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The White Company

A >> Arthur Conan Doyle >> The White Company




Both opened their eyes at this, and stared at Alleyne with as
much amazement as he had shown at them.

"You have a fine trick of ear then," said one. "We have long
wished to meet such a man. Wilt join us and jog on to Ringwood?
Thy duties shall be light, and thou shalt have two-pence a day
and meat for supper every night."

"With as much beer as you can put away," said the other "and a
flask of Gascon wine on Sabbaths."

"Nay, it may not be. I have other work to do. I have tarried
with you over long," quoth Alleyne, and resolutely set forth upon
his journey once more. They ran behind him some little way,
offering him first fourpence and then sixpence a day, but he only
smiled and shook his head, until at last they fell away from him.
Looking back, he saw that the smaller had mounted on the
younger's shoulders, and that they stood so, some ten feet high,
waving their adieus to him. He waved back to them, and then
hastened on, the lighter of heart for having fallen in with these
strange men of pleasure.

Alleyne had gone no great distance for all the many small
passages that had befallen him. Yet to him, used as he was to a
life of such quiet that the failure of a brewing or the altering
of an anthem had seemed to be of the deepest import, the quick
changing play of the lights and shadows of life was strangely
startling and interesting. A gulf seemed to divide this brisk
uncertain existence from the old steady round of work and of
prayer which he had left behind him. The few hours that had
passed since he saw the Abbey tower stretched out in his memory
until they outgrew whole months of the stagnant life of the
cloister. As he walked and munched the soft bread from his
scrip, it seemed strange to him to feel that it was still warm
from the ovens of Beaulieu.

When he passed Penerley, where were three cottages and a barn, he
reached the edge of the tree country, and found the great barren
heath of Blackdown stretching in front of him, all pink with
heather and bronzed with the fading ferns. On the left the woods
were still thick, but the road edged away from them and wound
over the open. The sun lay low in the west upon a purple cloud,
whence it threw a mild, chastening light over the wild moorland
and glittered on the fringe of forest turning the withered leaves
into flakes of dead gold, the brighter for the black depths
behind them. To the seeing eye decay is as fair as growth, and
death as life. The thought stole into Alleyne's heart as he
looked upon the autumnal country side and marvelled at its
beauty. He had little time to dwell upon it however, for there
were still six good miles between him and the nearest inn. He
sat down by the roadside to partake of his bread and cheese, and
then with a lighter scrip he hastened upon his way.

There appeared to be more wayfarers on the down than in the
forest. First he passed two Dominicans in their long black
dresses, who swept by him with downcast looks and pattering lips,
without so much as a glance at him. Then there came a gray
friar, or minorite, with a good paunch upon him, walking slowly
and looking about him with the air of a man who was at peace with
himself and with all men. He stopped Alleyne to ask him whether
it was not true that there was a hostel somewhere in those parts
which was especially famous for the stewing of eels. The clerk
having made answer that he had heard the eels of Sowley well
spoken of, the friar sucked in his lips and hurried forward.
Close at his heels came three laborers walking abreast, with
spade and mattock over their shoulders. They sang some rude
chorus right tunefully as they walked, but their English was so
coarse and rough that to the ears of a cloister-bred man it
sounded like a foreign and barbarous tongue. One of them carried
a young bittern which they had caught upon the moor, and they
offered it to Alleyne for a silver groat. Very glad he was to
get safely past them, for, with their bristling red beards and
their fierce blue eyes, they were uneasy men to bargain with upon
a lonely moor.

