The Cloister and the Hearth ... Second edition

Chapter I

He leveUed it. He took a long steady aim. Gerard palpitated. At last the crossbow twanged. The hand was instantly naded, with a stern jar, to the quivering doorpost: There was a scream of anguish. ' Cut,' whispered Denys eagerly, and Gerard's uplifted sword descended and severed the wrist with two swift blows. A body sank down moaning outside. The hand remained inside, immovable, with blood trickling from it down the waU. The fierce bolt slightly barbed had gone through it, and deep into the real door-post. ' Two,' said Denys, with terrible cynicism. He strung his crossbow, and kneeled behind his cover again. ' The next will be the Abbot.' The wounded man moved, and presently crawled down to his companions on the stairs, and the kitchen door was shut. There nothing was heard now but low muttering.

The last incident had revealed the mortal character of the weapons used by the besieged. ' I begin to think the Abbot's stomach is not so great as Ids body,' said Denys. The words were scarcely out of his mouth, when the foUowing events happened aU in a couple of seconds. The kitchen door was opened rougldy, a heavy but active man darted up the steps without any manner of disguise, and a single ponderous blow sent the door not only off its hinges, but right across the room on to Denys's fortification, which it struck so rudely as nearly to lay him flat. And in the doorway stood a colossus with a ghttering axe. He saw the dead man with the moon's blue light on half his face, and the red light qp the other half and inside his chapfaUen jaws : he stared, his arms feU, Ids knees knocked together, and he crouched with terror. ' La mort !' he cried in tones of terror, and turned and fled.

In winch act Denys started up and shot him through both jaws. He sprang with one bound into the kitchen, and there leaned on his axe, spitting blood and teeth and curses. Denys strung his bow and put his hand into his breast. He drew it out dismayed. ' My last bolt is gone,' he groaned. ' But we have our swords, and you have slain the giant.' 'No, Gerard,' said Denys gravely: 'I have not. And the worst is I have wounded him. Fool ! to shoot at a retreating lion. He had never faced thy handiwork again, but for my meddling. ' 'Ha! to your guard! I hear them open the door.' t Then Denys, depressed by the one error he had committed in aU this fearful night, felt convinced Ids last hour had come. He drew his sword, but like one doomed. But what is this ? a red light flickers on the ceding. Gerard flew to the window and looked out.

There were men with torches, and breastplates gleaming red. ' We are saved ! Armed men !' And he dashed Ids sword through the win dow shouting ' Quick ! quick ! we are sore pressed.' ' Back !' yeUed Denys ; ' they come ! strike none but him !' That very moment the Abbot and two men with naked weapons rushed into the room. Even as they came, the outer door was hammered fiercely, and the Abbot's comrades hearing it, and seeing the torchlight, turned and fled. Not so the terrible Abbot : wild with rage and pain, he spurned his dead comrade, chair and all, across the room, then, as the men faced him on each side with kindling eyeballs, he waved his tremendous axe like a feather right and left, and cleared a space, then lifted it to hew them both in pieces. His antagonists were inferior in strength, but not in swiftness and daring, and above all they had settled how to attack him.

The moment he reared his axe, they flew at him like cats, and both together. H he struck a fuU blow with his weapon he would most likely kill one, but the other would certainly kill him : he saw this, and in telligent as well as powerful, he thrust the handle fiercely in Denys's face, and, turning, jobbed with the steel at Gerard. Denys went staggering back covered with blood. Gerard had rushed hi like lightning, and, just as the axe turned to descend on him, drove his sword so fiercely through the giant's body, that the very hdt sounded on his ribs like the blow of a pugilist, and Denys, staggering back to help his friend, saw a steel point come out of the Abbot behind. The stricken giant bellowed like a bull, dropped his axe, and clutching Gerard's throat tremendously, shook 1dm like a child.

