第14章 THE ENGLISHMAN(6)

But to you and for his sake I make my own bequest.Wear this ring for him till he is a man, and then bid him wear it as his father's guerdon.I had it from my father, who had it from his, and my grandfather told me the tale of it.In his grandsire's day it was a mighty armlet, but in the famine years it was melted and part sold, and only this remains.Some one of us far back was a king, and this is the badge of a king's house.There comes a day, little one, when the fruit of our bodies shall possess a throne.See that the lad be royal in thought and deed, as he is royal in blood."Next morning he kissed his wife and fondled his little son, and with his men rode northward, his eyes wistful but his mouth smiling.

What followed was for generations a tale among humble folk in England, who knew nothing of the deeds of the King's armies.By cottage fires they wove stories about it and made simple songs, the echo of which may still be traced by curious scholars.There is something of it in the great saga of Robin Hood, and long after the fens were drained women hushed their babies with snatches about the Crane and the Falcon, and fairy tales of a certain John of the Shaws, who became one with Jack the Giant-killer and all the nursery heroes.

Jehan and his band met Aelward at the appointed rendezvous, and soon were joined by a dozen knots of lusty yeomen, who fought not only for themselves but for the law of England and the peace of the new king.Of the little force Jehan was appointed leader, and once again became the Hunter, stalking a baser quarry than wolf or boar.For the Crane and his rabble, flushed with easy conquest, kept ill watch, and the tongues of forest running down to the fenland made a good hunting ground for a wary forester.

Jehan's pickets found Hugo of Auchy by the Sheen brook and brought back tidings.Thereupon a subtle plan was made.By day and night the invaders'

camp was kept uneasy; there would be sudden attacks, which died down after a few blows; stragglers disappeared, scouts never returned; and when a peasant was brought in and forced to speak, he told with scared face a tale of the great mustering of desperate men in this or that quarter.The Crane was a hardy fighter, but the mystery baffled him, and he became cautious, and--after the fashion of his kind credulous.Bit by bit Jehan shepherded him into the trap he had prepared.He had but one man to the enemy's six, and must drain that enemy's strength before he struck.Meantime the little steadings went up in flames, but with every blaze seen in the autumn dusk the English temper grew more stubborn.They waited confidently on the reckoning.

It came on a bleak morning when the east wind blew rain and fog from the sea.The Crane was in a spit of open woodland, with before him and on either side deep fenland with paths known only to its dwellers.Then Jehan struck.He drove his enemy to the point of the dry ground, and thrust him into the marshes.Not since the time of the Danes had the land known such a slaying.The refuse of France and the traitor English who had joined them went down like sheep before wolves.When the Lord Ivo arrived in the late afternoon, having ridden hot-speed from the south coast when he got the tidings, he found little left of the marauders save the dead on the land and the scum of red on the fen pools.

Jehan lay by a clump of hazels, the blood welling from an axe-wound in the neck.His face was ashen with the oncoming of death, but he smiled as he looked up at his lord.

"The Crane pecked me," he said."He had a stout bill, if a black heart."Ivo wept aloud, being pitiful as he was brave.He would have scoured the country for a priest.

"Farewell, old comrade," he sobbed."Give greeting to Odo in Paradise, and keep a place for me by your side.I will nourish your son, as if he had been that one of my own whom Heaven has denied me.Tarry a little, dear heart, and the Priest of Glede will be here to shrive you."Through the thicket there crawled a mighty figure, his yellow hair dabbled in blood, and his breath labouring like wind in a threshing-floor.He lay down by Jehan's side, and with a last effort kissed him on the lips.

"Priest!" cried the dying Aelward."What need is there of priest to help us two English on our way to God?"