Chapter II “Freely Ye Have Received — Freely Give.”
“So that’s Cædwalla, is it! I have heard tell of him many a time! And if, poor youth, he had his due, he’d be King of Wessex and Bretwalda1 to boot. And who is king now? Centwine is it, or Æscuin? Well, that I don’t rightly know. Gytha, the old nurse who came from Readbryg,2 now she told me that one of them had been killed at a fight with the king of Mercia. Anyhow, Cædwalla is the rightful heir, that I do know; but what’s he doing here? Well, he can’t do any harm to me and my boys, that’s certain; and if he gets his own he may help us to pay out that Arwald over there. Well, well, we shall see. Here, Wulf, come and see what thou canst do with that oar again; we can’t be far from Boseham now. It’s a very good thing the tide hasn’t covered the mud, or we should never see all these lakes3 hereabouts. Let me see, that’s the way to Boseham, down there. Why, there’s a man fishing! he’ll tell us the way. But he’s a mighty odd-looking man. What’s the matter with his head? Look, Wulf, he’s got his hair cut off like a half moon on the top of his head.”
As the boat passed slowly through the water, it took them some minutes before they came up to the fisherman, who was seated on three or four logs rudely nailed together with two cross planks, and moored by a rope to a stick stuck in the mud. The man had long hair, cut or shaved in a peculiar half moon on the top of his head, and wore a long loose robe made of coarse frieze and fastened round his waist by a cord. His feet were bare, and he was sitting on his raft placidly, feeling his line from time to time, and muttering to himself a low, monotonous chant.
“What’s he saying, Biggun?”
“That’s more than I know. It isn’t English; it’s a saga of some kind. Listen!”
“Verbum caro, panem verum verbo carnem efficit;
Fitque sanguis Christi merum, et si sensus deficit,
Ad firmandum cor sincerum sola fides sufficit.”
These words the man on the raft sang in a low, deep, melodious voice, and Eddie longed to know what they meant.
“Ho! there; are we in the right track for Boseham?” called Biggun.
The man paused in his chant and looked up, showing a wistful, anxious countenance, that made Biggun form a poor opinion of him; but Wulfstan took directly to him, because of his honest, fearless, trustful eyes.
“Thou art in the right way. There it is, round that point on thy left, among those trees,” he answered, with a peculiar accent and foreign way of expressing himself.
“Ask him if he knows where those men live whom that man told us about. He called them some name I never heard before,” said Wulfstan.
“Canst tell me where some men live who know how to cure wounds?”
“Meanest thou the monks of Boseham, or, as some call us, the Irish?”
“Those are the men. I met a youth who said they could cure a poor lad I have here who is wounded.”
“Row alongside of me and let me look at him. I am one of the monks myself.”
“Praise be to Thor,” said old Biggun, “but the gods seem determined to make up for their treatment of us last night. Easy, Wulf, and let the old boat come alongside.”
Gently they glided up to the rude raft, and the monk, who had cast off his moorings, made his rope fast to their boat, and got over the side into it. They now observed that he had a few fish lying on his raft, and Wulfstan was much delighted at the sight.
“My son,” said the monk, stooping over Ædric, “where is the hurt?”
“Here, in this leg,” said Ædric, uncovering the skins with difficulty.
“Let me do it, my child,” said the monk, gently rolling them back and exposing a large and deep wound in the fleshy part of the calf, which had now become very stiff from cold and loss of blood.
“Ah! we will soon put that right,” he said, cheerfully, “if there are no bones broken. It is only about a mile to our huts, and Brother Dicoll knows what herbs soothe wounds of body, as well as of mind.”
“Shall we find food there? We are all hungry, and I could eat a bit of wolf and say thank-you if you would give it me.”
“There is not much, but such as we have is freely thine, for what saith holy Peter: ‘Hospitales invicem sinemurmuratione.’”
“What curious words he does use, Eddie, doesn’t he?” said Wulf, in an undertone, to his brother.
“Yes; but I like him. He’s quite as tender as Nurse Gytha, and does not make so much fuss; and I am sure he can tell us lots of sagas and stories.”
“And he can show me how to fish and make lines,” said Wulfstan.
They were now nearing the little settlement on the banks of the creek or inlet that has existed from these early days—the year 680—down to our own, and without much change; in fact, since Harold, about 320 years afterwards, started from Boseham on his luckless expedition to Normandy, the addition to the number of houses has probably been very small, although all have, of course, been frequently rebuilt. But the church is, in all likelihood, the one in which Harold worshipped, and, if tradition is correct, the great king Knut, or Canute, himself.4 The piece of sharp practice by which Earl Godwine obtained it from the Archbishop of Canterbury is hardly worthy of credence or mention.5 A few roofs scattered here and there could be seen nestling among thick woods which came down from the great Andredesweald, or Forest, which then spread from where Lewes now is to the borders of Dorset. This vast wilderness of trees and bush and scrub was then a great and impenetrable barrier, which shut off the little kingdom of the South Saxons, founded by the first Bretwalda Ælla, from the rest of their kin.
