The White Company Read online

  CHAPTER V. HOW A STRANGE COMPANY GATHERED AT THE "PIED MERLIN."

  The night had already fallen, and the moon was shining between the riftsof ragged, drifting clouds, before Alleyne Edricson, footsore and wearyfrom the unwonted exercise, found himself in front of the forest innwhich stood upon the outskirts of Lyndhurst. The building was long andlow, standing back a little from the road, with two flambeaux blazing oneither side of the door as a welcome to the traveller. From one windowthere thrust forth a long pole with a bunch of greenery tied to the endof it--a sign that liquor was to be sold within. As Alleyne walked up toit he perceived that it was rudely fashioned out of beams of wood, withtwinkling lights all over where the glow from within shone through thechinks. The roof was poor and thatched; but in strange contrast toit there ran all along under the eaves a line of wooden shields, mostgorgeously painted with chevron, bend, and saltire, and every heraldicdevice. By the door a horse stood tethered, the ruddy glow beatingstrongly upon his brown head and patient eyes, while his body stood backin the shadow.

  Alleyne stood still in the roadway for a few minutes reflectingupon what he should do. It was, he knew, only a few miles further toMinstead, where his brother dwelt. On the other hand, he had never seenthis brother since childhood, and the reports which had come to his earsconcerning him were seldom to his advantage. By all accounts he was ahard and a bitter man.

  It might be an evil start to come to his door so late and claim theshelter of his roof. Better to sleep here at this inn, and then travelon to Minstead in the morning. If his brother would take him in, welland good.

  He would bide with him for a time and do what he might to serve him.If, on the other hand, he should have hardened his heart against him,he could only go on his way and do the best he might by his skill asa craftsman and a scrivener. At the end of a year he would be freeto return to the cloisters, for such had been his father's bequest. Amonkish upbringing, one year in the world after the age of twenty, andthen a free selection one way or the other--it was a strange coursewhich had been marked out for him. Such as it was, however, he had nochoice but to follow it, and if he were to begin by making a friendof his brother he had best wait until morning before he knocked at hisdwelling.

  The rude plank door was ajar, but as Alleyne approached it there camefrom within such a gust of rough laughter and clatter of tongues thathe stood irresolute upon the threshold. Summoning courage, however, andreflecting that it was a public dwelling, in which he had as much rightas any other man, he pushed it open and stepped into the common room.

  Though it was an autumn evening and somewhat warm, a huge fire of heapedbillets of wood crackled and sparkled in a broad, open grate, some ofthe smoke escaping up a rude chimney, but the greater part rolling outinto the room, so that the air was thick with it, and a man coming fromwithout could scarce catch his breath. On this fire a great cauldronbubbled and simmered, giving forth a rich and promising smell. Seatedround it were a dozen or so folk, of all ages and conditions, who setup such a shout as Alleyne entered that he stood peering at them throughthe smoke, uncertain what this riotous greeting might portend.

  "A rouse! A rouse!" cried one rough looking fellow in a tattered jerkin."One more round of mead or ale and the score to the last comer."

  "'Tis the law of the 'Pied Merlin,'" shouted another. "Ho there, DameEliza! Here is fresh custom come to the house, and not a drain for thecompany."

  "I will take your orders, gentles; I will assuredly take your orders,"the landlady answered, bustling in with her hands full of leatherndrinking-cups. "What is it that you drink, then? Beer for the lads ofthe forest, mead for the gleeman, strong waters for the tinker, and winefor the rest. It is an old custom of the house, young sir. It has beenthe use at the 'Pied Merlin' this many a year back that the companyshould drink to the health of the last comer. Is it your pleasure tohumor it?"

  "Why, good dame," said Alleyne, "I would not offend the customs of yourhouse, but it is only sooth when I say that my purse is a thin one. Asfar as two pence will go, however, I shall be right glad to do my part."

  "Plainly said and bravely spoken, my suckling friar," roared a deepvoice, and a heavy hand fell upon Alleyne's shoulder. Looking up, he sawbeside him his former cloister companion the renegade monk, Hordle John.

  "By the thorn of Glastonbury! ill days are coming upon Beaulieu," saidhe. "Here they have got rid in one day of the only two men within theirwalls--for I have had mine eyes upon thee, youngster, and I know thatfor all thy baby-face there is the making of a man in thee. Then thereis the Abbot, too. I am no friend of his, nor he of mine; but he haswarm blood in his veins. He is the only man left among them. The others,what are they?"