Yet it is not always the burliest and the wildest who are the
most to be dreaded. The workers looked hungrily at him, and then
jogged onwards upon their way in slow, lumbering Saxon style. A
worse man to deal with was a wooden-legged cripple who came
hobbling down the path, so weak and so old to all appearance that
a child need not stand in fear of him. Yet when Alleyne had
passed him, of a sudden, out of pure devilment, he screamed out a
curse at him, and sent a jagged flint stone hurtling past his
ear. So horrid was the causeless rage of the crooked creature,
that the clerk came over a cold thrill, and took to his heels
until he was out of shot from stone or word. It seemed to him
that in this country of England there was no protection for a man
save that which lay in the strength of his own arm and the speed
of his own foot. In the cloisters he had heard vague talk of the
law--the mighty law which was higher than prelate or baron, yet
no sign could he see of it. What was the benefit of a law
written fair upon parchment, he wondered, if there were no
officers to enforce it. As it tell out, however, he had that
very evening, ere the sun had set, a chance of seeing how stern
was the grip of the English law when it did happen to seize the
offender.

A mile or so out upon the moor the road takes a very sudden dip
into a hollow, with a peat-colored stream running swiftly down
the centre of it. To the right of this stood, and stands to this
day, an ancient barrow, or burying mound, covered deeply in a
bristle of heather and bracken. Alleyne was plodding down the
slope upon one side, when he saw an old dame coming towards him
upon the other, limping with weariness and leaning heavily upon a
stick. When she reached the edge of the stream she stood
helpless, looking to right and to left for some ford. Where the
path ran down a great stone had been fixed in the centre of the
brook, but it was too far from the bank for her aged and
uncertain feet. Twice she thrust forward at it, and twice she
drew back, until at last, giving up in despair, she sat herself
down by the brink and wrung her hands wearily. There she still
sat when Alleyne reached the crossing.

"Come, mother," quoth he, "it is not so very perilous a passage."

"Alas! good youth," she answered, "I have a humor in the eyes,
and though I can see that there is a stone there I can by no
means be sure as to where it lies."

"That is easily amended," said he cheerily, and picking her
lightly up, for she was much worn with time, he passed across
with her. He could not but observe, however, that as he placed
her down her knees seemed to fail her, and she could scarcely
prop herself up with her staff.

"You are weak, mother," said he. "Hast journeyed far, I wot."

"From Wiltshire, friend," said she, in a quavering voice; "three
days have I been on the road. I go to my son, who is one of the
King's regarders at Brockenhurst. He has ever said that he would
care for me in mine old age."

"And rightly too, mother, since you cared for him in his youth.
But when have you broken fast?"

"At Lyndenhurst; but alas! my money is at an end, and I could but
get a dish of bran-porridge from the nunnery. Yet I trust that I
may be able to reach Brockenhurst to-night, where I may have all
that heart can desire; for oh! sir, but my son is a fine man,
with a kindly heart of his own, and it is as good as food to me
to think that he should have a doublet of Lincoln green to his
back and be the King's own paid man."

"It is a long road yet to Brockenhurst," said Alleyne; "but here
is such bread and cheese as I have left, and here, too, is a
penny which may help you to supper. May God be with you!"

"May God be with you, young man!" she cried. "May He make your
heart as glad as you have made mine!" She turned away, still
mumbling blessings, and Alleyne saw her short figure and her long
shadow stumbling slowly up the slope.

He was moving away himself, when his eyes lit upon a strange
sight, and one which sent a tingling through his skin. Out of
the tangled scrub on the old overgrown barrow two human faces
were looking out at him; the sinking sun glimmered full upon
them, showing up every line and feature. The one was an oldish
man with a thin beard, a crooked nose, and a broad red smudge
from a birth-mark over his temple; the other was a negro, a thing
rarely met in England at that day, and rarer still in the quiet
southland parts. Alleyne had read of such folk, but had never
seen one before, and could scarce take his eyes from the fellow's
broad pouting lip and shining teeth. Even as he gazed, however,
the two came writhing out from among the heather, and came down
towards him with such a guilty, slinking carriage, that the clerk
felt that there was no good in them, and hastened onwards upon
his way.

He had not gained the crown of the slope, when he heard a sudden
scuffle behind him and a feeble voice bleating for help. Looking
round, there was the old dame down upon the roadway, with her red
whimple flying on the breeze, while the two rogues, black and
white, stooped over her, wresting away from her the penny and
such other poor trifles as were worth the taking. At the sight
of her thin limbs struggling in weak resistance, such a glow of
fierce anger passed over Alleyne as set his head in a whirl.
Dropping his scrip, he bounded over the stream once more, and
made for the two villains, with his staff whirled over his
shoulder and his gray eyes blazing with fury.

