CHAPTER IX.

ELFRIC THE EX-NOVICE, AND GIROLAMO OF SALERNO, PREPARE TO PLAY AT DEVILS.

A feast was prepared in the great hall of the manor-house, and the young Lord of Brunn was about sitting down to table with his kinsmen and the good friends that had rallied round him in the hour of need, when Elfric arrived at Brunn from the house of the Ladie Alftrude at Ey. To look at Lord Hereward’s glad countenance as he talked in a corner of the hall with the new comer, one would have thought that he had won a fairer house and a wider domain than those of his ancestors of which he had repossessed himself in the morning. And for that matter he had won or was winning his way to a better house and greater estate; for had not the fair young heiress of Ey sent again to tell him that she abided by her troth-plight, and looked for him to come and rescue her from that burthensome and dishonouring protection of the Normans under which she had been living! The retainers of her father’s house, and all the hinds and serfs, were devoted to her, and ready to receive the young Lord of Brunn as their own liege lord and deliverer. Her friends and neighbours had all been consulted, and would assemble in arms and meet Lord Hereward at any hour and place that it might suit him to name. Save some few men-at-arms that were at Crowland to protect the intrusive Norman monks, there was no Norman force nearer to Ey than Stamford. The season of the year and all things were favourable for recovering the whole of the fen-country, and for driving the invaders from every country in the neighbourhood of the fens.

After putting a few questions to Elfric, such as lovers usually put to their pages when they come from seeing their ladie-loves, Hereward asked what force there might be in Crowland Abbey. Elfric said that there might be one knight and from ten to fifteen men-at-arms; but then all the monks that had been so recently brought over from France were fighting men, at a pinch; and these intruders were from thirty to forty in number, and well provided with weapons and warlike harness. The young man also bade Lord Hereward reflect that the great house at Crowland was not like the cell at Spalding, but a lofty and very strong place, and built mostly of stone and brick. Elfric too had learned that Crowland was well stored with provisions, so that it might stand a long siege.

“And yet,” said the Lord of Brunn, “it is upon the great house of Crowland that I would fain make my next attempt; and great in every way are the advantages that would follow the capture of that strong and holy place, and the immediate restoration of the true Saxon Lord Abbat and his dispossessed brethren.”

“My silly head hath been venturing to think of this,” said Elfric, “and I very believe that with the aid of Girolamo and with a little of that blue fire and stinking smoke which he hath the trick of making, I could drive knight, men-at-arms, and monks all out of the abbey without any loss or let to our good Saxons.”

“Why, what wouldst do?” said Hereward.

“Only this, my lord. I would make the Normans believe that all the blubber-devils of Crowland were come back to earth to drive them from the house.”

“I see, yet do not fully comprehend,” said Lord Hereward; “but we will talk of these things with Girolamo to-night, when this my first feast as Lord of Brunn is over, and when every Saxon shall have seen that the hospitality of mine ancestors is not to know decrease in me.”

And late that night, when Hereward’s first and most bountiful feast was over, and when his guests had betaken themselves to the town of Brunn, or to their beds or to clean hay and rushes in the manor-house, Elfric and Girolamo followed Hereward to his inner chamber, and consulted with him about the best means of driving out the French from Crowland. First crossing himself—for although he feared not man, he had a lively dread of all manner of goblins and demons—the Lord of Brunn said, “Elfric, thou mayest now tell us about thy Crowland devils.”

“You wist well, my lord,” said Elfric, “for who should know it better, that in the heathenish times the whole of the isle[129] of Crowland and all the bogs and pools round about were haunted day and night, but most at night, by unaccountable troops and legions of devils, with blubber-lips, fiery mouths, scaley faces, beetle heads, sharp long teeth, long chins, hoarse throats, black skins, hump shoulders, big bellies, burning loins, bandy legs, cloven hoofs for feet, and long tails at their buttocks. And who so well as your lordship knoweth that these blubber-fiends, angered at that their fens and stinking pools should be invaded, allowed our first monks of Crowland no peace nor truce, but were for ever gibing and mowing at them, biting them with their sharp teeth, switching them with their filthy tails, putting dirt in their meat and drink, nipping them by the nose, giving them cramps and rheums and shivering agues and burning fevers, and fustigating and tormenting not a few of the friars even to death! And your lordship knows that these devils of Crowland were not driven away until the time when that very pious man Guthlacus became a hermit there, and cut the sluices that lead from the fetid pools to the flowing rivers. Then, in sooth, the devils of Crowland were beaten off by prayer and by holy water, and the horrible blue lights which they were wont to light upon the most fetid of the pools, ceased to be seen of men.”[130]

“All this legend I know full well,” said the Lord of Brunn, explaining it to Girolamo of Salerno, who crossed himself many times as he heard the description of the very hideous Crowland devils.

