The White Company
“What!” he said, “not one word of prayer before God's own open house?
How can ye hope for His blessing upon the day?”
“My friend,” said Hordle John, “I have prayed so much during the last
two months, not only during the day, but at matins, lauds, and the like,
when I could scarce keep my head upon my shoulders for nodding, that I
feel that I have somewhat over-prayed myself.”
“How can a man have too much religion?” cried Alleyne earnestly. “It is
the one thing that availeth. A man is but a beast as he lives from day
to day, eating and drinking, breathing and sleeping. It is only when
he raises himself, and concerns himself with the immortal spirit within
him, that he becomes in very truth a man. Bethink ye how sad a thing
it would be that the blood of the Redeemer should be spilled to no
purpose.”
“Bless the lad, if he doth not blush like any girl, and yet preach like
the whole College of Cardinals,” cried the archer.
“In truth I blush that any one so weak and so unworthy as I should
try to teach another that which he finds it so passing hard to follow
himself.”
“Prettily said, mon garcon. Touching that same slaying of the Redeemer,
it was a bad business. A good padre in France read to us from a scroll
the whole truth of the matter. The soldiers came upon him in the garden.
In truth, these Apostles of His may have been holy men, but they were of
no great account as men-at-arms. There was one, indeed, Sir Peter, who
smote out like a true man; but, unless he is belied, he did but clip
a varlet's ear, which was no very knightly deed. By these ten
finger-bones! had I been there with Black Simon of Norwich, and but one
score picked men of the Company, we had held them in play. Could we do
no more, we had at least filled the false knight, Sir Judas, so full of
English arrows that he would curse the day that ever he came on such an
errand.”
The young clerk smiled at his companion's earnestness. “Had He wished
help,” he said, “He could have summoned legions of archangels from
heaven, so what need had He of your poor bow and arrow? Besides, bethink
you of His own words--that those who live by the sword shall perish by
the sword.”
“And how could man die better?” asked the archer. “If I had my wish, it
would be to fall so--not, mark you, in any mere skirmish of the Company,
but in a stricken field, with the great lion banner waving over us and
the red oriflamme in front, amid the shouting of my fellows and the
twanging of the strings. But let it be sword, lance, or bolt that
strikes me down: for I should think it shame to die from an iron ball
from the fire-crake or bombard or any such unsoldierly weapon, which is
only fitted to scare babes with its foolish noise and smoke.”
“I have heard much even in the quiet cloisters of these new and dreadful
engines,” quoth Alleyne. “It is said, though I can scarce bring myself
to believe it, that they will send a ball twice as far as a bowman
can shoot his shaft, and with such force as to break through armor of
proof.”
“True enough, my lad. But while the armorer is thrusting in his
devil's-dust, and dropping his ball, and lighting his flambeau, I
can very easily loose six shafts, or eight maybe, so he hath no great
vantage after all. Yet I will not deny that at the intaking of a town
it is well to have good store of bombards. I am told that at Calais they
made dints in the wall that a man might put his head into. But surely,
comrades, some one who is grievously hurt hath passed along this road
before us.”
All along the woodland track there did indeed run a scattered straggling
trail of blood-marks, sometimes in single drops, and in other places in
broad, ruddy gouts, smudged over the dead leaves or crimsoning the white
flint stones.
“It must be a stricken deer,” said John.
“Nay, I am woodman enough to see that no deer hath passed this way this
morning; and yet the blood is fresh. But hark to the sound!”
They stood listening all three with sidelong heads. Through the silence
of the great forest there came a swishing, whistling sound, mingled
with the most dolorous groans, and the voice of a man raised in a
high quavering kind of song. The comrades hurried onwards eagerly, and
topping the brow of a small rising they saw upon the other side the
source from which these strange noises arose.
A tall man, much stooped in the shoulders, was walking slowly with
bended head and clasped hands in the centre of the path. He was dressed
from head to foot in a long white linen cloth, and a high white cap
with a red cross printed upon it. His gown was turned back from his
shoulders, and the flesh there was a sight to make a man wince, for it
was all beaten to a pulp, and the blood was soaking into his gown and
trickling down upon the ground. Behind him walked a smaller man with his
hair touched with gray, who was clad in the same white garb. He intoned
a long whining rhyme in the French tongue, and at the end of every line
he raised a thick cord, all jagged with pellets of lead, and smote his
companion across the shoulders until the blood spurted again. Even as
the three wayfarers stared, however, there was a sudden change, for the
smaller man, having finished his song, loosened his own gown and handed
the scourge to the other, who took up the stave once more and lashed
his companion with all the strength of his bare and sinewy arm. So,
alternately beating and beaten, they made their dolorous way through the
beautiful woods and under the amber arches of the fading beech-trees,
where the calm strength and majesty of Nature might serve to rebuke the
foolish energies and misspent strivings of mankind.
Such a spectacle was new to Hordle John or to Alleyne Edricson; but the
archer treated it lightly, as a common matter enough.
“These are the Beating Friars, otherwise called the Flagellants,” quoth
he. “I marvel that ye should have come upon none of them before, for
across the water they are as common as gallybaggers. I have heard that
there are no English among them, but that they are from France, Italy
and Bohemia. En avant, camarades! that we may have speech with them.”
