union, please God, I shall feel well repaid: in short, Leicester is a dearer name to me than Montfort; England than France.”

“Thy noble father, my lord, adorned the latter country.”

“God grant he has not left an inheritance of judgment to his children; the cries of the slaughtered Albigenses ever rang in my poor mother’s ears, and ring too often in mine.”

“I have never heard the story fairly told.”

“Thou shalt now. The land where they spoke the language of Oc, thence called Langue-d’oc, was hardly a part of France; it had its own government, its own usages, as well as its own sweet tongue. It was lovely as the garden of the Lord ere the serpent entered therein; the soil was fruitful, the corn and wine and oil abundant. The people were unlike other people; they cared little for war, they wrote books and made love on the banks of the Rhone and Garonne.

“Well had they stopped here, and not taken liberties” (here the knight crossed himself) “with the Church. Intercourse with Mussulmen and Greeks—who alike came to the marts—corrupted them, and they became unbelievers, so that even the children in their play mocked at the Church and Sacraments. In short, it was said they were Manicheans.”

“What is that?”

“People who believe that the powers of good and evil are co-equal and co-eternal, that both God and the devil are to be worshipped. At least this was laid to their charge; I know not if it be all true.

“Well, the Church appealed for help to the chivalry of France; she declared the goods and possessions of this unfortunate people confiscate to them who should seize them, and offered heaven to those who died in battle against them. Now these poor wretches could write love songs and were clever at all kinds of art, but they could not fight. My father was chosen to head the new crusade; and even he was shocked at the murderous scenes, the massacres, the burnings, which followed—God forbid I should ever witness the like—they were blotted out from the earth.”

The storm which had been gathering all this time now burst in its full violence upon our travellers. Blinding flakes of snow, borne with all the force of the wind, seemed to overwhelm them; soon the tracks which alone marked the way became obliterated, and the riders wandered aimlessly for more than an hour.

“What shall we do, Stephen? I have lost every trace of the way; my poor beast threatens to give up.”

“I know not, my lord.”

“Ah, the Saints be praised, there is a light close at hand. It shines clear and distinct—now it is shut out.”

“A door or window must have been opened and closed again.”

“So I deem, but this is the direction,” said the knight as he turned his horse’s head northwards.

Let us precede knight and squire and see what awaited them.

Upon a spot of firm ground, free from swamp, and clear for about the area of a couple of acres, stood a few primitive buildings: there was a barn, a cow shed, a few huts in which men slept but did not live, and a central building wherein the whole community, when at home, assembled to eat the king’s venison, and wash it down with ale, mead, and even wine—the latter probably the proceeds of a successful forage.

Darkness is falling without and the snowflakes fall thicker and thicker—it yet wants three hours to curfew—but the woods are quite buried in the sombre gloom of a starless night. The central building is evidently well lighted, for we see the firelight through many chinks in the ill-built walls ere we enter, although they have daubed the interstices of the logs whereof it is composed with clay and mud almost as adhesive as mortar. Let us go in—the door opens.

A huge fire burns in the centre of the building, and the smoke ascends in clouds through an opening in the roof, directly above, down which the snowflakes descend and hiss as they meet their death in the ruddy flames. Three poles are suspended over the fire, and from the point where they unite descends an iron chain, suspending a large caldron or pot.

Oh, what a savoury smell! the woods have been ransacked, that their tenants, who possess succulent and juicy flesh, may contribute to appease the hunger of the outlaws—bird and beast are there, and soon will be beautifully cooked. Nor are edible herbs wanting, such at least as can be gathered in the woods or grown in the small plot of cultivated ground around the buildings; which the men leave entirely, as do all semi-savage races, to the care of the women.

There is plenty of room to sit round this fire, and several men, besides women and boys, are basking in its warmth—some sit on three-legged stools, some cross-legged on the floor—and amidst them, with a charming absence of restraint, are many huge-jawed dogs, who slobber as they smell the fumes from the pot, or utter an impatient whine from time to time.

Their chieftain, a man of no small importance judging from his dress and manner, sits on the seat of honour, a species of chair, the only one in the building, and is perhaps the most notable man of the party. He is tall of stature, his limbs those of a giant, his fist ponderous as a sledge hammer; a tunic of skins confined around the waist by a belt of untanned leather, in which is stuck a hunting knife, adorns his upper story: short breeches of skin, and leggings, with the undressed fur of a fox outside, complete his bedecking.

A loud barking of dogs was heard, then a trampling of horses; some looked astonished, others rose to their feet, and opening the door looked out into the storm.

“What folk hast thou got there, Kynewulf?”

“Some travellers I met outside as I was returning home from the chase, having got caught in the storm myself,” replied a gruff voice; “they had seen our light, but were trying in vain to get into our nest.”

“How many?”

“Two, a knight and a squire.”

“Bring them in, in God’s name; all are welcome tonight.

“But for all that,” said he, sotto voce, “it may be easier to get in than out.”