Then Denys with a fierce snarl drove his sword into the giant's back. ' Stand firm now !' and he pushed the cold steel through and through the giant and out at his breast. Thus horribly spitted on both sides, the Abbot, gave a violent shudder, and his heels hammered the ground convulsively. His lips, fast turning blue, opened wide and deep, and he cried ' La mort ! — la mort !■ — la mort ! !' The first time in a roar of despair, and then twice in a horror stricken wldsper never to be forgotten. Just then the street door was forced. Suddenly the Abbot's arms whirled like wind miUs, and his huge body wrenched wildly and carried them to the doorway, twisting theh wrists and nearly throwing them off theh legs. ' He'll win clear yet,' cried Denys : ' out steel ! and in again !' They tore out theh smoking swords, but, ere they could stab again, the Abbot leaped full five feet high, and fell with a tremendous crash against the door below, carrying it away with him like a sheet of paper, and through the aperture the glare of torches burst on the awe-struck faces above, half blinding them.

The thieves at the first alarm had made for the back door, but driven thence by a strong guard ran back to the kitchen, just in time to see the lock forced out of the socket, and half a dozen niaded archers burst in upon them. On these in pure despair they drew theh swords. But ere a blow was struck on either side, the staircase door behind them was battered into their midst with one ponderous blow, and with it the Abbot's body came flying, hurled, as they thought, by no mortal hand, and rolled on the floor spout ing blood from back and bosom in two furious jets, and quivered, but breathed no more. The thieves smitten with dismay feU on their knees directly, and the archers bound them, while, above, the rescued ones stdl stood hke statues rooted to the spot, their dripping swords extended in the red torchUght, expecting theh indomitable enemy to leap back on them as wonderfully as he had gone.

Chapter II

' Where be the true men ?' ' Here be we. God bless you all ! God bless you !' There was a rush to the stairs, and half a dozen hard but friendly hands were held out and grasped them warmly. ' Y'have saved our lives, lads,' cried Denys, ' y'have saved our Uves this night.' A wdd sight met the eyes of the rescued pair. The room flaring with torches, the ghttering breastplates of the archers, theh bronzed faces, the white cheeks of the bound thieves, and the bleeding giant, whose dead body these hard men left lying there in its own gore. Gerard went round the archers and took them each by the hand with glistening eyes, and on this they all kissed him ; and this time he kissed them in return. Then he said to one handsome archer of his own age, ' Prithee, good soldier, have an eye to me. A strange drowsiness overcomes me.

Let no one cut my throat whde I sleep — for pity's sake.' The archer promised with a laugh; for he thought Gerard was jesting : and the latter went off into a deep sleep almost immediately. Denys was surprised at this : but did not interfere ; for it suited his immediate purpose. A couple of archers were inspecting the Abbot's body, turning it half over with theh feet, and inquiring, ' Which of the two had flung this enormous rogue down from an upper story Uke that ; they would fain have the trick of his arm.' Denys at first pished and pshawed, but dared not play the braggart, for he said to himself ' That young vagabond wdl break in and say 'twas the finger of Heaven, and no mortal arm, or some such stuff, and make me look like a fool.' But now, seeing Gerard unconscious, he suddenly gave this required information. ' WeU, then, you see, comrades, I had run my sword through this one up to the hilt ; and one or two more of 'em came buzzing about me ; so it behoved me have my sword or die : so I just put my foot against his stomach, gave a tug with my hand and a spring with my foot, and sent him flying to kingdom come !

He died in the ah, and his carrion rolled in amongst you without ceremony : made you jump I warrant me. But pikestaves and pillage ! what avails prattling of these trifles once they are gone by ? buvons, camarades, buvons.' The archers remarked that it was easy to say ' buvons ' where no Uquor was, but not so easy to do it. ' Nay, I'll soon find ye liquor. My nose hath a natural alacrity at scenting out the wine. You follow me: and I my nose: bring a torch V And they left the room, and, finding a short flight of stone steps, descended them and entered a large, low, damp cedar. It smelt close and dank : and the walls were encrusted here and there with what seemed cobwebs ; but proved to be saltpetre that had oozed out of the damp stones, and crystallized. ' Oh ! the fine mouldy smeU,' said Denys. ' In such placen still lurks the good wine : advance thy torch.

