The White Company Read online

  CHAPTER II. HOW ALLEYNE EDRICSON CAME OUT INTO THE WORLD.

  Never had the peaceful atmosphere of the old Cistercian house been sorudely ruffled. Never had there been insurrection so sudden, so short,and so successful. Yet the Abbot Berghersh was a man of too firm a grainto allow one bold outbreak to imperil the settled order of his greathousehold. In a few hot and bitter words, he compared their falsebrother's exit to the expulsion of our first parents from the garden,and more than hinted that unless a reformation occurred some others ofthe community might find themselves in the same evil and perilous case.Having thus pointed the moral and reduced his flock to a fitting stateof docility, he dismissed them once more to their labors and withdrewhimself to his own private chamber, there to seek spiritual aid in thedischarge of the duties of his high office.

  The Abbot was still on his knees, when a gentle tapping at the door ofhis cell broke in upon his orisons.

  Rising in no very good humor at the interruption, he gave the word toenter; but his look of impatience softened down into a pleasant andpaternal smile as his eyes fell upon his visitor.

  He was a thin-faced, yellow-haired youth, rather above the middle size,comely and well shapen, with straight, lithe figure and eager, boyishfeatures. His clear, pensive gray eyes, and quick, delicate expression,spoke of a nature which had unfolded far from the boisterous joys andsorrows of the world. Yet there was a set of the mouth and a prominenceof the chin which relieved him of any trace of effeminacy. Impulsivehe might be, enthusiastic, sensitive, with something sympathetic andadaptive in his disposition; but an observer of nature's tokens wouldhave confidently pledged himself that there was native firmness andstrength underlying his gentle, monk-bred ways.

  The youth was not clad in monastic garb, but in lay attire, though hisjerkin, cloak and hose were all of a sombre hue, as befitted one whodwelt in sacred precincts. A broad leather strap hanging from hisshoulder supported a scrip or satchel such as travellers were wont tocarry. In one hand he grasped a thick staff pointed and shod with metal,while in the other he held his coif or bonnet, which bore in its front abroad pewter medal stamped with the image of Our Lady of Rocamadour.

  "Art ready, then, fair son?" said the Abbot. "This is indeed a day ofcomings and of goings. It is strange that in one twelve hours the Abbeyshould have cast off its foulest weed and should now lose what we arefain to look upon as our choicest blossom."

  "You speak too kindly, father," the youth answered. "If I had my will Ishould never go forth, but should end my days here in Beaulieu. It hathbeen my home as far back as my mind can carry me, and it is a sore thingfor me to have to leave it."

  "Life brings many a cross," said the Abbot gently. "Who is without them?Your going forth is a grief to us as well as to yourself. But thereis no help. I had given my foreword and sacred promise to your father,Edric the Franklin, that at the age of twenty you should be sent outinto the world to see for yourself how you liked the savor of it. Seatthee upon the settle, Alleyne, for you may need rest ere long."

  The youth sat down as directed, but reluctantly and with diffidence.The Abbot stood by the narrow window, and his long black shadow fellslantwise across the rush-strewn floor.

  "Twenty years ago," he said, "your father, the Franklin of Minstead,died, leaving to the Abbey three hides of rich land in the hundred ofMalwood, and leaving to us also his infant son on condition that weshould rear him until he came to man's estate. This he did partlybecause your mother was dead, and partly because your elder brother,now Socman of Minstead, had already given sign of that fierce and rudenature which would make him no fit companion for you. It was his desireand request, however, that you should not remain in the cloisters, butshould at a ripe age return into the world."

  "But, father," interrupted the young man, "it is surely true that I amalready advanced several degrees in clerkship?"

  "Yes, fair son, but not so far as to bar you from the garb you now wearor the life which you must now lead. You have been porter?"

  "Yes, father."

  "Exorcist?"

  "Yes, father."

  "Reader?"

  "Yes, father."

  "Acolyte?"

  "Yes, father."

  "But have sworn no vow of constancy or chastity?"

  "No, father."

  "Then you are free to follow a worldly life. But let me hear, ere youstart, what gifts you take away with you from Beaulieu? Some I alreadyknow. There is the playing of the citole and the rebeck. Our choir willbe dumb without you. You carve too?"

  The youth's pale face flushed with the pride of the skilled workman."Yes, holy father," he answered. "Thanks to good brother Bartholomew, Icarve in wood and in ivory, and can do something also in silver andin bronze. From brother Francis I have learned to paint on vellum, onglass, and on metal, with a knowledge of those pigments and essenceswhich can preserve the color against damp or a biting air. BrotherLuke hath given me some skill in damask work, and in the enamelling ofshrines, tabernacles, diptychs and triptychs. For the rest, I know alittle of the making of covers, the cutting of precious stones, and thefashioning of instruments."

  "A goodly list, truly," cried the superior with a smile. "What clerk ofCambrig or of Oxenford could say as much? But of thy reading--hast notso much to show there, I fear?"