The robbers, however, were not disposed to leave their victim
until they had worked their wicked will upon her. The black man,
with the woman's crimson scarf tied round his swarthy head, stood
forward in the centre of the path, with a long dull-colored knife
in his hand, while the other, waving a ragged cudgel, cursed at
Alleyne and dared him to come on. His blood was fairly aflame,
however, and he needed no such challenge. Dashing at the black
man, he smote at him with such good will that the other let his
knife tinkle into the roadway, and hopped howling to a safer
distance. The second rogue, however, made of sterner stuff,
rushed in upon the clerk, and clipped him round the waist with a
grip like a bear, shouting the while to his comrade to come round
and stab him in the back. At this the negro took heart of
grace, and picking up his dagger again he came stealing with
prowling step and murderous eye, while the two swayed backwards
and forwards, staggering this way and that. In the very midst of
the scuffle, however, whilst Alleyne braced himself to feel the
cold blade between his shoulders, there came a sudden scurry of
hoofs, and the black man yelled with terror and ran for his life
through the heather. The man with the birth-mark, too, struggled
to break away, and Alleyne heard his teeth chatter and felt his
limbs grow limp to his hand. At this sign of coming aid the
clerk held on the tighter, and at last was able to pin his man
down and glanced behind him to see where all the noise was coming
from.

Down the slanting road there was riding a big, burly man, clad in
a tunic of purple velvet and driving a great black horse as hard
as it could gallop. He leaned well over its neck as he rode, and
made a heaving with his shoulders at every bound as though he
were lifting the steed instead of it carrying him. In the rapid
glance Alleyne saw that he had white doeskin gloves, a curling
white feather in his flat velvet cap, and a broad gold,
embroidered baldric across his bosom. Behind him rode six
others, two and two, clad in sober brown jerkins, with the long
yellow staves of their bows thrusting out from behind their right
shoulders. Down the hill they thundered, over the brook and up
to the scene of the contest.

"Here is one!" said the leader, springing down from his reeking
horse, and seizing the white rogue by the edge of his jerkin.
"This is one of them. I know him by that devil's touch upon his
brow. Where are your cords, Peterkin? So! Bind him hand and
foot. His last hour has come. And you, young man, who may you
be?"

"I am a clerk, sir, travelling from Beaulieu."

"A clerk!" cried the other. "Art from Oxenford or from
Cambridge? Hast thou a letter from the chancellor of thy college
giving thee a permit to beg? Let me see thy letter." He had a
stern, square face, with bushy side whiskers and a very
questioning eye.

"I am from Beaulieu Abbey, and I have no need to beg," said
Alleyne, who was all of a tremble now that the ruffle was over.

"The better for thee," the other answered. "Dost know who I am?"

"No, sir, I do not."

"I am the law!"--nodding his head solemnly. "I am the law of
England and the mouthpiece of his most gracious and royal
majesty, Edward the Third."

Alleyne louted low to the King's representative. "Truly you came
in good time, honored sir," said he. "A moment later and they
would have slain me."

"But there should be another one," cried the man in the purple
coat. "There should be a black man. A shipman with St.
Anthony's fire, and a black man who had served him as cook--those
are the pair that we are in chase of."

"The black man fled over to that side," said Alleyne, pointing
towards the barrow.

"He could not have gone far, sir bailiff," cried one of the
archers, unslinging his bow. "He is in hiding somewhere, for he
knew well, black paynim as he is, that our horses' four legs
could outstrip his two."

"Then we shall have him," said the other. "It shall never be
said, whilst I am bailiff of Southampton, that any waster,
riever, draw-latch or murtherer came scathless away from me and
my posse. Leave that rogue lying. Now stretch out in line, my
merry ones, with arrow on string, and I shall show you such sport
as only the King can give. You on the left, Howett, and Thomas
of Redbridge upon the right. So! Beat high and low among the
heather, and a pot of wine to the lucky marksman."

