The Rival Heirs; being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune by A. D. Crake (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📖

in the house, he had crawled through the door, ere the lights were rekindled which had been extinguished in the frenzy of the conflict, and sought refuge in flight: not so much, it must be owned, because he feared death (although youth naturally clings to life), as because he longed to live for vengeance, and to carry the secret of the "Dismal Swamp" to Aescendune.

He was bleeding, bruised, scarcely able to move without pain--all his energy seemed exhausted in the supreme effort which had saved him, at least for the time; but it was again very dark, thick clouds charged with snow once more obscured the moon, and the cover of the trees was before him, which he sought, determined rather to perish in the morass than to become the sport of his triumphant foes.

He had gained the desired shelter, and had paused to rest himself and consider what to do next, when he felt something living come into contact with his legs. He started, as well he might under the circumstances, when he saw to his great relief that it was one of the dogs which had accompanied his party throughout the day, and hope sprang up in his breast. The hound might perhaps lead him back through the morass.

At that moment, the arrival of Wilfred with a large body of fresh enemies took place, and Etienne was yet within hearing when his rival stood in the doorway and cried aloud:

"Etienne, son of Hugo, has been here and escaped; hunt him down, men and dogs; he can hardly have passed the morass; we must not let him live to become a murderer like his father."

The voice sounded like a summons from the dead. Etienne turned pale; then the blood coursed rapidly through his veins, as he saw by the light of the moon, which emerged just then from a cloud, his hated rival, standing in front of the farmhouse--alive, and for the time victorious.

Now all was clear. Wilfred was the cause of the calamities which had fallen upon them, and the leader of the outlaws; and Etienne, who, to do him justice, never suspected the true author of the crime, doubted not that his rival had fired the monastery to conceal his flight.

He felt an intense desire that he might grapple with his young foe in the death struggle. Willingly would he have accepted such a decision between their rival claims; but he was alone, wounded, exhausted, a faithful dog his sole friend. He felt that the day of vengeance must be postponed.

He spoke to the poor hound, and succeeded in making it comprehend that he wanted "to go home." With that canine sagacity which approaches very near to reason, the dog at once sought for the path by which they had entered the morass, found it, and ran forward eagerly. Etienne entered it, trembling with hope, when the dog stopped, growled, and came back to its lord. The steps of many feet were heard approaching.

"The place swarms with foes," muttered the hunter, who had become in his turn the hunted.

A crash in the bush behind, and a huge English mastiff rushed upon Etienne. His Norman sleuth hound threw himself upon the assailant of his master, and a terrific struggle ensued. Etienne did not dare wait to see its conclusion or help his canine protector, for the noise of the conflict was drawing all the English there; but he struggled back to the open, and ran along the inner edge of the wood, hoping to find another track through the morass.

Suddenly he stumbled upon a swift little stream flowing down a bank into the desert of slime. He felt at once that it must rise from the chain of hills behind, and that by following it he might get out of the swamp; it was all too like a mountain current to have its origin in the level, and he determined to follow it.

Besides, if he walked up the stream, he would baffle the English dogs, for water leaves no scent; in short, collecting all his energies, he strode rapidly up the brook.

But his strength was not equal to a sustained effort; the excitement of the night had been too much for him; and after he had traversed about a mile, he sat down to rest on the bank, and fell into a dead faint.

The first beams of the rising sun had illuminated the horizon, the very time at which poor Pierre was led forth to die, when an aged Englishwoman, coming down to draw water at the spring, espied the fainting youth.

She advanced to his side, and seemed moved by compassion as she gazed upon the wounded, bloodstained form.

"How young he is, poor lad. Ought I to help him? Yes, it must be right to do so. How the cry of hounds and men comes up the glen!"

"Wake up, wake up!" she cried, and sprinkled water upon his face.

He rose up as if from a deep sleep.

"Mother, what is it?"

"Come with me; I will give thee shelter."

His senses returned sufficiently for him both to comprehend her meaning and his own danger, and he followed mechanically. Just above, the waters of the stream, dammed up for the moment, had formed a little pond, surrounded by trees, save on one side, where was a little garden of herbs, and in its centre, close by the stream, stood a humble cot.

It was built of timber; posts had been driven at intervals into the ground, willow twigs had been woven in and out, the interstices filled with the clay which was abundant at the edge of the pond--and so a weather-proof structure had been built. There was no chimney, only a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, above the place for the fire.

Within, the floor was strewn with rushes; there was a table, two or three rough chairs made of willow, a few household implements.

At one extremity a curtain, made of skins of wolf or deer, was drawn across the room, beyond which was a couch, a kind of box filled with rushes and leaves, over which lay a blanket and coverlets, of a softer material than one would have expected to find in a peasant's hut of the period.

Many other little articles seemed to have been destined for a prouder dwelling; but all besides betokened decent poverty. All was clean, and there could be little danger of hunger in the settlement, while the woods were full of game, and their little fields were fruitful with corn.

Into this abode the old dame led her guest.

"Thou art Norman," she said.

"I am the son of the lord of Aescendune. If thou canst aid me to escape my foes, thou shalt name thy own reward."