  "They are holy men," Alleyne answered gravely.

  "Holy men? Holy cabbages! Holy bean-pods! What do they do but live andsuck in sustenance and grow fat? If that be holiness, I could show youhogs in this forest who are fit to head the calendar. Think you it wasfor such a life that this good arm was fixed upon my shoulder, or thathead placed upon your neck? There is work in the world, man, and it isnot by hiding behind stone walls that we shall do it."

  "Why, then, did you join the brothers?" asked Alleyne.

  "A fair enough question; but it is as fairly answered. I joined thembecause Margery Alspaye, of Bolder, married Crooked Thomas of Ringwood,and left a certain John of Hordle in the cold, for that he was aranting, roving blade who was not to be trusted in wedlock. That waswhy, being fond and hot-headed, I left the world; and that is why,having had time to take thought, I am right glad to find myself back init once more. Ill betide the day that ever I took off my yeoman's jerkinto put on the white gown!"

  Whilst he was speaking the landlady came in again, bearing a broadplatter, upon which stood all the beakers and flagons charged to thebrim with the brown ale or the ruby wine. Behind her came a maid witha high pile of wooden plates, and a great sheaf of spoons, one of whichshe handed round to each of the travellers. Two of the company, who weredressed in the weather-stained green doublet of foresters, lifted thebig pot off the fire, and a third, with a huge pewter ladle, served outa portion of steaming collops to each guest. Alleyne bore his share andhis ale-mug away with him to a retired trestle in the corner, where hecould sup in peace and watch the strange scene, which was so differentto those silent and well-ordered meals to which he was accustomed.

  The room was not unlike a stable. The low ceiling, smoke-blackened anddingy, was pierced by several square trap-doors with rough-hewn laddersleading up to them. The walls of bare unpainted planks were studdedhere and there with great wooden pins, placed at irregular intervalsand heights, from which hung over-tunics, wallets, whips, bridles, andsaddles. Over the fireplace were suspended six or seven shields ofwood, with coats-of-arms rudely daubed upon them, which showed by theirvarying degrees of smokiness and dirt that they had been placed thereat different periods. There was no furniture, save a single longdresser covered with coarse crockery, and a number of wooden benches andtrestles, the legs of which sank deeply into the soft clay floor, whilethe only light, save that of the fire, was furnished by three torchesstuck in sockets on the wall, which flickered and crackled, givingforth a strong resinous odor. All this was novel and strange to thecloister-bred youth; but most interesting of all was the motley circleof guests who sat eating their collops round the blaze. They were ahumble group of wayfarers, such as might have been found that nightin any inn through the length and breadth of England; but to him theyrepresented that vague world against which he had been so frequently andso earnestly warned. It did not seem to him from what he could see of itto be such a very wicked place after all.

  Three or four of the men round the fire were evidently underkeepersand verderers from the forest, sunburned and bearded, with the quickrestless eye and lithe movements of the deer among which they lived.Close to the corner of the chimney sat a middle-aged gleeman, clad in afaded garb of Norwich cloth, the tunic of which was so outgrown that itdid not fasten at the neck and at the waist. His face was
swollen andcoarse, and his watery protruding eyes spoke of a life which neverwandered very far from the wine-pot. A gilt harp, blotched with manystains and with two of its strings missing, was tucked under one of hisarms, while with the other he scooped greedily at his platter. Next tohim sat two other men of about the same age, one with a trimming of furto his coat, which gave him a dignity which was evidently dearer to himthan his comfort, for he still drew it round him in spite of the hotglare of the faggots. The other, clad in a dirty russet suit with a longsweeping doublet, had a cunning, foxy face with keen, twinkling eyes anda peaky beard. Next to him sat Hordle John, and beside him three otherrough unkempt fellows with tangled beards and matted hair--free laborersfrom the adjoining farms, where small patches of freehold propertyhad been suffered to remain scattered about in the heart of the royaldemesne. The company was completed by a peasant in a rude dress ofundyed sheepskin, with the old-fashioned galligaskins about his legs,and a gayly dressed young man with striped cloak jagged at the edgesand parti-colored hosen, who looked about him with high disdain upon hisface, and held a blue smelling-flask to his nose with one hand, while hebrandished a busy spoon with the other. In the corner a very fat man waslying all a-sprawl upon a truss, snoring stertorously, and evidently inthe last stage of drunkenness.