Diable! what is that in the corner? A pde of rags ? No : 'tis a man.' They gathered round with the torch, and lo ! a figure crouched on a heap in the corner, pale as ashes and shivering. ' Why, it is the landlord,' said Denys. ' Get up, thou craven heart !' shouted one of the archers. ' Why, man, the thieves are bound, and we are dry, that bound them. Up ! and show us thy wine ; for no bottles see I here.' ' What, be the rascals bound?' stammered the pale landlord ; ' good news. W — w — wine ? that will I, honest sirs.' And he rose with unsure joints and offered to lead the way to the wine ceUar. But Denys interposed. ' You are all in the dark, comrades. He is in league with the thieves.' ' Alack, good soldier, me in league with the accursed robbers ! Is that reasonable ?' ' The girl said so any way.' ' The girl !

What girl ? Ah! Curse her, traitress!' ' Well,' interposed the other archer ; ' the girl is not here, but gone on to the bailiff. So let the burghers settle whether this craven be guilty or no : for we caught him not in the act : and let him draw us our wine.' ' One moment,' said Denys, shrewdly. ' Why cursed he the girl? If he be a true man, he should bless her as we do.' ' Alas, sh !' said the landlord, ' I have but my good name to live by, and I cursed her to you, because you said she had belied me.' ' Humph ! I trow thou art a thief, and where is the thief that cannot he with a smooth face ? Therefore hold him, comrades : a prisoner can draw wine an if his hands be not bound.' The landlord offered no objection ; but on the contrary said he would with pleasure show them where his Uttle stock of wine was, but hoped they would pay for what they should drink, for his rent was due this two months.

The archers smiled grimly at his simplicity as they thought it ; one of them laid a hand quietly but firmly on his shoulder, the other led on with the torch. They had reached the threshold when Denys cried ' Halt !' ' What is't ?' ' Here be bottles in this corner ; advance thy light,' The torch-bearer went towards him. He had just taken off his scabbard and was probing the heap the landlord had just been crouched upon. ' Nay, nay,' cried the landlord, ' the wine is in the next ceUar. There is nothing there.' 'Nothing is mighty hard, then/ said Denys, and drew out something with his hand from the heap. It proved to be only a bone. Denys threw it on the floor : it rattled. ' There is nought there but the bones of the house,' said the landlord. ' Just now 'twas nothing. Now that we have found something 'tis nothing but bones.

Here's another. Humph ? look at this one, comrade ; and you come too and look at it, and bring yon smooth knave along.' The archer with the torch, whose name was Philippe, held the bone to the tight and turned it round and round. ' WeU ?' said Denys. 'Well, if this was afield of battle I should say 'twas the shank-bone of a man ; no more, no less. But 'tisn't a battle field, nor a churchyard ; 'tis an inn.' ' True, mate : but yon knave's ashy face is as good a light to me as a field of battle. I read the bone by it. Bring yon face nearer, I say. When the chine is amissing, and the house dog can't look at you without his tail creeping between his legs, who was the thief? Good brothers mine, my mind it doth misgive me. The deeper I thrust the more there be. Mayhap if these bones could tell their tale they would make true men's flesh creep that heard it.' ' Alas ! young man, what hideous fancies are these !

The bones are bones of beeves, and sheep, and kids, and not,, as you think, of men and women. Holy saints preserve us !' ' Hold thy peace ! thy words are air. Thou hast not got burghers by the ear, that know not a veal knuckle from theh grandsire's ribs ; but soldiers — men that have gone to look for their dear comrades, and found their bones picked as clean by the crows, as these I doubt have been by thee and thy mates. Men and women, saidst thou ? And prithee, when spake I a word of women's bones? Wouldst make a chdd suspect thee. Field of battle, comrade ! Was not this house a field of battle half an hour agone ? Drag him close to me, let me read his face : now then, what is this, thou knave ?' and he thrust a small object suddenly in his face. ' Alas ! I know not.' ' ' Well, I would not swear neither : but it is too like the thumb bone of a man's hand ; mates, my flesh it creeps.

