CHAPTER X.

THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND.

Compared with Crowland, Ely was quite a dry place: there the abbey church and conventual buildings stood upon a hill and on firm hard ground;[132] but here all the edifices stood upon piles driven into the bog, and instead of a high and dry hill, there was nothing but a dead wet flat, and unless in those parts where the monastery and the town stood the ground was so rotten and boggy that a pole might be thrust down thirty feet deep. Next to the church was a grove of alders, but there was nothing else round about but water and bogs, and the reeds that grow in water. In short this Crowland, both in the situation and nature of the place, was a marvel even in the fen-country; and, certes, it was different from all places in any other part of England. Lying in the worst part of the fens, it was so enclosed and encompassed with deep bogs and pools, that there was no access to it except on the north and east sides,[133] and there too only by narrow causeways. Even in the summer season the cattle and flocks were kept at a great distance, there being no pasture-land upon which they could be placed without danger of seeing them swallowed up; so that when the owners would milk their cows they went in boats, by them called skerries, and so small that they would carry but two men and their milk-pails. There was no corn growing within five miles of Crowland. The greatest gain was from the fish and wild-ducks that were caught; and the ducks were so many that the Crowland fowlers could at times drive into a single net three thousand ducks at once; and so the good people called these pools their real corn-fields.[134] For this liberty of fishing and fowling they paid yearly to the Lord Abbat a very round sum of money: and, we ween, the abbat and the monks had ever the choice of the best fowls and fishes they caught. That holy man Guthlacus, who had laid the Crowland devils, and who had cut the sluices that led from the fetid pools to the flowing rivers, had also made the causeways which gave access to the town and monastery. These narrow but solid roads of wood and gravel ran across the deepest marshes, and had willows and alders growing on either side of them: they were marvellous works for the times; and do we not see in our own day a pyramidal stone on the causeway leading to the north, inscribed with the name of Guthlacus?[135] Much had this beatified anchorite done to alter the face of the country; yet many of the foulest pools remained and could not be purified. The town was separated from the abbey by a broad stream, and three other streams or water-courses flowed through the town,[136] separating the streets from each other; the streets were planted with willows; and the houses raised on piles driven into the bottom of the bog; and the people of one street communicated with the people of another street by means of light flying-bridges or by means of their skerries. A bold people they were, and hardy and dexterous withal, for their lives were spent in hazardous fowling and fishing, and in toiling over measureless waters and quagmires. Fenners must be bold and expert men, or they must starve. Moreover the folk of Crowland town were very devout and constant in their worship of the Saxon saints and had a laudable affection for their dispossessed Saxon monks and Lord Abbat: although in the time of King Edward, of happy memory, when they knew not what real sorrow or trouble was, they would at times murmur to my Lord Abbat’s chamberlain about the money they were called upon to pay, and at times they would even quarrel lustily with the purveyors of the house about eels and wild-ducks, pikes and herons, and such like trivialities. But the usurping abbat from France had already nearly doubled their rents and dues, and for every fish or fowl that the Saxon purveyors had claimed, the Norman purveyors laid their hands upon a dozen. Ye may judge, therefore, whether the good folk of Crowland town did not abhor the Norman monks and wish them gone.

In turning away the good Lord Abbat and all his obedientiarii or officials, and all his superior monks, the intruders had left in the house a few inferior monks, and about half a score of servientes and lay-brothers to hew their wood and draw their water. And they had so overwrought these Saxon laics, and had so taunted and vilipended them, that the poor hinds, one and all, wished them in the bottomless pit.

On the night after Lord Hereward’s feast at Brunn and the fifth night from the festival of the Nativity, Alain of Beauvais, the intrusive abbat, was feasting in the hall with his Norman friars, who had never passed through a noviciate, and with his Norman men-at-arms, who were neither more nor less godly than his monks. One or two of the English laics were waiting upon these their lords and masters; the other lay-brothers were supposed to be gone to their straw beds. Alain the pseudo-abbat, being warm with wine, was talking in the manner of all Frenchmen about dames and demoiselles, and was telling his company what a sweet lady it was that broke her heart when he first left Beauvais to seek his fortune with Duke William. Just at this juncture of time there came into the hall an invisible devil in the essence of a stink. It was such a stench as mortal nose had never smelt before—it was so intense, so foul and diabolical, that no mortal man could bear it long! Alain the pseudo-abbat, putting both his hands to his nose, said, “Notre Dame de la misericordi! what smell is this?” They all put their hands to their nostrils, and roared “What stink is this?”