  "That is Wat the limner," quoth the landlady, sitting down besideAlleyne, and pointing with the ladle to the sleeping man. "That is hewho paints the signs and the tokens. Alack and alas that ever I shouldhave been fool enough to trust him! Now, young man, what manner of abird would you suppose a pied merlin to be--that being the proper signof my hostel?"

  "Why," said Alleyne, "a merlin is a bird of the same form as an eagle ora falcon. I can well remember that learned brother Bartholomew, who isdeep in all the secrets of nature, pointed one out to me as we walkedtogether near Vinney Ridge."

  "A falcon or an eagle, quotha? And pied, that is of two several colors.So any man would say except this barrel of lies. He came to me, lookyou, saying that if I would furnish him with a gallon of ale, wherewithto strengthen himself as he worked, and also the pigments and a board,he would paint for me a noble pied merlin which I might hang along withthe blazonry over my door. I, poor simple fool, gave him the ale and allthat he craved, leaving him alone too, because he said that a man's mindmust be left untroubled when he had great work to do. When I came backthe gallon jar was empty, and he lay as you see him, with the board infront of him with this sorry device." She raised up a panel which wasleaning against the wall, and showed a rude painting of a scraggy andangular fowl, with very long legs and a spotted body.

  "Was that," she asked, "like the bird which thou hast seen?"

  Alleyne shook his head, smiling.

  "No, nor any other bird that ever wagged a feather. It is most like aplucked pullet which has died of the spotted fever. And scarlet too!What would the gentles Sir Nicholas Boarhunte, or Sir Bernard Brocas, ofRoche Court, say if they saw such a thing--or, perhaps, even the King'sown Majesty himself, who often has ridden past this way, and who loveshis falcons as he loves his sons? It would be the downfall of my house."

  "The matter is not past mending," said Alleyne. "I pray you, good dame,to give me those three pigment-pots and the brush, and I shall trywhether I cannot better this painting."

  Dame Eliza looked doubtfully at him, as though fearing some otherstratagem, but, as he made no demand for ale, she finally brought thepaints, and watched him as he smeared on his background, talking thewhile about the folk round the fire.

  "The four forest lads must be jogging soon," she said. "They bide atEmery Down, a mile or more from here. Yeomen prickers they are, who tendto the King's hunt. The gleeman is called Floyting Will. He comes fromthe north country, but for many years he hath gone the round of theforest from Southampton to Christchurch. He drinks much and pays littlebut it would make your ribs crackle to hear him sing the 'Jest of HendyTobias.' Mayhap he will sing it when the ale has warmed him."

  "Who are those next to him?" asked Alleyne, much interested. "He of thefur mantle has a wise and reverent face."

  "He is a seller of pills and salves, very learned in humors, and rheums,and fluxes, and all manner of ailments. He wears, as you perceive, thevernicle of Sainted Luke, the first physician, upon his sleeve. May goodSt. Thomas of Kent grant that it may be long before either I or mineneed his help! He is here to-night for herbergage, as are the othersexcept the foresters. His neighbor is a tooth-drawer. That bag at hisgirdle is full of the teeth that he drew at Winchester fair. I warrantthat there are more sound ones than sorry, for he is quick at his workand a trifle dim in the eye. The lusty man next him with the red headI have not seen before. The four on this side are all workers, threeof them in the service of the bailiff of Sir Baldwin Redvers, and theother, he with the sheepskin, is, as I hear, a villein from the midlandswho hath run from his master. His year and day are well-nigh up, when hewill be a free man."

  "And the other?" asked Alleyne in a whisper. "He is surely some verygreat man, for he looks as though he scorned those who were about him."

  The landlady looked at him in a motherly way and shook her head. "Youhave had no great truck with the world," she said, "or you would havelearned that it is the small men and not the great who hold their nosesin the air. Look at those shields upon my wall and under my eaves. Eachof them is the device of some noble lord or gallant knight who hathslept under my roof at one time or another. Yet milder men or easier toplease I have never seen: eating my bacon and drinking my wine with amerry face, and paying my score with some courteous word or jest whichwas dearer to me than my profit. Those are the true gentles. But yourchapman or your bearward will swear that there is a lime in the wine,and water in the ale, and fling off at the last with a curse instead ofa blessing. This youth is a scholar from Cambrig, where men are wont tobe blown out by a little knowledge, and lose the use of their hands inlearning the laws of the Romans. But I must away to lay down the beds.So may the saints keep you and prosper you in your undertaking!"