Churchyard ! how know I this is not one ?' And he now drew his sword out of the scabbard and began to rake the heap of earth and broken crockery and bones out on the floor. The landlord assured him he but wasted his time. '' We poor innkeepers are sinners,' said he, ' we give short measure and baptize the wine : we are fain to do these things ; the laws are so unjust to us ; but we are not assassins. How could we afford to kill our customers ? -May Heaven's lightning strike me dead if there be any bones there but such as have been used for meat. 'Tis' the kitchen wench flings them here : I swear by God's holy mother, by holy Paul, by holy Dominic, and Denys my patron saint ah !' Denys held out a bone under his eye in dead silence. It was a bone no man however ignorant, however lying, could confound with those of sheep or oxen.

The sight of it shut the lying hps, and palsied the heartless heart. The landlord's hair rose visibly on his head like spikes, and his knees gave way as if his hmbs had been struck from under him. But the archers dragged him fiercely up, and kept him erect under the torch staring fascinated at the dead skull which, white as the tiving cheek opposed, but no whiter, glared back again at its murderer, whose pale lips now opened, and opened, but could utter no sound. ' Ah !' said Denys, solemnly, and trembling now with rage, ' look on the sockets out of which thou Ijlast picked the eyes, and let them blast thine eyes, that crows shaU pick out ere this week shall end. Now, hold thou that while I search on. Hold it, I say, or here I rob the gallows — ' and he threatened the quaking wretch with his naked sword, till with a groan he took the skuU and held it, almost fainting.

Oh! that every murderer, and contriver of murder, could see him, sick, and staggering with terror, and with his hair on end holding the cold skuU, and feeling that his own head would soon be like it. And soon the heap was scattered, and, alas ! not one nor two, but many skuUs were brought to light, the culprit moaning at each discovery. Suddenly Denys uttered a strange cry of dis tress to come from so bold and hard a man ; and held up to the torch a mass of human hah. It was long, glossy, and golden. A woman's beautiful hah. At the sight of it the archers instinctively shook the craven wretch in theh hands : and he whined ' I have a httle sister with hah just so fair and shining as this,' gulped Denys. ' Jesu ! if it should be hers !' There quick, take my sword and dagger, and keep them from my hand, lest I strike him dead and wrong the gibbet.

And thou, poor innocent victim, on whose head this most lovely hair did grow, hear me swear thus, on bended knee, never to leave this man tdl I see him broken to pieces on the wheel even for thy sake.' He rose from his knee. ' Ay, had he as many Uves as here be hairs, I'd have them all, by God.' And he put the hair into his bosom. Then in a sudden fury seized the landlord fiercely by the neck, and forced him to his knees ; and soot on head ground his face savagely among the bones of his victims, where they lay thickest : and tke assassin first yelled, then whined and whimpered, just as a dog first yeUs, then whines, when his nose is so forced into some leveret or other innocent he has kiUed. 'Now lend me thy bowstring, Philippe!' He passed it through the eyes of a skull alternately, and hung the ghastly rehc of mortality and crime round the man's neck ; then puUed him up and kicked him industriously into the kitchen, where one of the aldermen of the burgh had arrived with constables, and was even now taking an archer's deposition.