  "No, father, it hath been slight enough. Yet, thanks to our goodchancellor, I am not wholly unlettered. I have read Ockham, Bradwardine,and other of the schoolmen, together with the learned Duns Scotus andthe book of the holy Aquinas."

  "But of the things of this world, what have you gathered from yourreading? From this high window you may catch a glimpse over the woodenpoint and the smoke of Bucklershard of the mouth of the Exe, and theshining sea. Now, I pray you, Alleyne, if a man were to take a ship andspread sail across yonder waters, where might he hope to arrive?"

  The youth pondered, and drew a plan amongst the rushes with the pointof his staff. "Holy father," said he, "he would come upon those partsof France which are held by the King's Majesty. But if he trended to thesouth he might reach Spain and the Barbary States. To his north would beFlanders and the country of the Eastlanders and of the Muscovites."

  "True. And how if, after reaching the King's possessions, he stilljourneyed on to the eastward?"

  "He would then come upon that part of France which is still in dispute,and he might hope to reach the famous city of Avignon, where dwells ourblessed father, the prop of Christendom."

  "And then?"

  "Then he would pass through the land of the Almains and the great RomanEmpire, and so to the country of the Huns and of the Lithuanian pagans,beyond which lies the great city of Constantine and the kingdom of theunclean followers of Mahmoud."

  "And beyond that, fair son?"

  "Beyond that is Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and the great river whichhath its source in the Garden of Eden."

  "And then?"

  "Nay, good father, I cannot tell. Methinks the end of the world is notfar from there."

  "Then we can still find something to teach thee, Alleyne," said theAbbot complaisantly. "Know that many strange nations lie betwixt thereand the end of the world. There is the country of the Amazons, and thecountry of the dwarfs, and the country of the fair but evil women whoslay with beholding, like the basilisk. Beyond that again is the kingdomof Prester John and of the great Cham. These things I know for verysooth, for I had them from that pious Christian and valiant knight, SirJohn de Mandeville, who stopped twice at Beaulieu on his way to and fromSouthampton, and discoursed to us concerning what he had seen from thereader's desk in the refectory, until there was many a good brother whogot neither bit nor sup, so stricken were they by his strange tales."

  "I would fain know, father," asked the young man, "what there may be atthe end of the world?"

  "There are some things," replied the Abbot gravely, "into which it wasnever intended that we should inquire. But you have a long road beforeyou. Whither will you first turn?"

  "To my brother's at Minstead. If he be
indeed an ungodly and violentman, there is the more need that I should seek him out and see whether Icannot turn him to better ways."

  The Abbot shook his head. "The Socman of Minstead hath earned an evilname over the country side," he said. "If you must go to him, see atleast that he doth not turn you from the narrow path upon which you havelearned to tread. But you are in God's keeping, and Godward should youever look in danger and in trouble. Above all, shun the snares of women,for they are ever set for the foolish feet of the young. Kneel down, mychild, and take an old man's blessing."

  Alleyne Edricson bent his head while the Abbot poured out his heartfeltsupplication that Heaven would watch over this young soul, now goingforth into the darkness and danger of the world. It was no mere form foreither of them. To them the outside life of mankind did indeed seem tobe one of violence and of sin, beset with physical and still more withspiritual danger. Heaven, too, was very near to them in those days.God's direct agency was to be seen in the thunder and the rainbow,the whirlwind and the lightning. To the believer, clouds of angels andconfessors, and martyrs, armies of the sainted and the saved, wereever stooping over their struggling brethren upon earth, raising,encouraging, and supporting them. It was then with a lighter heart anda stouter courage that the young man turned from the Abbot's room, whilethe latter, following him to the stair-head, finally commended him tothe protection of the holy Julian, patron of travellers.

  Underneath, in the porch of the Abbey, the monks had gathered to givehim a last God-speed. Many had brought some parting token by which heshould remember them. There was brother Bartholomew with a crucifix ofrare carved ivory, and brother Luke with a white-backed psalteradorned with golden bees, and brother Francis with the "Slaying of theInnocents" most daintily set forth upon vellum. All these wereduly packed away deep in the traveller's scrip, and above them oldpippin-faced brother Athanasius had placed a parcel of simnel bread andrammel cheese, with a small flask of the famous blue-sealed Abbey wine.So, amid hand-shakings and laughings and blessings, Alleyne Edricsonturned his back upon Beaulieu.

  At the turn of the road he stopped and gazed back. There was thewide-spread building which he knew so well, the Abbot's house, the longchurch, the cloisters with their line of arches, all bathed and mellowedin the evening sun. There too was the broad sweep of the river Exe, theold stone well, the canopied niche of the Virgin, and in the centre ofall the cluster of white-robed figures who waved their hands to him. Asudden mist swam up before the young man's eyes, and he turned away uponhis journey with a heavy heart and a choking throat.