The White Company
clay-floored and damp, comfortless, profitless and sordid. Beyond it
there lay amid the trees the wattle-and-daub hut of a laborer, the
door open, and the single room exposed to the view. The man ruddy and
yellow-haired, stood leaning upon the spade wherewith he had been at
work upon the garden patch. From behind him came the ripple of a happy
woman's laughter, and two young urchins darted forth from the hut,
bare-legged and towsy, while the mother, stepping out, laid her hand
upon her husband's arm and watched the gambols of the children. The
hermit frowned at the untoward noise which broke upon his prayers, but
his brow relaxed as he looked upon the broad silver piece which John
held out to him.
“There lies the image of our past and of our future,” cried Alleyne, as
they rode on upon their way. “Now, which is better, to till God's earth,
to have happy faces round one's knee, and to love and be loved, or
to sit forever moaning over one's own soul, like a mother over a sick
babe?”
“I know not about that,” said John, “for it casts a great cloud over me
when I think of such matters. But I know that my crown was well spent,
for the man had the look of a very holy person. As to the other, there
was nought holy about him that I could see, and it would be cheaper for
me to pray for myself than to give a crown to one who spent his days in
digging for lettuces.”
Ere Alleyne could answer there swung round the curve of the road a
lady's carriage drawn by three horses abreast with a postilion upon
the outer one. Very fine and rich it was, with beams painted and gilt,
wheels and spokes carved in strange figures, and over all an arched
cover of red and white tapestry. Beneath its shade there sat a stout
and elderly lady in a pink cote-hardie, leaning back among a pile of
cushions, and plucking out her eyebrows with a small pair of silver
tweezers. None could seem more safe and secure and at her ease than this
lady, yet here also was a symbol of human life, for in an instant, even
as Alleyne reined aside to let the carriage pass, a wheel flew out
from among its fellows, and over it all toppled--carving, tapestry
and gilt--in one wild heap, with the horses plunging, the postilion
shouting, and the lady screaming from within. In an instant Alleyne and
John were on foot, and had lifted her forth all in a shake with fear,
but little the worse for her mischance.
“Now woe worth me!” she cried, “and ill fall on Michael Easover of
Romsey! for I told him that the pin was loose, and yet he must needs
gainsay me, like the foolish daffe that he is.”
“I trust that you have taken no hurt, my fair lady,” said Alleyne,
conducting her to the bank, upon which John had already placed a
cushion.
“Nay, I have had no scath, though I have lost my silver tweezers. Now,
lack-a-day! did God ever put breath into such a fool as Michael Easover
of Romsey? But I am much beholden to you, gentle sirs. Soldiers ye are,
as one may readily see. I am myself a soldier's daughter,” she added,
casting a somewhat languishing glance at John, “and my heart ever goes
out to a brave man.”
“We are indeed fresh from Spain,” quoth Alleyne.
“From Spain, say you? Ah! it was an ill and sorry thing that so many
should throw away the lives that Heaven gave them. In sooth, it is bad
for those who fall, but worse for those who bide behind. I have but now
bid farewell to one who hath lost all in this cruel war.”
“And how that, lady?”
“She is a young damsel of these parts, and she goes now into a nunnery.
Alack! it is not a year since she was the fairest maid from Avon to
Itchen, and now it was more than I could abide to wait at Romsey Nunnery
to see her put the white veil upon her face, for she was made for a wife
and not for the cloister. Did you ever, gentle sir, hear of a body of
men called 'The White Company' over yonder?”
“Surely so,” cried both the comrades.
“Her father was the leader of it, and her lover served under him as
squire. News hath come that not one of the Company was left alive, and
so, poor lamb, she hath----”
“Lady!” cried Alleyne, with catching breath, “is it the Lady Maude
Loring of whom you speak?”
“It is, in sooth.”
“Maude! And in a nunnery! Did, then, the thought of her father's death
so move her?”
“Her father!” cried the lady, smiling. “Nay; Maude is a good daughter,
but I think it was this young golden-haired squire of whom I have heard
who has made her turn her back upon the world.”
“And I stand talking here!” cried Alleyne wildly. “Come, John, come!”
Rushing to his horse, he swung himself into the saddle, and was off down
the road in a rolling cloud of dust as fast as his good steed could bear
him.
Great had been the rejoicing amid the Romsey nuns when the Lady Maude
Loring had craved admission into their order--for was she not sole child
and heiress of the old knight, with farms and fiefs which she could
bring to the great nunnery? Long and earnest had been the talks of the
gaunt lady abbess, in which she had conjured the young novice to turn
forever from the world, and to rest her bruised heart under the broad
and peaceful shelter of the church. And now, when all was settled, and
when abbess and lady superior had had their will, it was but fitting
that some pomp and show should mark the glad occasion. Hence was it that
the good burghers of Romsey were all in the streets, that gay flags and
flowers brightened the path from the nunnery to the church, and that a
long procession wound up to the old arched door leading up the bride to
these spiritual nuptials. There was lay-sister Agatha with the high gold
crucifix, and the three incense-bearers, and the two-and-twenty garbed
in white, who cast flowers upon either side of them and sang sweetly the
while. Then, with four attendants, came the novice, her drooping head
wreathed with white blossoms, and, behind, the abbess and her council of
older nuns, who were already counting in their minds whether their own
bailiff could manage the farms of Twynham, or whether a reeve would be
needed beneath him, to draw the utmost from these new possessions which
this young novice was about to bring them.