Before the English lay-brothers could make any answer, the foul smell, which kept growing stronger, was accompanied by a terrible rumbling noise:—and then there came most violent gusts of wind, which extinguished all the lamps, cressets, torches, and candles; and then, upon the darkness of the hall, there burst a livid, ghastly, blue light, and above and below, from side to side, the hall seemed filled with streaming blue flames, and still that atrocious stench grew stronger and stronger! Abbat, monks, men-at-arms, and all, rushed out of the hall, some crying that it was the eve of the day of judgment, and some roaring that it must be the devils of Crowland come back again. Outside the hall, in the darkened corridor (and by this time there was not a single lamp left burning in any part of the house, but only the altar-lights in the church) they ran against and stumbled over other Frenchmen who were running up from the inferior offices and from the stables, for they had all and several been driven away by blue lights and foul smells; and every mother’s son of them believed that the Crowland devils had been sent to dispossess them and drive them back to Normandie. The corridor was long and straight, but as dark as pitch; some fell in their flight and rolled the one over the other, and some stood stock still and silent as stocks, save that their knees knocked together and their teeth chattered; and some ran forward howling for mercy, and confessing their sins to that hell-darkness. But, when near the end of the long dark passage, a French monk and a man-at-arms that ran the foremost of them all fell through the flooring with a hideous crash, and were heard shrieking from some unexplored regions below, that the fiends had gotten them—that the devils of Crowland were whirling them off to the bottomless pit! [The pit or fetid pool into which these two evil-doers were thrown was not bottomless, though deep; yet I wist nothing was ever more seen either of that monk or of that man-at-arms.] As these piercing shrieks were heard from below, the Normans roared in the corridor—some blaspheming and cursing the day and hour that they came to England, others praying to be forgiven, with many a _Libera nos!_ and _Salve!_ and others gnashing their teeth and yelling like maniacs. But some there were that made no noise at all, for they had swooned through excess of fear.

And now there came an exceeding bright light from the chasm in the floor through which the monk and the man-at-arms had fallen; but the light, though bright, was still of a ghastly blue tinge; and by that light full twenty devils, or it might be more, were seen ascending and descending to and from the flaming pit, or chasm in the floor. Some of these fiends had blubber-lips, beetle heads, humped shoulders, and bandy legs, and were hirsute[137] and black as soot; others of them were red and altogether shapeless; others were round and yellow; but all their visages were most irregular and frightful, and they had all long tails tipped with fire, and flashes of red, green, and yellow flames came out of the mouths of every one of them. As for hoarse throats, no voices could be hoarser and more dreadful than the voices of these lubber-fiends as they went up and down the pit, like buckets in a well, or as they roared in the dark cavities under the passage, and beneath the very spot where the Normans lay huddled. The intrusive abbat tried to say a _De profundis_, but the words stuck in his throat, not being very familiar with that passage.

By degrees that exceeding bright light from the chasm in the floor died away, leaving the corridor as black as Erebus. “An we could but get to the church door,” said one of the false monks, “we might be safe! Will no man try?—Is there no brave man-at-arms that will adventure along this passage and see whether we can cross that chasm and get out of it?” The men-at-arms thought that this was a reconnaissance to be more properly made by monks, who were supposed to know more about the devil and his ways than did plain soldiers: nevertheless several of them said they would adventure, if they had but their swords or their pikes with them. But they had all left their weapons in their several lodgings; and so, not one of them would budge. The darkness continued, but the voices which had been roaring below ground ceased. At last Alain of Beauvais, fortifying himself with such short prayers and Latin interjections as he could recollect, and crossing himself many score times, resolved to go along the dark passage and try whether there could be an exit from it. Slowly he went upon his hands and knees, groping and feeling the floor with his hands, and now and then rapping on the floor with his fist to essay whether it was sound. Thus this unrighteous intruder went on groping and rapping in the dark until he came close to the edge of the chasm. Then a quivering blue light shot out of the pit, and then—monstrum horrendum! a head, bigger than the heads of ten mortal men, and that seemed all fire and flame within, rose up close to the intrusive abbat’s nose, and a sharp shrill voice was heard to say in good Norman French, “Come up, my fiends, from your sombre abodes! Come up and clutch me my long while servant and slave Alain of Beauvais!” The intrusive abbat rushed back screaming, and fell swooning among the swooned. Again the long corridor was filled with that intense and intolerable blue light, and again the blubber fiends ascended and descended like buckets in a well, and again the horrible noise was heard below, and the devil that spoke the good Norman French was heard shouting, “Devil Astaroth, art thou ready? Devil Balberith, hast thou lit thy fires on the top of the waters? Devil Alocco, are thy pools all ready to receive these Norman sinners? Fiends of the fen, are your torches all prepared? Fire fiends, are ye ready with your unquenchable fires? Incubuses[138] and succubuses, demons, devils, and devilings all, are ye ready?” And the hoarse voices, sounding as if they came from the bowels of the earth, roared more fearfully than before; and one loud shrill voice, that sounded as if close to the mouth of the pit, said in good Norman French, “Yea, great devil of Crowland, we be all ready!”