  Thus left to himself, Alleyne drew his panel of wood where the light ofone of the torches would strike full upon it, and worked away with allthe pleasure of the trained craftsman, listening the while to the talkwhich went on round the fire. The peasant in the sheepskins, who hadsat glum and silent all evening, had been so heated by his flagon of alethat he was talking loudly and angrily with clenched hands and flashingeyes.

  "Sir Humphrey Tennant of Ashby may till his own fields for me," hecried. "The castle has thrown its shadow upon the cottage over long.For three hundred years my folk have swinked and sweated, day in and dayout, to keep the wine on the lord's table and the harness on the lord'sback. Let him take off his plates and delve himself, if delving must bedone."

  "A proper spirit, my fair son!" said one of the free laborers. "I wouldthat all men were of thy way of thinking."

  "He would have sold me with his acres," the other cried, in avoice which was hoarse with passion. "'The man, the woman and theirlitter'--so ran the words of the dotard bailiff. Never a bullock on thefarm was sold more lightly. Ha! he may wake some black night to findthe flames licking about his ears--for fire is a good friend to thepoor man, and I have seen a smoking heap of ashes where over night therestood just such another castlewick as Ashby."

  "This is a lad of mettle!" shouted another of the laborers. "He dares togive tongue to what all men think. Are we not all from Adam's loins, allwith flesh and blood, and with the same mouth that must needs have foodand drink? Where all this difference then between the ermine cloak andthe leathern tunic, if what they cover is the same?"

  "Aye, Jenkin," said another, "our foeman is under the stole and thevestment as much as under the helmet and plate of proof. We have as muchto fear from the tonsure as from the hauberk. Strike at the noble andthe priest shrieks, strike at priest and the noble lays his hand uponglaive. They are twin thieves who live upon our labor."

  "It would take a clever man to live upon thy labor, Hugh," remarked oneof the foresters, "seeing th
at the half of thy time is spent in swillingmead at the 'Pied Merlin.'"

  "Better that than stealing the deer that thou art placed to guard, likesome folk I know."

  "If you dare open that swine's mouth against me," shouted the woodman,"I'll crop your ears for you before the hangman has the doing of it,thou long-jawed lackbrain."

  "Nay, gentles, gentles!" cried Dame Eliza, in a singsong heedless voice,which showed that such bickerings were nightly things among her guests."No brawling or brabbling, gentles! Take heed to the good name of thehouse."

  "Besides, if it comes to the cropping of ears, there are other folk whomay say their say," quoth the third laborer. "We are all freemen, andI trow that a yeoman's cudgel is as good as a forester's knife. BySt. Anselm! it would be an evil day if we had to bend to our master'sservants as well as to our masters."

  "No man is my master save the King," the woodman answered. "Who isthere, save a false traitor, who would refuse to serve the Englishking?"

  "I know not about the English king," said the man Jenkin. "What sort ofEnglish king is it who cannot lay his tongue to a word of English? Youmind last year when he came down to Malwood, with his inner marshal andhis outer marshal, his justiciar, his seneschal, and his four and twentyguardsmen. One noontide I was by Franklin Swinton's gate, when up herides with a yeoman pricker at his heels. 'Ouvre,' he cried, 'ouvre,' orsome such word, making signs for me to open the gate; and then 'Merci,'as though he were adrad of me. And you talk of an English king?"

  "I do not marvel at it," cried the Cambrig scholar, speaking in the highdrawling voice which was common among his class. "It is not a tonguefor men of sweet birth and delicate upbringing. It is a foul, snorting,snarling manner of speech. For myself, I swear by the learned Polycarpthat I have most ease with Hebrew, and after that perchance withArabian."

  "I will not hear a word said against old King Ned," cried Hordle Johnin a voice like a bull. "What if he is fond of a bright eye and a saucyface. I know one of his subjects who could match him at that. Ifhe cannot speak like an Englishman I trow that he can fight like anEnglishman, and he was hammering at the gates of Paris while ale-housetopers were grutching and grumbling at home."

  This loud speech, coming from a man of so formidable an appearance,somewhat daunted the disloyal party, and they fell into a sullensilence, which enabled Alleyne to hear something of the talk which wasgoing on in the further corner between the physician, the tooth-drawerand the gleeman.

  "A raw rat," the man of drugs was saying, "that is what it is ever myuse to order for the plague--a raw rat with its paunch cut open."

  "Might it not be broiled, most learned sir?" asked the tooth-drawer. "Araw rat sounds a most sorry and cheerless dish."

  "Not to be eaten," cried the physician, in high disdain. "Why should anyman eat such a thing?"