"Not all the gold thou hast would tempt me to aid thee; but the love of One who died for us both forbids me to give thee up to death. Thou art too young, poor youth, to be answerable for thy father's sins."

A proud speech was on his lips, but prudence prevailed, and the worthy cub of the old wolf determined to wear sheep's clothing till his claws were grown again.

"The saints reward thee," he said, "since no other reward thou wilt have."

He could say no more, but staggered into her hut, his strength quite gone.

Nearer and nearer drew the cry of hounds and men.

"Save me if thou canst," he said.

She took him behind the curtain, made him lie down on the couch, which was her own, and covered him completely over with a coverlet. Then she charged him to lie quiet, whatever happened, and shut the door of her hut.

By and by it burst open, and Wilfred stood in the doorway.

"Mother, hast thou seen any one pass this way? The Normans have been in the hamlet: we have slain all but one, and he, the worst of all, has escaped us."

"Canst thou not spare even one poor life?"

"Nay, it is Etienne, son of the old fiend Hugo; besides, once safe off, he would betray our secret before we are ready for action."

"I cannot help thee in thy chase; thou knowest how I hate and shrink from bloodshed, as did thy sainted mother."

"Yes, but they did not shrink from poisoning her--they whom she would not have harmed to save her own life."

"God will avenge--leave all to Him."

"Nay, mother, we waste time; if thou hast not seen him, we go."

"Hast thou seen my Eadwin? He is generally here with the lark?"

Wilfred's face changed; he stammered out some evasive reply, and dashed out to join the men and hounds, who were quite at fault; they had lost the scent far below, where Etienne entered the brook, and were diligently investigating, one by one, all the tracks that led from the morass.

Etienne had heard all, and his heart smote him. From the language used, the words he had heard, he felt that this old woman must be the foster mother of his rival, and, if so, the mother of that very Eadwin he had so cruelly put to death the previous night; he quite understood Wilfred's evasive reply.

His heart smote him, and he repented of this cruelty, at least: he dreaded the moment when his preserver must learn the truth. Would she then give him up?

What, too, did Wilfred mean by his allusion to poison? Had he any grounds for such suspicion? Poison was not an unknown agent amongst the Normans. The great Duke himself had been suspected (doubtless wrongfully) of removing Conan of Brittany by its means.

But fatigue overcame him, and he slept. And during that sleep symptoms of fever began to show themselves. He began to talk in his dreams--"There goes a fire--avoid it, it is an evil spirit--shoot arrows at it. Make it tell the secret--now we shall know about the swamp. Here is a fiend throttling me--oh, its awful eyes, they blaze like two marsh fires. No, tie him to the wall; he shall tell the truth or die. What are you giving me to drink?--it is blood, blood. You have poisoned me--I burn, burn--my veins are full of boiling lead--my heart a boiling cauldron. See, there are the marsh fiends--they are carrying away Louis and Pierre--their tails are as whips--ah, an arrow through each of their arms will stop them. Where is my armour?--a hunting dress won't stop their darts, or save one from their claws. Oh, father, help me--save me from the goblins."

In this incoherent way he talked for hours, and the old dame shuddered as he confused the real tragedy of the previous night with imaginary terrors. Oh, how awful were his ravings to her, when at last she learned the truth. Yet in those very ravings he showed that remorse was at his heart.

She wept as she sat by his bed--wept over the son he had slain. The details of that tragedy were, however, studiously concealed from her by Wilfred's sedulous care; yet she knew Etienne had been the leader of the hostile troop, in conflict with whom she supposed her Eadwin to have fallen in fair open fight; for she was led to understand he had been slain in the terrific struggle in the house.

"The only son of his mother, and she was a widow."

Father Kenelm came and read to her the story of the widow's son at Nain, from King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels. Not even to him did she confide the secret, or tell who was separated from the good priest only by a curtain--an instinct told her it was right to tend and save--she would trust nothing else.

But in spite of this resolution the good father discovered it all; for while he read the sweet story of old, he heard a cry in Norman French.

"Keep off the fiend--the hobgoblin--he has got burning arrows--snakes! snakes! there are snakes in the bed!"

"What means this, good mother?"

"Oh, thou wilt not betray him."

"Hast thou a fugitive there? Methinks I know the voice. Can it be the son of the wicked baron?"

"He is not answerable for his father's sin; oh, do not betray him--he is mad with fever."

"Dost thou mean to release him, should he get well? Methinks it were better that he should die."

"With all his sins upon his head? May the saints forbid."

"At least were he but absolved after due contrition, and thou knowest that thou hast little cause to love him."

"His death cannot give me back my boy," and she wept once more.

"Nay, it cannot; but if thou dost save him, it shall be under a solemn pledge never to betray the place of our retreat. I will myself swear him upon the Holy Gospels. But woe to him should our young lord Wilfred discover him; I verily believe he would die the death of St. Edmund {xiii}."

"Canst thou not teach poor Wilfred mercy--thou art his pastor and teacher?"

"He grows fiercer daily, and chafes at all restraint. Remember what he has suffered."

"The greater the