The grave burgher was much startled at sight of the landlord driven in bleeding from a dozen scratches inflicted by the bones of his own victims, and carrying his horrible coUar. But Denys came panting after, and in a few fiery words soon made aU clear. ' Bind him hke the rest,' said the alderman sternly. ' I count him the blackest of them ad.' While his hands were being bound, the poor wretch begged piteously that ' the skuU might be taken from him.' ' Humph !' said the alderman. ' Certes I had not ordered such a thing to be put on mortal man. Yet being there I wdl not lift voice nor finger to doff it, Methinks it fits thee truly, thou bloody dog. 'Tis thy ensign, and hangs weU above a heart so foul as thine.' He then inquired of Denys if he thought they had secured the whole gang, or but a part. 'Your worship,' said Denys, 'there are but seven of them, and this landlord.

One we slew upstairs, one we trundled down dead, the rest are bound before you.' ' Good ! go fetch the dead one from upstairs, and lay him beside him I caused to be removed.' Here a voice Uke a guinea-fowl's broke pee vishly in. ' Now, now, now, where is the hand ? that is what I want to see.' The speaker was a little pettifogging clerk. ' You wdl find it above, nailed to the door-post by a cross-bow bolt.' 'Good!' said the clerk. He whispered his master, ' What a goodly show wiU the " pieces de conviction " make !' and with tins he wrote them clown, enumerating them hi separate squeaks as he penned them. Skulls, — Bones, — A woman's hah, — A thief's hand, — 1 axe, — 2 carcases, — 1 cross-bow bolt. This done, he itched to search the cedar himself: there might be other invaluable morsels of evidence, an ear, or even an earring.

The alderman assenting he caught up a torch and was hurrying tldther, when an accident stopped him, and indeed carried him a step or two in the opposite direction. The constables had gone up the stair in single file. But the head constable no sooner saw the phosphorescent corpse seated by the bedside, than lie stood stupefied : and next he began to shake Uke one in an ague, and, terror gaining on 1dm more and more, he uttered a sort of howl and recoiled swiftly. Forgetting the steps, in his recoil, he tumbled over backward on Ids nearest com panion: but he, shaken by the shout of dismay, and catching a glimpse of something horrid, was aheady staggering back, and in no condition to sustain the head constable, who, like most head constables, was a ponderous man. The two carried away the third, and the three the fourth, and they streamed into the kitchen, and settled on the floor, overlapping each other Uke a sequence laid out on a card-table.

The clerk coming hastily with his torch ran an involuntary tdt again the fourth man, who, sharing the momentum of the mass, knocked him instantly on his back, the ace of that fair qiunt : and there he lay kicking and waving his torch, apparently in triumph, but ready in con vulsion ; sense and wind being driven out together by the concussion. ' What is to do now, in Heaven's name ?' cried the alderman, starting up with considerable alarm. But Denys explained, and offered to accompany his worship. ' So be it,' said the latter. His men picked themselves ruefuUy up, and the alderman put himself at theh head and examined the pre mises above and below. As for the prisoners, their interrogatory was postponed tdl they could be confronted with the servant. Before dawn, the thieves, aUve and dead, and aU the relics and evidences of crime and retri bution, were swept away into the law's net, and the inn was sdent and almost deserted. There remained but one constable, and Denys and Gerard, the latter still sleeping heavily. c VOL.

Chapter III

Gerard awoke, and found Denys watching him with some anxiety. ' It is you for sleeping ! Why, 'tis ldgh noon.' ' It was a blessed sleep,' said Gerard, ' methinks Heaven sent it me. It hath put as it were a ved between me and that awful night. To think that you and I sit here ahve and weU. How terrible a dream I seem to have had !' ' Ay, lad, that is the wise way to look at these things, when once they are past, why they are dreams, shadows. Break thy fast, and then thou wdt flunk no more on't. Moreover I promised to bring thee on to the town by noon, and take thee to his worship.' ' Thou shalt not break troth for me.' Gerard then sopped some iye bread in red wine and ate it to break his fast : then went with Denys over the scene of combat, and came back shuddering, and finaUy took the road with his friend, and kept peering through the hedges, and expecting sudden attacks unreasonably, tdl they reached the little town.