The abode of the wild boar, the wolf, and all other game that then roamed free in England, it was also the legendary home of the pixies, the gnomes, the wehr-wolves, and the witches, in all of whom the Saxons firmly believed. It also afforded a secure shelter for all outlaws and robbers, and had protected Cædwalla from the jealousy of his kinsman, Centwine.
“There are our poor huts, and there is our Dominus, or Abbas,” said the monk, pointing to a small cottage built of wooden logs, before which stood a tall and gaunt man, with hollow eyes and sunken checks, but with the same patient, wistful look that the other monk had. He was dressed in exactly the same way, and had his head shaven also.
There were one or two children playing about, and a few men were helping to push down an unmanageable boat, not unlike the one now arriving. These all stopped to gaze at the new comers, and before they got much nearer one of the men called out to know who they were and how many they had on board. The monk replied, and the answer appearing satisfactory, no further notice was taken of their arrival, except that the children crowded down to the landing-place, and stood open-mouthed with curiosity to see the strangers get out.
There was a rude kind of quay, made of rough logs laid one on the top of the other, and kept in their places by piles driven into the mud. The tide had now risen sufficiently to allow the boat to come alongside this, and as she glided up the tall monk came down to meet them. He spoke a few words in a language Biggun could not understand to the monk who had been fishing; and he then said to one of the children:
“Call brother Corman, and bid him bring down a bench, or settle.”
Meanwhile Ceolwulf had got on shore, and made the boat fast, and then slung the axe over his shoulder by a thong, and told Wulfstan to take one of the spears. But the monk advised him to put them down again, as no one was disposed to hurt them, and any signs of suspicion or defiance might arouse angry feelings.
“What is thy name, my boy?” said the superior monk to Eddie, whom he was now examining with the other monk, whom they had first met.
Ædric told his name, and the rank of his father, and what had happened. Such events in that lawless time were far too frequent to cause much surprise; but the monk seemed distressed nevertheless, more apparently at this fresh instance of the treachery, rapacity, and cruelty of man, than by reason of the actual circumstances related to him; for he sighed and murmured: “O generatio incredula et perversa quousque ero vobiscum!”
By this time another monk had joined the party, and now, under the directions of the abbot or superior, they carefully lifted Ædric out of the boat and up to the hut, before which the monk had been standing. They took him inside, and laid him down on a rough couch, in one corner, and then they gave him some bread and a little water.
“We will get better food presently,” said the superior; “but there is great difficulty in getting food here at all now, and the people suffer much.”
“Ah! thou mayst well say that,” said the first monk, whom the superior addressed by the name of Malachi. “Ever since that fearsome summer, when everything died for want of water, after the sun was darkened, the dearth has been dreadful; and after the dearth and drought came the plague. Verily God hath visited us! but what we have ye are welcome to; for did not our blessed Master say: ‘Beati misericordes quoniam ipsi misericordiam consequentur.’”
In attending to Ædric, the good monks had not forgotten Ceolwulf and Wulfstan, but had given them some of the same coarse fare they had set before Eddie.
“It strikes me,” said Ceolwulf, “that these woods ought to produce something better than this; and, after we’ve had enough to satisfy our hunger, we will go out and see if we can’t kill something.”
“Oh, do let us, Biggun; they will think much more of us if we can bring them something we have killed.”
The abbot of the little community, whose name was Dicoll, having finished his attention to Ædric’s leg for the present, came and stood by Wulfstan, and, stroking him kindly on the head, said that now he knew who he was, and what accident had driven them on their shore, he should like to ask him what he was going to do. “Did they know that Edilwalch, the king, had an alliance with Arwald, and had received Wihtea[6] as a grant from King Wulfhere,6 of Mercia, as a reward for his having been christened?”
This was news to Biggun, and he did not understand how Wulfhere could give away what he had not got. However, it was quite clear if Edilwalch was a friend of Arwald, he could not well be anything else but an enemy to Ælfhere, who had always supported the West Saxon domination, and had fought at Pontisbyryg, by the side of Coinwalch, the last powerful West Saxon king, when Wulfhere, of Mercia, defeated him. Biggun began to think they had only got from the frying-pan into the fire.
“As soon as possible it will be well to go to Wilfrid the Bishop, who has lately come to Sealchea,7 and has received eighty-seven hides of land, and a great number of slaves, all of whom, I hear, he has set at liberty. Truly, although he does observe Easter at a different time to us, and also shaves his head in a way that would have vexed the soul of the blessed Columba, yet he hath wrought a good work among these rude and pagan South Saxons, and may the Lord pardon him for his other irregularities.”
“But how can we take the boy there? he has already had enough journeying.”
“Leave him with us. Edilwalch is now engaged on an expedition against the men of Kent; at least, I know that two of his chief Thanes, Berethune and Andhune, have set out, and I understood he was to follow; so that, busied as he is, he will not have occasion to inquire about the sons of Ælfhere, even if he should hear that they have come. It is not, my sons, that I wish to be inhospitable, but we are poor people, and cannot treat our guests as we should like, nor could we protect the boys if Edilwalch were to demand them.”
