CHAPTER XLIV

A MYSTERIOUS EXIT

Fortunately for Oliver Icingla, he did not persevere in his resolution of doing battle with a whole herd of wild bulls, for if he had he could hardly have failed to get the worst of the encounter, and died much more obscurely than, as the last of his line, it was his ambition to do. Immediately changing his plan, he hastened to climb the tree under whose branches he had made his couch; and having called the bloodhound to desist from the fray, he resolved on keeping the seat which he occupied till the cattle thought fit to take themselves elsewhere.

However, Oliver very soon became convinced that he was likely in that case to have a much longer vigil than suited his inclination or convenience. Adopting, therefore, the expedient of moving from tree to tree--which was just possible, seeing that they grew thick and that the branches interlaced--he ultimately, with much difficulty, and not without considerable danger to neck and limb, and which was all the greater from his being incumbered with his axe, contrived to get to a safe distance from the spot where the herd were still madly and furiously tearing up the ground that had been smeared with blood, and bellowing with savage rage. Muttering his thanks to the saints for his release from a peril which he had so little foreseen, Oliver took his way towards the camp of refuge, which he contrived to reach a little after sunrise. But he soon found that he was scarcely himself: his dream haunted him awake and asleep, and next day he was prostrate, and so feverish that the aid of the anchorite of the isle was invoked.

In a few days, however, Oliver recovered his strength sufficiently to move about, and he was seated among the ruins and conversing with Collingham about their position and prospects when Wolf the varlet suddenly presented himself, and related, with tears in his eyes, all that had befallen at Oakmede, from the moment when he was alarmed by the approach of the French to the hour when Dame Isabel was laid at rest in St. Dunstan’s Chapel. Oliver listened sadly and in silence, and did not indicate even by a gesture either his indignation or his wish to have revenge. But he internally swore a solemn oath to fight the Count de Perche whenever and wherever he should meet him, and not to part till one or the other had fallen, and in the event of his killing the count to cut off his head and carry it to Oakmede and hang it by the hair on a tree, that it might be food for crows.

Collingham was differently affected, and intimated that he, at all events, was determined to have an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.

“By the rood,” exclaimed he, as Wolf told the story, “this noble Count de Perche shall know better ere long with what manner of man he has to deal. He has whetted the beak of my raven, and there is not a raven in Sussex like to lack its food this spring if I can find French carrion enough to supply them.”

Within half an hour of Wolf’s arrival in the island proclamation was made in a loud voice--“Let no man in this camp henceforth take quarter from or give quarter to the foreign invaders, on pain of being held mean and niddering; and if any man in the camp will not conform to this rule let him depart on the morrow at break of day.”

Not a man, however, left the island at the time appointed for malcontents to depart, and from that day the war against the French garrisons was carried on with greater energy and fierceness than before. Blood flowed daily. The soldiers, indeed, could scarcely stir from their quarters to procure forage without being attacked by bands of ten, or twenty, or forty, just as it happened. Oliver spoke little, but he was seldom at rest. His dream had made a strong impression on his imagination, and he never thought of Beatrix de Moreville without feeling desperate. His mother’s sad fate, silently as he had heard of it, had affected him acutely, and, alone and friendless in the world, he felt reckless. Nothing cheered him but action, and he pursued the war so unsparingly that wherever he and his band appeared, the French, unless in strong force, fled, shouting, “Gare le corbeau!” The struggle, as it became more intense, was felt throughout all Sussex. It appeared that the county was rapidly becoming too hot to hold both the foreigners and the patriot warriors of the camp of refuge; such of the natives as had submitted to the yoke and owned Prince Louis as their lord, and given hostages for their good faith, trembled for their lives; and being between two fires, as it were, with Collingham and his thousand volunteers on one side and Eveille-chiens with his mercenary bands on the other, they cursed their hard fate, and durst not walk abroad, not even in the grounds around their houses. So that the dwelling of every Englishman who had bent his knee to the French prince was in the condition of a besieged town, the inmates being furnished with weapons to defend themselves in case of need, and the gates and doors with iron bolts and bars. When the family was about to retire to rest, the head of it, after ascertaining that everything was secure, rose and recited the prayers which are offered up at sea on the approach of a storm, he saying in conclusion, “The Lord bless and aid us!” and all his household answering, “Amen.”

