The White Company
against brother John, formerly known as Hordle John, or John of Hordle,
but now a novice in the holy monastic order of the Cistercians. Read
upon the same day at the Abbey of Beaulieu in the presence of the most
reverend Abbot Berghersh and of the assembled order.
“The charges against the said brother John are the following, namely, to
wit:
“First, that on the above-mentioned Feast of the Assumption, small beer
having been served to the novices in the proportion of one quart to
each four, the said brother John did drain the pot at one draught to
the detriment of brother Paul, brother Porphyry and brother Ambrose,
who could scarce eat their none-meat of salted stock-fish on account of
their exceeding dryness.”
At this solemn indictment the novice raised his hand and twitched his
lip, while even the placid senior brothers glanced across at each other
and coughed to cover their amusement. The Abbot alone sat gray and
immutable, with a drawn face and a brooding eye.
“Item, that having been told by the master of the novices that he should
restrict his food for two days to a single three-pound loaf of bran and
beans, for the greater honoring and glorifying of St. Monica, mother of
the holy Augustine, he was heard by brother Ambrose and others to say
that he wished twenty thousand devils would fly away with the said
Monica, mother of the holy Augustine, or any other saint who came
between a man and his meat. Item, that upon brother Ambrose reproving
him for this blasphemous wish, he did hold the said brother face
downwards over the piscatorium or fish-pond for a space during which
the said brother was able to repeat a pater and four aves for the better
fortifying of his soul against impending death.”
There was a buzz and murmur among the white-frocked brethren at this
grave charge; but the Abbot held up his long quivering hand. “What
then?” said he.
“Item, that between nones and vespers on the feast of James the Less the
said brother John was observed upon the Brockenhurst road, near the spot
which is known as Hatchett's Pond in converse with a person of the other
sex, being a maiden of the name of Mary Sowley, the daughter of the
King's verderer. Item, that after sundry japes and jokes the said
brother John did lift up the said Mary Sowley and did take, carry, and
convey her across a stream, to the infinite relish of the devil and the
exceeding detriment of his own soul, which scandalous and wilful falling
away was witnessed by three members of our order.”
A dead silence throughout the room, with a rolling of heads and
upturning of eyes, bespoke the pious horror of the community.
The Abbot drew his gray brows low over his fiercely questioning eyes.
“Who can vouch for this thing?” he asked.
“That can I,” answered the accuser. “So too can brother Porphyry, who
was with me, and brother Mark of the Spicarium, who hath been so much
stirred and inwardly troubled by the sight that he now lies in a fever
through it.”
“And the woman?” asked the Abbot. “Did she not break into lamentation
and woe that a brother should so demean himself?”
“Nay, she smiled sweetly upon him and thanked him. I can vouch it and so
can brother Porphyry.”
“Canst thou?” cried the Abbot, in a high, tempestuous tone. “Canst thou
so? Hast forgotten that the five-and-thirtieth rule of the order is that
in the presence of a woman the face should be ever averted and the eyes
cast down? Hast forgot it, I say? If your eyes were upon your sandals,
how came ye to see this smile of which ye prate? A week in your cells,
false brethren, a week of rye-bread and lentils, with double lauds and
double matins, may help ye to remembrance of the laws under which ye
live.”
At this sudden outflame of wrath the two witnesses sank their faces on
to their chests, and sat as men crushed. The Abbot turned his angry eyes
away from them and bent them upon the accused, who met his searching
gaze with a firm and composed face.
“What hast thou to say, brother John, upon these weighty things which
are urged against you?”
“Little enough, good father, little enough,” said the novice, speaking
English with a broad West Saxon drawl. The brothers, who were English
to a man, pricked up their ears at the sound of the homely and yet
unfamiliar speech; but the Abbot flushed red with anger, and struck his
hand upon the oaken arm of his chair.
“What talk is this?” he cried. “Is this a tongue to be used within the
walls of an old and well-famed monastery? But grace and learning have
ever gone hand in hand, and when one is lost it is needless to look for
the other.”
“I know not about that,” said brother John. “I know only that the words
come kindly to my mouth, for it was the speech of my fathers before me.
Under your favor, I shall either use it now or hold my peace.”
The Abbot patted his foot and nodded his head, as one who passes a point
but does not forget it.
“For the matter of the ale,” continued brother John, “I had come in hot
from the fields and had scarce got the taste of the thing before
mine eye lit upon the bottom of the pot. It may be, too, that I spoke
somewhat shortly concerning the bran and the beans, the same being poor
provender and unfitted for a man of my inches. It is true also that I
did lay my hands upon this jack-fool of a brother Ambrose, though, as
you can see, I did him little scathe. As regards the maid, too, it is
true that I did heft her over the stream, she having on her hosen and
shoon, whilst I had but my wooden sandals, which could take no hurt from
the water. I should have thought shame upon my manhood, as well as my
monkhood, if I had held back my hand from her.” He glanced around as
he spoke with the half-amused look which he had worn during the whole
proceedings.