Denys took him to ' The White Hart.' ' No fear of cut-throats here,' said he. ' I know the landlord this many a year. He is a burgess, and looks to be baihff. 'Tis here I was makins for yestreen. But we lost time, and night o'ertook us — and — ' ' And you saw a woman at the door, and would be wiser than la Jeanneton ; she told us they were nought.' 'Why, what saved our lives if not a woman? Ay, and risked her own to do it.' 'That is true, Denys, and though women are nothing to me, I long to thank this poor girl, and reward her, ay though I share every doit in my purse with her. Do not you ?' ' Parbleu.' ' Where shaU we find her ?' ' Mayhap the alderman wdl teU us. We must go to him first.' The alderman received them with a most sin gular and inexplicable expression of countenance. However, after a moment's reflection, he wore a grim smde, and finaUy proceeded to put inter rogatories to Gerard, and took clown the answers.

This done he told them that they must stay in the town tiU the thieves were tried, and be at hand to give evidence, on peril of fine and imprisonment. They looked very blank at this. ' However/ said he, ' 'twiU not be long, the culprits having been taken red handed.' He added, ' and you know in any case you could not leave the place this week.' Denys stared at this remark, and Gerard smded at what he thought the simplicity of the old gentleman in dreaming that a provincial towm of Burgundy had attraction to detain him from Rome and Margaret. He now went to that which was nearest both theh hearts. ' Your worship,' said he, ' we cannot find our benefactress in the town.' ' Nay, but who is your benefactress ?' ' Who ? why the good ghl that came to you by night and saved our Uves at peril of her own. Oh sh, our hearts burn within us to thank and bless her : where is she ?' ' Oh, she is in prison.'

Chapter IV

' In prison, sh ; good lack, for what misdeed ?' ' WeU, she is a witness, and may be a necessary one.' ' Why, Messire Bailiff,' put in Denys, ' you lay not aU your witnesses by the heels I trow.' The alderman, pleased at being called bailiff, became communicative. ' In a case of blood we detain aU testimony that is Uke to give us leg bad, and so defeat Justice, and that is why we stdl keep the womenfolk. For a man at odd times bides a week in one mind, but a woman, if she do her duty to the realm o' Friday, she shaU undo it afore Sunday, or try. Could you see yon wench now, you should find her a blubbering at having betrayed five males to the gaUows. Had they been females, we might have trusted to a subpœna For they despise one another. And there they show some sense. But now I think on't, there were other reasons for laying this one by the heels.

Hand me those depositions, young sir.' And he put on his glasses. ' Ay ! she was imphcated : she was one of the band.' A loud disclaimer burst from Denys and Gerard at once. 'No need to deave me,' said the alderman. ' Here 'tis in black and white. " Jean Hardy (that is one of the thieves), being questioned confessed that,"— humph ? Ay, here 'tis. " And that the girl Manon was the decoy, and her sweetheart was Georges Vipont, one of the band ; and hanged last month : and that she had been deject ever since, and had opeidy blamed the band for his death, saying, if they had not been rank cowards, he had never been taken, and it is his opinion she did but betray them out of very spite, and — " ' ' His opinion,' cried Gerard indignantly, ' what signifies the opinion of a cut-throat, burning to be revenged on her who has dehvered him to justice ?

And an you go to that what avads Ids testimony ? Is a thief never a liar ? Is he not aye a har ? and here a motive to Ue? Revenge, why 'tis the strongest of aU the passions. And oh, sir, what madness to question a detected felon and listen to him lying away an honest hfe — as if he were a true man swearing in open day, with his true hand on the Gospel laid !' 'Young man,' said the alderman, 'restrain thy heat in presence of authority! I find by your tongue you are a stranger. Know then that in this land we question aU the world. We are not so weak as to hope to get at the truth by shutting either our left ear or our right.' ' And so you would hsten to Satan belying the saints !' ' Ta ! ta ! The law meddles but with men and women, and these cannot utter a story aU hes, let them try ever so.