When the Lord de Coucy became aware of the stage which affairs had reached in Sussex, he despatched thither fresh troops and orders to Eveille-chiens to destroy the camp of refuge at all hazards and at any cost, and to put all within it to the sword, and at the same time prevailed on Hugh de Moreville to send Ralph Hornmouth with a body of archers and crossbowmen to aid in the operation. Not much relishing the commission, Eveille-chiens nevertheless mustered his forces, both horse and foot, and approaching the islet--not now environed by water, but merely by marshes--he surrounded the place so completely that he flattered himself that his success was certain.

Collingham took no notice of this arrival; but the French could distinctly see the outlaws as they moved about among the trees and shrubs and stood behind the trees watching the preparations making for their destruction.

“Now by St. Remy, to whom the doves brought the sacred oil,” exclaimed Eveille-chiens, gaily, “this stinking crew can no more escape me now than birds can escape from the net of the fowler!” and, with exultation in his countenance, he turned to Ralph Hornmouth.

“Not unless they have the wings of birds,” replied Hornmouth; “for nought else could save them at the press to which matters have come.”

“But mark you how boldly they show themselves,” said Eveille-chiens, a little indignant that they treated his presence so coolly. “Sir squire,” added he, gravely, “deem you that they have gathered much booty into this stronghold of theirs?”

“Fair sir,” answered Hornmouth, “small chance is there, I trow, of booty being collected by men who follow William de Collingham, who has ever been like the rolling stone that gathers no moss. Besides, if my eyes see aright, they are so poverty-stricken that the beggar would disdain the ragged clothes they wear; and I have heard that when Master Icingla, who is known to your soldiers as ‘White Jacket,’ and six others of the gang fought last week, one to three, against the captain of Bramber, whom the French call Bastard of Melun, and the captain’s mail was well-nigh hacked to pieces, and his sword-arm so disabled that he is never like to couch lance again, he had little to cover his nakedness save his boots, and the long white garment by which he is known to his enemies.”

“Ha, sir squire!” exclaimed Eveille-chiens, vindictively; “you do well to remind me that I owe this White Jacket the only kind of debt which I never, by any chance, forget or fail to pay. If I take him alive I’ll have his eyes put out and his hands cut off by the wrists. By St. Remy, the Bastard of Melun shall have such revenge on the outlaw as I can inflict on his behalf.”

With such feelings, Eveille-chiens pushed on the labours of the men who, under the protection of Hornmouth’s crossbowmen and archers, were busy with the construction of a causeway by which the cavalry might pass the morass, enter the island, and charge and trample down the English patriots in a mass.

Collingham, however, offered no interruption to the operations; and on the second day the aspect of the island was such, and the silence so unbroken, that Hornmouth began to suspect that Collingham meditated some desperate achievement, or had sure intelligence that Philip de Albini and John Marshal were coming to his rescue. About the close of the third day all doubts as to the state of the camp, and the cause of no interruption having taken place, were set at rest.

It was about seven o’clock on the evening of the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist, and the causeway having been completed, the forces of Eveille-chiens, both cavalry and infantry, were drawn up in order to make the assault. Having stationed his archers and crossbowmen on the margin of the morass to keep the enemy at bay during the passage of the causeway, Hornmouth assumed the post of danger, and led the van across the morass, and penetrated into the island. De Moreville’s squire naturally expected an obstinate and terrible resistance--the resistance of men, under a daring chief, reduced to despair, and determined to sell their lives at the dearest rate. But, to his astonishment, he encountered no opposition while passing the causeway; he entered the island without striking a blow; and penetrated to the ruins in the centre without meeting with a human being.

At first Hornmouth could hardly believe his senses, and next he suspected an ambush; but a little investigation convinced him that there was no mistake about the matter. The island was deserted. Even the anchorite was not to be found among the ruins which he had so long haunted while endeavouring to read the stars and penetrate the future. Hornmouth gave way to superstitious fright, and he felt as if his hairs were standing on end, and when Eveille-chiens came up he found the stout squire staring in blank amazement.

“By bread and salt!” exclaimed he, regaining his courage; “they are gone--vanished, every man and mother’s son of them; and I am no true Christian if this is not magic, or something worse.”

“May St. Remy defend us from the devices of the devil!” exclaimed Eveille-chiens, growing pale--“St. Remy defend us against the devil and our enemies, the tailed English! and I vow, on being restored to my own sweet land, to make a pilgrimage to his shrine, and to present two silver candlesticks and an image of wax to his church.”