“’Tis well,” said the other voice, “then set fire to every part of this once holy building, over which the sins of these Norman intruders have given us power! Fire it from porch to roof-tree, and if they will seek to abide here, let them perish in the flames, and be buried under the cinders and ashes.”

“If the devil had spoken Saxon,” said one of the monks, “I should have known nought of his meaning, but since he parleys in Norman, it is not I that will neglect his warning!” And rushing back into the hall where they had so lately been feasting, and bursting open one of the windows, this well-advised intruder leaped from the window into the stinking moat. As when a frighted ram is seized by the horns and dragged by the shepherd hind through the brake, all the silly flock that could not move before follow him one by one, even so did our Norman monks and men-at-arms follow the first monk through the window and into the foul moat! Such as had swooned were brought, if not to their senses, to the use of their legs and arms, by the renewal of that exceeding bright light, or by the pinches and twitches of their comrades, which they took for pinchings of the devil—roaring accordingly. But in a wondrously short space of time every one of the intruders was outside of the house, and was either sprawling in the foul moat, or wading through muck and mud towards the firm, dry causeway. There was great peril of drowning or of being suffocated in the bogs; nor were they yet free from the supernatural terrors, for ghastly blue fires were burning on the surface of sundry of the deeper pools, and there was an overpowering stench of sulphur. Not one of them doubted but that the lights were from hell; yet, truth to say, those blue flames showed them how to avoid the deep pools in which they might have been drowned, and how to find their way to the causeway; for the moon had not yet risen, and except when illuminated by these unearthly lights the fens were as dark as chaos. When they had floundered a long while in the mud and fen-bogs, they got to the firm and dry causeway which the holy Guthlacus had made for the use of better men. They were so exhausted by the fatigue, fright, and agony of mind they had undergone, that they all threw themselves flat upon the narrow road, and there lay in their soaked clothes, and shivering in the cold winds of night. They were still so near to Crowland that they could see bright lights, with nothing blue or unearthly about them, streaming from the windows of the abbey and from almost every house in the township, and could very distinctly hear the ringing of the church bells and the shouting of triumphant voices.

“The like of this hath not been seen or heard,” said Alain of Beauvais; “the serfs of Crowland are in league with the devils of Crowland! The Saxon rebels to King William have called the demons to their assistance!”

“Nothing so clear,” said one of the men-at-arms, “but let my advice be taken. The moon is rising now, therefore let us rise and follow the road that lies before us, and endeavour to get out of these infernal fens to the town of Huntingdon or to the castle at Cam-Bridge, or to some other place where there be Normans and Christians. If the men of Crowland should come after us, Saxons and slaves as they are, they may drive us from this causeway to perish in the bogs, or cut us to pieces upon the narrow road, for we have not so much as a single sword among us all!”

“We have nothing,” groaned Alain of Beauvais.

“Aye,” grunted one of his friars, “we brought little with us and assuredly we take less away with us! We be poorer than when we came and drove the English abbat out of his house with nought but his missal and breviary.”

“But we men-of-war depart much poorer than we came,” said one of the soldiers; “for each of us brought a good stout English horse with him, and arms and armour—and all these are left to the devils of Crowland; and we shall all be laughed at for being devil-beaten, though how men-at-arms can contend with demons I cannot discover. But hark! what new din is that?”

The din was a roar of voices proceeding from Crowland town. It soon came nearer, and still nearer; and then the hurried tramping of many feet, and the tramp of horses as well as of men, were heard along the causeway; and, as the moon shone out, the head of a dense moving column was seen on the narrow road and sundry skerries or light skiffs were seen gliding along the canals or broad ditches which ran on either side the causeway; and shouts were heard of “Hereward for England! Hereward for England!”

Hereupon the Normans all rose from the cold ground, and began to run with all the speed and strength that was left in them along the narrow road, the hindmost hardly ever ceasing to cry “Misericordia,” or “Have pity upon us, gentle Saxons!” But run as they would, the cry of “Hereward for England” was close behind them; and the horses, being put into a trot, broke in among them. More than one of the men-at-arms had the mortification of being knocked down and ridden over by a Crowland man mounted on his own war-horse; several of the monks got fresh immersions in the canals. Had the Saxons so disposed, not a Norman of all that company would have escaped with his life, for they were all as helpless as babes in their swaddling-clothes. But Hereward of the true English heart had conjured Elfric and the Salernitan to shed as little blood and destroy as few lives as possible; and Girolamo well knew that the terror and panic these fugitives would carry into whatsoever Norman camp or station they went would do far more good to the good cause than was to be done by despatching or by making prisoners of this score or two of obscure rogues.