As it chanced, however, the searchers had not far to seek. The
negro had burrowed down into his hiding-place upon the barrow,
where he might have lain snug enough, had it not been for the red
gear upon his head. As he raised himself to look over the
bracken at his enemies, the staring color caught the eye of the
bailiff, who broke into a long screeching whoop and spurred
forward sword in hand. Seeing himself discovered, the man rushed
out from his hiding-place, and bounded at the top of his speed
down the line of archers, keeping a good hundred paces to the
front of them. The two who were on either side of Alleyne bent
their bows as calmly as though they were shooting at the popinjay
at the village fair.

"Seven yards windage, Hal," said one, whose hair was streaked
with gray.

"Five," replied the other, letting loose his string. Alleyne
gave a gulp in his throat, for the yellow streak seemed to pass
through the man; but he still ran forward.

"Seven, you jack-fool," growled the first speaker, and his bow
twanged like a harp-string. The black man sprang high up into
the air, and shot out both his arms and his legs, coming down all
a-sprawl among the heather. "Right under the blade bone!" quoth
the archer, sauntering forward for his arrow.

"The old hound is the best when all is said," quoth the bailiff
of Southampton, as they made back for the roadway. "That means a
quart of the best malmsey in Southampton this very night, Matthew
Atwood. Art sure that he is dead?"

"Dead as Pontius Pilate, worshipful sir."

"It is well. Now, as to the other knave. There are trees and to
spare over yonder, but we have scarce leisure to make for them.
Draw thy sword, Thomas of Redbridge, and hew me his head from his
shoulders."

"A boon, gracious sir, a boon!" cried the condemned man. What
then?" asked the bailiff.

"I will confess to my crime. It was indeed I and the black cook,
both from the ship `La Rose de Gloire,' of Southampton, who did
set upon the Flanders merchant and rob him of his spicery and his
mercery, for which, as we well know, you hold a warrant against
us."

"There is little merit in this confession," quoth the bailiff
sternly. "Thou hast done evil within my bailiwick, and must
die."

"But, sir," urged Alleyne, who was white to the lips at these
bloody doings, "he hath not yet come to trial."

"Young clerk," said the bailiff, "you speak of that of which you
know nothing. It is true that he hath not come to trial, but the
trial hath come to him. He hath fled the law and is beyond its
pale. Touch not that which is no concern of thine. But what is
this boon, rogue, which you would crave?"

"I have in my shoe, most worshipful sir, a strip of wood which
belonged once to the bark wherein the blessed Paul was dashed up
against the island of Melita. I bought it for two rose nobles
from a shipman who came from the Levant. The boon I crave is
that you will place it in my hands and let me die still grasping
it. In this manner, not only shall my own eternal salvation be
secured, but thine also, for I shall never cease to intercede for
thee."

At the command of the bailiff they plucked off the fellow's shoe,
and there sure enough at the side of the instep, wrapped in a
piece of fine sendall, lay a long, dark splinter of wood. The
archers doffed caps at the sight of it, and the bailiff crossed
himself devoutly as he handed it to the robber.

"If it should chance," he said, "that through the surpassing
merits of the blessed Paul your sin-stained soul should gain a
way into paradise, I trust that you will not forget that
intercession which you have promised. Bear in mind too, that it
is Herward the bailiff for whom you pray, and not Herward the
sheriff, who is my uncle's son. Now, Thomas, I pray you
dispatch, for we have a long ride before us and sun has already
set."