  "Why indeed?" asked the gleeman, taking a long drain at his tankard.

  "It is to be placed on the sore or swelling. For the rat, mark you,being a foul-living creature, hath a natural drawing or affinity forall foul things, so that the noxious humors pass from the man into theunclean beast."

  "Would that cure the black death, master?" asked Jenkin.

  "Aye, truly would it, my fair son."

  "Then I am right glad that there were none who knew of it. The blackdeath is the best friend that ever the common folk had in England."

  "How that then?" asked Hordle John.

  "Why, friend, it is easy to see that you have not worked with your handsor you would not need to ask. When half the folk in the country weredead it was then that the other half could pick and choose who theywould work for, and for what wage. That is why I say that the murrainwas the best friend that the borel folk ever had."

  "True, Jenkin," said another workman; "but it is not all good that isbrought by it either. We well know that through it corn-land has beenturned into pasture, so that flocks of sheep with perchance a singleshepherd wander now where once a hundred men had work and wage."

  "There is no great harm in that," remarked the tooth-drawer, "for thesheep give many folk their living. There is not only the herd, but theshearer and brander, and then the dresser, the curer, the dyer, thefuller, the webster, the merchant, and a score of others."

  "If it come to that." said one of the foresters, "the tough meat of themwill wear folks teeth out, and there is a trade for the man who can drawthem."

  A general laugh followed this sally at the dentist's expense, in themidst of which the gleeman placed his battered harp upon his knee, andbegan to pick out a melody upon the frayed strings.

  "Elbow room for Floyting Will!" cried the woodmen. "Twang us a merrylilt."

  "Aye, aye, the 'Lasses of Lancaster,'" one suggested.

  "Or 'St. Simeon and the Devil.'"

  "Or the 'Jest of Hendy Tobias.'"

  To all these suggestions the jongleur made no response, but sat with hiseye fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, as one who calls words to hismind. Then, with a sudden sweep across the strings, he broke out intoa song so gross and so foul that ere he had finished a verse thepure-minded lad sprang to his feet with the blood tingling in his face.

  "How can you sing such things?" he cried. "You, too, an old man whoshould be an example to others."

  The wayfarers all gazed in the utmost astonishment at the interruption.

  "By the holy Dicon of Hampole! our silent clerk has found his tongue,"said one of the woodmen. "What is amiss with the song then? How has itoffended your babyship?"

  "A milder and better mannered song hath never been heard within thesewalls," cried another. "What sort of talk is this for a public inn?"

  "Shall it be a litany, my good clerk?" shouted a third; "or would a hymnbe good enough to serve?"

  The jongleur had put down his harp in high dudgeon. "Am I to be preachedto by a child?" he cried, staring across at Alleyne with an inflamed andangry countenance. "Is a hairless infant to raise his tongue against me,when I have sung in every fair from Tweed to Trent, and have twice beennamed aloud by the High Court of the Minstrels at Beverley? I shall singno more to-night."

  "Nay, but you will so," said one of the laborers. "Hi, Dame Eliza, bringa stoup of your best to Will to clear his throat. Go forward with thysong, and if our girl-faced clerk does not love it he can take to theroad and go whence he came."

  "Nay, but not too last," broke in Hordle John. "There are two words inthis matter. It may be that my little comrade has been over quick inreproof, he having gone early into the cloisters and seen little of therough ways and words of the world. Yet there is truth in what he says,for, as you know well, the song was not of the cleanest. I shall standby him, therefore, and he shall neither be put out on the road, norshall his ears be offended indoors."

  "Indeed, your high and mighty grace," sneered one of the yeomen, "haveyou in sooth so ordained?"

  "By the Virgin!" said a second, "I think that you may both chance tofind yourselves upon the road before long."

  "And so belabored as to be scarce able to crawl along it," cried athird.

  "Nay, I shall go! I shall go!" said Alleyne hurriedly, as Hordle Johnbegan to slowly roll up his sleeve, and bare an arm like a leg ofmutton. "I would not have you brawl about me."

  "Hush! lad," he whispered, "I count them not a fly. They may find theyhave more tow on their distaff than they know how to spin. Stand thouclear and give me space."

  Both the foresters and the laborers had risen from their bench, and DameEliza and the travelling doctor had flung themselves between the twoparties with soft words and soothing gestures, when the door of the"Pied Merlin" was flung violently open, and the attention of the companywas drawn from their own quarrel to the new-comer who had burst sounceremoniously upon them.