As they came up to them, Alleyne could hear the doleful dirge which the
beater was chanting, bringing down his heavy whip at the end of each
line, while the groans of the sufferer formed a sort of dismal chorus.
It was in old French, and ran somewhat in this way:
Or avant, entre nous tous freres
Battons nos charognes bien fort
En remembrant la grant misere
De Dieu et sa piteuse mort
Qui fut pris en la gent amere
Et vendus et trais a tort
Et bastu sa chair, vierge et dere
Au nom de ce battons plus fort.
Then at the end of the verse the scourge changed hands and the chanting
began anew.
“Truly, holy fathers,” said the archer in French as they came abreast of
them, “you have beaten enough for to-day. The road is all spotted like a
shambles at Martinmas. Why should ye mishandle yourselves thus?”
“C'est pour vos peches--pour vos peches,” they droned, looking at the
travellers with sad lack-lustre eyes, and then bent to their bloody
work once more without heed to the prayers and persuasions which were
addressed to them. Finding all remonstrance useless, the three comrades
hastened on their way, leaving these strange travellers to their dreary
task.
“Mort Dieu!” cried the bowman, “there is a bucketful or more of my blood
over in France, but it was all spilled in hot fight, and I should think
twice before I drew it drop by drop as these friars are doing. By my
hilt! our young one here is as white as a Picardy cheese. What is amiss
then, mon cher?”
“It is nothing,” Alleyne answered. “My life has been too quiet, I am not
used to such sights.”
“Ma foi!” the other cried, “I have never yet seen a man who was so stout
of speech and yet so weak of heart.”
“Not so, friend,” quoth big John; “it is not weakness of heart for I
know the lad well. His heart is as good as thine or mine but he hath
more in his pate than ever you will carry under that tin pot of thine,
and as a consequence he can see farther into things, so that they weigh
upon him more.”
“Surely to any man it is a sad sight,” said Alleyne, “to see these
holy men, who have done no sin themselves, suffering so for the sins of
others. Saints are they, if in this age any may merit so high a name.”
“I count them not a fly,” cried Hordle John; “for who is the better for
all their whipping and yowling? They are like other friars, I trow, when
all is done. Let them leave their backs alone, and beat the pride out of
their hearts.”
“By the three kings! there is sooth in what you say,” remarked the
archer. “Besides, methinks if I were le bon Dieu, it would bring me
little joy to see a poor devil cutting the flesh off his bones; and I
should think that he had but a small opinion of me, that he should hope
to please me by such provost-marshal work. No, by my hilt! I should look
with a more loving eye upon a jolly archer who never harmed a fallen foe
and never feared a hale one.”
“Doubtless you mean no sin,” said Alleyne. “If your words are wild, it
is not for me to judge them. Can you not see that there are other foes
in this world besides Frenchmen, and as much glory to be gained in
conquering them? Would it not be a proud day for knight or squire if he
could overthrow seven adversaries in the lists? Yet here are we in the
lists of life, and there come the seven black champions against us Sir
Pride, Sir Covetousness, Sir Lust, Sir Anger, Sir Gluttony, Sir Envy,
and Sir Sloth. Let a man lay those seven low, and he shall have the
prize of the day, from the hands of the fairest queen of beauty, even
from the Virgin-Mother herself. It is for this that these men mortify
their flesh, and to set us an example, who would pamper ourselves
overmuch. I say again that they are God's own saints, and I bow my head
to them.”
“And so you shall, mon petit,” replied the archer. “I have not heard
a man speak better since old Dom Bertrand died, who was at one time
chaplain to the White Company. He was a very valiant man, but at
the battle of Brignais he was spitted through the body by a Hainault
man-at-arms. For this we had an excommunication read against the man,
when next we saw our holy father at Avignon; but as we had not his name,
and knew nothing of him, save that he rode a dapple-gray roussin, I have
feared sometimes that the blight may have settled upon the wrong man.”
“Your Company has been, then, to bow knee before our holy father, the
Pope Urban, the prop and centre of Christendom?” asked Alleyne, much
interested. “Perchance you have yourself set eyes upon his august face?”
“Twice I saw him,” said the archer. “He was a lean little rat of a man,
with a scab on his chin. The first time we had five thousand crowns out
of him, though he made much ado about it. The second time we asked ten
thousand, but it was three days before we could come to terms, and I
am of opinion myself that we might have done better by plundering the
palace. His chamberlain and cardinals came forth, as I remember, to
ask whether we would take seven thousand crowns with his blessing and
a plenary absolution, or the ten thousand with his solemn ban by bell,
book and candle. We were all of one mind that it was best to have the
ten thousand with the curse; but in some way they prevailed upon Sir
John, so that we were blest and shriven against our will. Perchance it
is as well, for the Company were in need of it about that time.”
The pious Alleyne was deeply shocked by this reminiscence. Involuntarily
he glanced up and around to see if there were any trace of those
opportune levin-flashes and thunderbolts which, in the “Acta Sanctorum,”