The White Company
“Hast never seen tumblers before?” asked the elder, a black-browed,
swarthy man, as brown and supple as a hazel twig. “Why shrink from us,
then, as though we were the spawn of the Evil One?”
“Why shrink, my honey-bird? Why so afeard, my sweet cinnamon?” exclaimed
the other, a loose-jointed lanky youth with a dancing, roguish eye.
“Truly, sirs, it is a new sight to me,” the clerk answered. “When I saw
your four legs above the bush I could scarce credit my own eyes. Why is
it that you do this thing?”
“A dry question to answer,” cried the younger, coming back on to
his feet. “A most husky question, my fair bird! But how? A flask, a
flask!--by all that is wonderful!” He shot out his hand as he spoke, and
plucking Alleyne's bottle out of his scrip, he deftly knocked the neck
off, and poured the half of it down his throat. The rest he handed to
his comrade, who drank the wine, and then, to the clerk's increasing
amazement, made a show of swallowing the bottle, with such skill
that Alleyne seemed to see it vanish down his throat. A moment later,
however, he flung it over his head, and caught it bottom downwards upon
the calf of his left leg.
“We thank you for the wine, kind sir,” said he, “and for the ready
courtesy wherewith you offered it. Touching your question, we may tell
you that we are strollers and jugglers, who, having performed with much
applause at Winchester fair, are now on our way to the great Michaelmas
market at Ringwood. As our art is a very fine and delicate one, however,
we cannot let a day go by without exercising ourselves in it, to which
end we choose some quiet and sheltered spot where we may break our
journey. Here you find us; and we cannot wonder that you, who are new to
tumbling, should be astounded, since many great barons, earls, marshals
and knights, who have wandered as far as the Holy Land, are of one
mind in saying that they have never seen a more noble or gracious
performance. If you will be pleased to sit upon that stump, we will now
continue our exercise.”
Alleyne sat down willingly as directed with two great bundles on
either side of him which contained the strollers' dresses--doublets of
flame-colored silk and girdles of leather, spangled with brass and tin.
The jugglers were on their heads once more, bounding about with rigid
necks, playing the while in perfect time and tune. It chanced that out
of one of the bundles there stuck the end of what the clerk saw to be
a cittern, so drawing it forth, he tuned it up and twanged a harmony to
the merry lilt which the dancers played. On that they dropped their own
instruments, and putting their hands to the ground they hopped about
faster and faster, ever shouting to him to play more briskly, until at
last for very weariness all three had to stop.
“Well played, sweet poppet!” cried the younger. “Hast a rare touch on
the strings.”
“How knew you the tune?” asked the other.
“I knew it not. I did but follow the notes I heard.”
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 fell 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