But alas! for plots and plans when love and youth and nature, and above
all, fortune are arrayed against them. Who is this travel-stained youth
who dares to ride so madly through the lines of staring burghers? Why
does he fling himself from his horse and stare so strangely about
him? See how he has rushed through the incense-bearers, thrust aside
lay-sister Agatha, scattered the two-and-twenty damosels who sang so
sweetly--and he stands before the novice with his hands out-stretched,
and his face shining, and the light of love in his gray eyes. Her foot
is on the very lintel of the church, and yet he bars the way--and she,
she thinks no more of the wise words and holy rede of the lady abbess,
but she hath given a sobbing cry and hath fallen forward with his arms
around her drooping body and her wet cheek upon his breast. A sorry
sight this for the gaunt abbess, an ill lesson too for the stainless
two-and-twenty who have ever been taught that the way of nature is the
way of sin. But Maude and Alleyne care little for this. A dank, cold
air comes out from the black arch before them. Without, the sun shines
bright and the birds are singing amid the ivy on the drooping beeches.
Their choice is made, and they turn away hand-in-hand, with their backs
to the darkness and their faces to the light.
Very quiet was the wedding in the old priory church at Christchurch,
where Father Christopher read the service, and there were few to see
save the Lady Loring and John, and a dozen bowmen from the castle. The
Lady of Twynham had drooped and pined for weary months, so that her face
was harsher and less comely than before, yet she still hoped on, for her
lord had come through so many dangers that she could scarce believe that
he might be stricken down at last. It had been her wish to start for
Spain and to search for him, but Alleyne had persuaded her to let him
go in her place. There was much to look after, now that the lands of
Minstead were joined to those of Twynham, and Alleyne had promised her
that if she would but bide with his wife he would never come back to
Hampshire again until he had gained some news, good or ill, of her lord
and lover.
The yellow cog had been engaged, with Goodwin Hawtayne in command, and a
month after the wedding Alleyne rode down to Bucklershard to see if she
had come round yet from Southampton. On the way he passed the fishing
village of Pitt's Deep, and marked that a little creyer or brig was
tacking off the land, as though about to anchor there. On his way back,
as he rode towards the village, he saw that she had indeed anchored, and
that many boats were round her, bearing cargo to the shore.
A bow-shot from Pitt's Deep there was an inn a little back from the
road, very large and wide-spread, with a great green bush hung upon a
pole from one of the upper windows. At this window he marked, as he rode
up, that a man was seated who appeared to be craning his neck in his
direction. Alleyne was still looking up at him, when a woman came
rushing from the open door of the inn, and made as though she would
climb a tree, looking back the while with a laughing face. Wondering
what these doings might mean, Alleyne tied his horse to a tree, and
was walking amid the trunks towards the inn, when there shot from the
entrance a second woman who made also for the trees. Close at her heels
came a burly, brown-faced man, who leaned against the door-post and
laughed loudly with his hand to his side, “Ah, mes belles!” he cried,
“and is it thus you treat me? Ah, mes petites! I swear by these
finger-bones that I would not hurt a hair of your pretty heads; but I
have been among the black paynim, and, by my hilt! it does me good to
look at your English cheeks. Come, drink a stoup of muscadine with me,
mes anges, for my heart is warm to be among ye again.”
At the sight of the man Alleyne had stood staring, but at the sound of
his voice such a thrill of joy bubbled up in his heart that he had
to bite his lip to keep himself from shouting outright. But a deeper
pleasure yet was in store. Even as he looked, the window above was
pushed outwards, and the voice of the man whom he had seen there came
out from it. “Aylward,” cried the voice, “I have seen just now a very
worthy person come down the road, though my eyes could scarce discern
whether he carried coat-armor. I pray you to wait upon him and tell him
that a very humble knight of England abides here, so that if he be in
need of advancement, or have any small vow upon his soul, or desire to
exalt his lady, I may help him to accomplish it.”
Aylward at this order came shuffling forward amid the trees, and in an
instant the two men were clinging in each other's arms, laughing and
shouting and patting each other in their delight; while old Sir Nigel
came running with his sword, under the impression that some small
bickering had broken out, only to embrace and be embraced himself,
until all three were hoarse with their questions and outcries and
congratulations.
On their journey home through the woods Alleyne learnt their
wondrous story: how, when Sir Nigel came to his senses, he with his
fellow-captive had been hurried to the coast, and conveyed by sea to
their captor's castle; how upon the way they had been taken by a Barbary
rover, and how they exchanged their light captivity for a seat on a
galley bench and hard labor at the pirate's oars; how, in the port at
Barbary, Sir Nigel had slain the Moorish captain, and had swum with
Aylward to a small coaster which they had taken, and so made their way
to England with a rich cargo to reward them for their toils. All this