“There is no need to go further,” said the Abbot. “He has confessed to
all. It only remains for me to portion out the punishment which is due
to his evil conduct.”
He rose, and the two long lines of brothers followed his example,
looking sideways with scared faces at the angry prelate.
“John of Hordle,” he thundered, “you have shown yourself during the two
months of your novitiate to be a recreant monk, and one who is unworthy
to wear the white garb which is the outer symbol of the spotless spirit.
That dress shall therefore be stripped from thee, and thou shalt be cast
into the outer world without benefit of clerkship, and without lot or
part in the graces and blessings of those who dwell under the care of
the Blessed Benedict. Thou shalt come back neither to Beaulieu nor to
any of the granges of Beaulieu, and thy name shall be struck off the
scrolls of the order.”
The sentence appeared a terrible one to the older monks, who had become
so used to the safe and regular life of the Abbey that they would have
been as helpless as children in the outer world. From their pious
oasis they looked dreamily out at the desert of life, a place full of
stormings and strivings--comfortless, restless, and overshadowed by
evil. The young novice, however, appeared to have other thoughts, for
his eyes sparkled and his smile broadened. It needed but that to add
fresh fuel to the fiery mood of the prelate.
“So much for thy spiritual punishment,” he cried. “But it is to thy
grosser feelings that we must turn in such natures as thine, and as
thou art no longer under the shield of holy church there is the less
difficulty. Ho there! lay-brothers--Francis, Naomi, Joseph--seize him
and bind his arms! Drag him forth, and let the foresters and the porters
scourge him from the precincts!”
As these three brothers advanced towards him to carry out the Abbot's
direction, the smile faded from the novice's face, and he glanced right
and left with his fierce brown eyes, like a bull at a baiting. Then,
with a sudden deep-chested shout, he tore up the heavy oaken prie-dieu
and poised it to strike, taking two steps backward the while, that none
might take him at a vantage.
“By the black rood of Waltham!” he roared, “if any knave among you lays
a finger-end upon the edge of my gown, I will crush his skull like a
filbert!” With his thick knotted arms, his thundering voice, and his
bristle of red hair, there was something so repellent in the man that
the three brothers flew back at the very glare of him; and the two rows
of white monks strained away from him like poplars in a tempest. The
Abbot only sprang forward with shining eyes; but the chancellor and the
master hung upon either arm and wrested him back out of danger's way.
“He is possessed of a devil!” they shouted. “Run, brother Ambrose,
brother Joachim! Call Hugh of the Mill, and Woodman Wat, and Raoul with
his arbalest and bolts. Tell them that we are in fear of our lives! Run,
run! for the love of the Virgin!”
But the novice was a strategist as well as a man of action. Springing
forward, he hurled his unwieldy weapon at brother Ambrose, and, as desk
and monk clattered on to the floor together, he sprang through the open
door and down the winding stair. Sleepy old brother Athanasius, at
the porter's cell, had a fleeting vision of twinkling feet and flying
skirts; but before he had time to rub his eyes the recreant had passed
the lodge, and was speeding as fast as his sandals could patter along
the Lyndhurst Road.
CHAPTER II. HOW ALLEYNE EDRICSON CAME OUT INTO THE WORLD.
Never had the peaceful atmosphere of the old Cistercian house been so
rudely ruffled. Never had there been insurrection so sudden, so short,
and so successful. Yet the Abbot Berghersh was a man of too firm a grain
to allow one bold outbreak to imperil the settled order of his great
household. In a few hot and bitter words, he compared their false
brother's exit to the expulsion of our first parents from the garden,
and more than hinted that unless a reformation occurred some others of
the community might find themselves in the same evil and perilous case.
Having thus pointed the moral and reduced his flock to a fitting state
of docility, he dismissed them once more to their labors and withdrew
himself to his own private chamber, there to seek spiritual aid in the
discharge of the duties of his high office.
The Abbot was still on his knees, when a gentle tapping at the door of
his cell broke in upon his orisons.
Rising in no very good humor at the interruption, he gave the word to
enter; but his look of impatience softened down into a pleasant and
paternal 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, boyish
features. His clear, pensive gray eyes, and quick, delicate expression,
spoke of a nature which had unfolded far from the boisterous joys and
sorrows of the world. Yet there was a set of the mouth and a prominence
of the chin which relieved him of any trace of effeminacy. Impulsive
he might be, enthusiastic, sensitive, with something sympathetic and
adaptive in his disposition; but an observer of nature's tokens would
have confidently pledged himself that there was native firmness and
strength underlying his gentle, monk-bred ways.
The youth was not clad in monastic garb, but in lay attire, though his
jerkin, cloak and hose were all of a sombre hue, as befitted one who
dwelt in sacred precincts. A broad leather strap hanging from his
shoulder supported a scrip or satchel such as travellers were wont to
carry. 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 a
broad pewter medal stamped with the image of Our Lady of Rocamadour.
“Art ready, then, fair son?” said the Abbot. “This is indeed a day of
comings and of goings. It is strange that in one twelve hours the Abbey