Thus Elfric, who led the van on a stately horse, called a halt when he had carried his pursuit to some three miles from Crowland abbey. “And now,” said he, “with the permission of good Guthlacus, we will cut such a trench as shall prevent these robbers from returning to Crowland. So dig and pull away, ye lusty fenners and nimble boys of Crowland that lately made such good sham devils! Dig away for one good hour by this bright moonlight, and to-morrow ye may make the trench broader and deeper by daylight! Oh, Guthlacus, we will repair thy good work when the good times come back again, and when honest men may walk along the road in peace, without any fear of Norman cut-throats!”

Two score and more lusty hinds came forward with axes and spades and mattocks; and within the hour a trench was dug quite broad and deep enough to stop the march of any heavily armed man or war-horse. The Saxons then returned to Crowland, and as they went they sang in chorus a joyous war-song, and shouted “Hereward for England!”

Girolamo the Salernitan, who had remained in the abbey with the Saxon lay-brothers, had put the house so completely in order and had so cleansed it of the foul odours he had made by his art, and had so sweetened it with frankincense brought from the church, and with barks and fragrant spirits taken from his own packets, that no man could have conceived that anything extraordinary had taken place. Save that the good Lord Abbat and his cloister monks were missing, the whole house looked just as it did before the Normans broke in upon it and drove away the Lord Abbat and his brethren. Honest and merry English voices rang again through hall, corridor, and cloister, instead of Norman speech that whistles in the nose; and Saxon saints were once more invoked instead of the unknown saints of France.

Other men had been busy in the house besides the Salernitan and his assistants. No joyful occurrence ever took place among the Saxons without its being noted by a feast;—provided only that such good Saxons had wherewith to feast upon. The Normans had gone off in much too great a hurry to think of taking anything with them. In the buttery remained, among other rich drinking-horns, all carved and ornamented with silver, that famed horn which Witlaf,[139] king of Mercia, had given from his own table to Crowland monastery, in order that the elder monks might drink thereout on festivals, and in their benedictions remember sometimes the soul of the donor. It was a mighty large horn, such as became a great king: and it was an ancient custom of the house that when any new Lord Abbat came they filled the horn with strong wine, and offered to him to drink, and if he happened to drink it all off cheerfully, they promised to themselves a noble Lord Abbat and many good years in his time. Now for this high festival the subcellarer brought forth this ancient and royal drinking-horn, which held twice the quantity of our modern horns; and in order that there might be no delay in filling it, the good subcellarer caused to be brought up from below an entire cask of wine, and as soon as the cask was in the refectory the head of it was stove in. Old Robin the cook, who had been pastor and master in the art culinary to that good cook of Spalding, had so bestirred himself, and had put so many other hands and feet in motion, that there was a good supper ready for all of the house, and all of the town, and all of the vicinage of Crowland who had been aiding in the good work of disseising, now so happily accomplished; and by the time Elfric and his friends got back to the monastery, the feast was ready. The thin and dark Salernitan, being but a puny eater and no drinker, and not fully versed in our vernacular, partook only of three or four dishes and of one cup of wine; and then went straight to the bed which had been prepared for him. The homely Saxons felt a relief when he was gone. They sent the wine round faster, and began to discourse of the wonders they had done and seen. Elfric gave thanks to the lay-brothers of the house without whose aid the sham devils of Crowland could never have gotten within the house.

“And how suitably attired!” said Roger the tailor.

“Yet what nimble devils we were!” said Orson the smith.

“What vizards! what tails! That thin dark stranger made the vizards; but it was I that made the tails, and proud am I of the work! How they twisted! How lism[140] they were! How I switched mine about by pulling the strings under my jerkin!”

“I wish,” said Hob the carpenter, “that thou hadst not switched thy devil’s tail into mine eye as I was coming up after thee through the trap-door. That trap-door was a good device, and it was all mine own; for who went and cut away the beams just at the right time but Hob?”

“All did well,” said Elfric, “but there were some that did wondrously. Colin Rush, thou madest a very pretty nimble devil! Hugh, thy roar was perfection! Joseph the novice, thou wast so terrible a devil to look upon, that although I dressed thee myself, I was more than half afraid of thee!”