“All that dwell in the fen-country know the legend,” continued Elfric; “the house of Crowland is full of the legend, and the usurping Norman crew must know the legend well, and in the guilt of their conscience must needs tremble at it! The devils are painted in cloister and corridor, their blue lights are painted, as they used to appear to our first good monks; and the most pious anchorite Guthlacus[131] is depicted in the act of laying the evil ones. If a Saxon saint laid them, these Norman sinners have done enough to bring them back again; and it can only be by the bones of our saints and the other Saxon relics that lie in the church of Crowland, that the devils of Crowland are prevented from returning. Now all that I would do is this,—I would haunt the house and the fens round about with sham devils, and so make these Norman intruders believe that the old real blubber-fiends were upon them! I do not believe they would stand two days and nights of such a siege as I could give them, if your lordship would but consent and Girolamo lend his aid.”

“But were it not sinful for christened Saxon men to play at devils?”

“Assuredly not, when playing against devils like these Normans, and for a holy end, and for the restoration of such good men and true Saxons as my Lord Abbat of Crowland and his expelled brotherhood.”

Hereward put the question, as a case of conscience, to Girolamo, as _vir bonus et sapiens_, a good man and learned; and Girolamo was of opinion that, as the wicked ofttimes put on the semblance of saints to do mischief, the good might, with certain restrictions, be allowed to put on the semblance of devils to do good. His patron Hereward, he said, would give him credit for being a true believer, and a devout, though weak and sinful, son of the church, yet would he think it no sin to play the part of a Crowland devil, or to give to Elfric the benefit of his science in making ghastly blue lights, or in causing flames to appear on the surface of the stagnant waters, or in fact in doing anything that might be required of him in order to scare away the Normans. Hereward had still some misgivings, but he yielded to the representations of Elfric and the exceeding great earnestness of Girolamo; and when he dismissed them for the night he said, “Well, since you will have it so, go and play at devils in Crowland. Only have a care that ye be not taken or slain, and be back to this house as soon as ye can; for if Crowland cannot be taken, we must try and blockade it, and proceed to Ey to collect more strength.”

“I have good hope, my lord,” said Girolamo; “for with my white magic I can do things that will carry terror to the hearts of these untaught Normans; and then this young man Elfric hath ever succeeded in all that he hath attempted: he already knoweth enough of my language (thanks to the little Latin he got as a novice) to make out my meaning and to act as my interpreter to others. He tells me that even should the devil experiment fail, he can assure our retreat, with scarcely any chance of danger.”

“Then go, Girolamo, and take with thee such men and boats and other appliances as thou mayest need. But have a care, for I have work on hand that cannot be done without thee; and if I lose Elfric I lose the nimblest-witted of all my Saxons. So good night, and may the blessed saints go with ye both, although ye be dressed in devils’ skins!”

“Brother devil, that is to be,” said Elfric to the Salernitan, “there be bulls’ hides and bulls’ horns in the out-houses; and good coils of iron chain in the kitchen, to do the clanking.”

“Boy,” said Girolamo, “thou hast but a vulgar idea about demons! Dost think I am going to make jack-pudding devils, such as are gazed at at wakes and country fairs? No, no; I will give you devils of another sort I guess. But leave all that to me, and apply your own mind to the means of getting into the house at Crowland or of establishing a correspondence therein, so that the Normans may be devil-ridden inside as well as outside.”

“And do thou, great master Girolamo, leave that to me,” said Elfric, “for I know some that are within the house of Crowland that would face the real devil and all his legions for the chance of driving out the French abbat and friars; and if I myself do not know every dark corner, every underground passage, and every hiding-hole in and about the house, why there is no one living that hath such knowledge.”

Here the two separated. The young Saxon lay down on some rushes near the door of Lord Hereward’s chamber, and pulling his cloak over his face was soon fast asleep: the Salernitan, who had a chamber all to himself, sat up till a late hour among the packages and vessels he had brought with him: and yet was he ready to start on his journey for Crowland at the first glimpse of day. Those who entered his room in the morning, just after he was gone, smelt a strong smell of sulphur: and, sorely to Girolamo’s cost, some louts remembered this smell at a later season.