The White Company
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 roof. Better to sleep here at this inn, and then travel
on to Minstead in the morning. If his brother would take him in, well