“And I,” responded Joseph, “was wholly terrified at thee, master Elfric! nor can I yet make out how thou didst contrive to throw about all that fire and flame, through eyes, mouth, and nostrils, without burning thy big vizard. Hodge the miller set fire to his big head and burned it to pieces, and so could do nothing but stay below in the cellar and help in the roaring.”

“And not much did I like that dark underground place,“ quoth Hodge: ”and when the lights were all out, and goodman Hugh, groping his way in the dark, caught my tail in his hand and pulled it till it nearly came away from my breech, I ’gan fancy that the Crowland devils were angered, and that some real devil was going to haul me off! I wot that the roar I then gave was quite in earnest! My flesh still quivers, and ice comes over my heart as I think of it!”

“Then melt thine ice with good warm wine,” said Elfric: pushing him a cup: “I thought thou hadst known that all the Crowland devils had been laid for aye by the good Guthlacus, and that thou hadst had nothing to fear whilst engaged in so good a work and all for the service of thy liege lord the abbat, and for the honour and service of the church and the liberties of England. Did I not besprinkle thee with holy water before thou didst don thy devil-skin?”

“For my part,” said another, “what most feared me was that awful stench! I was told, that as a devil I must not cough, but help coughing I could not as I stirred up the pan over the charcoal fire, and kept throwing in the foul drugs the dark stranger gave me to throw in. In sooth I neither frisked about nor hauled myself up by the rope over the trap-door; nor did I howl, nor did I help to carry the blue links and torches; but the stinking part did I all myself, and I think I may be proud of it! Not to defraud an honest man and good artisan of his due, I may say it was Hob the carpenter that bored the holes through the floor so that the incense might rise right under our Norman abbat’s nose; but for all the rest it was I that did it. That hell-broth still stinks in the nose of my memory. Prithee, another cup of wine, that I may forget it.”

“Well,” said old Gaffer the tithing-man of Crowland, “we have done the thing, and I hope it hath been honestly done; and without offence to the saints or to the beatified Guthlacus.”

“Never doubt it,” quoth Elfric: “the Norman spoilers and oppressors are gone to a man, and as naked as they came. I, the humble friend and follower of my Lord Hereward the liberator, am here to dispense hospitality to-night; your own Lord Abbat will be here in a few days; and the dread of our demons of the fens and Crowland devils will make the invaders run from all the fen country. So much good could not have come out of evil; if the means employed had been unlawful or in any way sinful, we should have failed, and never have met with such easy and complete success.”

“Nevertheless,” continued Gaffer, “the things which I have seen fill me with doubt and amaze. Whoever saw the like before? Fire burning upon the top of water, flames not to be quenched by water from below nor by water from above! Smoke and flames not of their natural colours, but blue, and green, and scarlet, and bright yellow! and the light from these flames so dazzling and so ghastly! In truth I wot not how this can be done by mortal man!”

“Nor wot I,” said Elfric; “but this I know full well, that there was no magic or sortilege in the preparation, and that the stranger is as good and devout a Christian as any that dwells in the land. Many are the things which I have seen done by the hand of man that I cannot understand; but am I therefore to think that the evil one hath a finger in them? I have carried on my back, and have handled with mine own hands, the liquids and the substances which have been used, and yet have felt neither cramp nor any other ache. And plain homely things those substances and liquids do appear to be—the quietest and dullest trash until mixed together and compounded. Girolamo, who hath studied in the schools in foreign parts, even as our young clerks studied at Cam-Bridge before the detestable Normans came and built their donjon there, calls this art of compounding by the name of Chemeia, or Chimia, and he says that things much more wondrous are to be done by it. Further, he says, that his own proficiency has been acquired by long fasting and diligent study, by prayers to heaven and votive offerings to the saints. Methinks it were better to give God credit for these inventions and combinations, and for the wit and ingenuity of man, than to be always attributing them to the devil, as our uninformed clowns do. [But these last words the ex-novice spoke under his breath.] And this also do I know—the stranger sprinkled his powders with holy water, and prayed the prayers of our church all the while he was doing his preparations.”

“But what makes him look so grim and black, and so wild about the eyes,” said the old cook.

“Nothing but sorrow and anxiety, sun and climate,” replied Elfric. “In the country of the south where he was born there be no blue eyes or flaxen heads of hair; and the Normans drove him from his home and seized his house and lands, even as they are now doing with Englishmen; and he hath known long captivity and cruel torture, and hath wandered in the far climates of the East where the hand of the Arab is lifted against every man.”

“Well,” said Hob the carpenter, “two things are clear—the Normans are gone from Crowland, and we have gotten their wine butts. And, therefore, I submit to this good company that we should leave off talking and be jolly. Goodman Hodge, pass me down the cup.”