Alleyne gazed upon the scene--the portly velvet-clad official the
knot of hard-faced archers with their hands to the bridles of
their horses, the thief with his arms trussed back and his
doublet turned down upon his shoulders. By the side of the track
the old dame was standing, fastening her red whimple once more
round her head. Even as he looked one of the archers drew his
sword with a sharp whirr of steel and stept up to the lost man.
The clerk hurried away in horror; but, ere he had gone many
paces, he heard a sudden, sullen thump, with a choking,
whistling sound at the end of it. A minute later the bailiff and
four of his men rode past him on their journey back to
Southampton, the other two having been chosen as grave-diggers.
As they passed Alleyne saw that one of the men was wiping his
sword-blade upon the mane of his horse. A deadly sickness came
over him at the sight, and sitting down by the wayside he burst
out weeping, with his nerves all in a jangle. It was a terrible
world thought he, and it was hard to know which were the most to
be dreaded, the knaves or the men of the law.



CHAPTER V.

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


The night had already fallen, and the moon was shining between
the rifts of ragged, drifting clouds, before Alleyne Edricson,
footsore and weary from the unwonted exercise, found himself in
front of the forest inn which stood upon the outskirts of
Lyndhurst. The building was long and low, standing back a little
from the road, with two flambeaux blazing on either side of the
door as a welcome to the traveller. From one window there thrust
forth a long pole with a bunch of greenery tied to the end of
it--a sign that liquor was to be sold within. As Alleyne walked
up to it he perceived that it was rudely fashioned out of beams
of wood, with twinkling lights all over where the glow from
within shone through the chinks. The roof was poor and thatched;
but in strange contrast to it there ran all along under the eaves
a line of wooden shields, most gorgeously painted with chevron,
bend, and saltire, and every heraldic device. By the door a
horse stood tethered, the ruddy glow beating strongly upon his
brown head and patient eyes, while his body stood back in the
shadow.

Alleyne stood still in the roadway for a few minutes reflecting
upon what he should do. It was, he knew, only a few miles
further to Minstead, where his brother dwelt. On the other hand,
he had never seen this brother since childhood, and the reports
which had come to his ears concerning him were seldom to his
advantage. By all accounts he was a hard and a bitter man.

It might be an evil start to come to his door so late and claim
the shelter of his root: Better to sleep here at this inn, and
then travel on to Minstead in the morning. If his brother would
take him in, well and 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 as a craftsman and a scrivener. At the end of a
year he would be free to return to the cloisters, for such had
been his father's bequest. A monkish upbringing, one year in the
world after the age of twenty, and then a free selection one way
or the other--it was a strange course which had been marked out
for him. Such as it was, however, he had no choice but to follow
it, and if he were to begin by making a friend of his brother he
had best wait until morning before he knocked at his dwelling.

The rude plank door was ajar, but as Alleyne approached it there
came from within such a gust of rough laughter and clatter of
tongues that he stood irresolute upon the threshold. Summoning
courage, however, and reflecting that it was a public dwelling,
in which he had as much right as 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
heaped billets of wood crackled and sparkled in a broad, open
grate, some of the smoke escaping up a rude chimney, but the
greater part rolling out into the room, so that the air was thick
with it, and a man coming from without could scarce catch his
breath. On this fire a great cauldron bubbled and simmered,
giving forth a rich and promising smell. Seated round it were a
dozen or so folk, of all ages and conditions, who set up such a
shout as Alleyne entered that he stood peering at them through
the 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, Dame Eliza! Here is fresh custom come to the house, and
not a drain for the company."

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

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

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

"By the thorn of Glastonbury! ill days are coming upon Beaulieu,"
said he. "Here they have got rid in one day of the only two men
within their walls--for I have had mine eyes upon thee,
youngster, and I know that for all thy baby-face there is the
making of a man in thee. Then there is the Abbot, too. I am no
friend of his, nor he of mine; but he has warm 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 and suck in sustenance and grow fat? If that be holiness, I
could show you hogs in this forest who are fit to head the
calendar. Think you it was for such a life that this good arm
was fixed upon my shoulder, or that head placed upon your neck?
There is work in the world, man, and it is not 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
them because Margery Alspaye, of Bolder, married Crooked Thomas
of Ringwood, and left a certain John of Hordle in the cold, for
that he was a ranting, roving blade who was not to be trusted in
wedlock. That was why, 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 in it once more. Ill betide the
day that ever I took off my yeoman's jerkin to put on the white
gown!"

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