“Well, I think that will be the best thing to do, and may Woden and Thor shield thee for thy kindness. If ever Ædric there gets his own again, he will give thee land over at Wihtea, where thou canst worship Thor in thine own way, and eat plenty and drink more.”
“Heathen, may the Holy One grant thee His blessing, and bring thee out of the darkness of iniquity wherein thou dwellest, and guide thee to a knowledge of His most blessed faith. And in that I doubt if thou ever heardest the name of our blessed Lord, there is much hope that thou mayest yet be saved. The Bishop Wilfrid will do much to lead thee to the right way; but be not led astray as to the time thou shouldest keep the holy feast of Easter. And, above all, reverence not the way in which that proud and erring man would have the servants of God to shave the crowns of their heads. I much mourn that I may not teach thee myself, for I perceive there are many errors thou mayest fall into; but the course I have prescribed I believe to be the best one for the safety of all. Wilfrid is a holy man in most respects, but I have cautioned thee beforehand of his errors.”
“Well, Wulf, we will go and get these good people something to eat. There’s no danger of meeting any who will do us harm, is there, Father?” said Biggun, yawning.
“Not if thou goest into the forest behind us, and I have heard there are plenty of four-footed beasts there; but beware of wolves and boars, for men say they have increased much of late, since all the land has been withered and wasted under the heavy hand of the Almighty, who has visited these poor people for their heathenish ways, I doubt not. We will care for Ædric here till thy return, and then brother Malachi shall show thee the road to Wilfrid to-morrow morning, after thou hast had a good night’s rest.”
“Oh, Biggun! I am so tired of all this talk, let’s go to the forest. Good-bye, Eddie; we won’t be gone long, and we shall be sure to bring back something better than they have got here.”
“I wish I could go too,” said Ædric, wistfully; “it seems such a long time since I walked, and, really, it is only yesterday that I was all right. Oh, what things have happened since yesterday!”
He watched the two figures out of the door, and the tears would well up in his eyes in spite of himself.
Brother Corman, who was just like the other two monks, except that he was not quite so sad-looking, came and sat down by him, while Malachi proceeded to prepare the fish he had caught, singing to himself the while, and occasionally exchanging a gentle remark with the children that came to look on as he scraped and cleaned the fish.
The tide had now risen to its full, and the scene was pretty. The still grey tones of the autumn day, the silent water, and the falling leaves, were all in harmony with the monkish chaunt, and the listless forms of the half-starved children. For, as Malachi had well said, the times were dreadful. Such a sore disease had followed the terrible famine, that men in these South Saxon marshes had begun to despair of life altogether, and many times he had seen as many as forty or fifty men, women, and children, drowning themselves for very weariness. They had no strength to till the land, and the land would not produce if they did till it. Their condition had become very desperate and pitiful. They did not seem to know how to fish, and, until Wilfrid had come, they had never attempted to get any food out of the sea. They were able to catch eels, but had become so utterly weary of life that they had rather perish than take any trouble to support themselves.
The worthy monks, who, as some men said, came from Scotland, and others from Ireland, had been doing a noble work. In the true spirit of missionaries, taking their life in their hands, they had left their lonely, but to them dearly loved, island home of Hii, or Iona, hallowed to them by the life and teaching of Columba, and had gone penniless and with nothing but the clothes they wore to teach the Gospel of Christ. “Freely ye have received, freely give,” was their motto. “Humility and the fear of the Lord” were their weapons, and they did not seek the blessings attached to these, viz., “riches, and honour, and strength,” except as they would redound to the glory of Him whom they served. Simple men they were as regards worldly affairs, naturally clinging to that wherein they were instructed; they put implicit faith in the precepts of their predecessors, who had professed and taught Christianity long before Augustine the Monk had set foot in England. They felt and believed that their Spiritual Father had been a Martyr for the Faith centuries before the hated Saxon, or Jute, or Angle, had left his swampy shore; and that they had received the faith from St. John, from Anatolius, and from Columba. While all Europe was overrun with the waves of barbarism, they had kept the pure light of the Gospel shining in the Western Islands, and it was gall and bitterness that now they were to change their customs and their fashions at the bidding of the emissary of the Bishop of Rome. Were these matters trifles? they urged. Be it so, then; and why make all this disturbance about them? Trifles, alas! in the poor mind of humanity, are very frequently more fought over than essentials. And to both Augustine and Wilfrid after him, zealous for the visible unity of the Church, it seemed a ridiculous thing, as well as pernicious, that these lowly monks, whom they affected to despise, should obstinately cling to their obsolete and unorthodox fashion. Alas! that the charity which suffereth long and is kind was so early forgotten. The poor Irish or Scotch missionaries were worsted in the controversy, because the power of the See of Rome was in the ascendant; but the purity and simplicity of their lives, their utter self-denial, and the piety of their teaching, made the way easier for the more famous men who followed after them, and who combined the fervour of a missionary with the grand ideal of Christian unity.
Corman, who was sitting by Ædric’s side, talked to him from time to time if he appeared restless, but tried chiefly to get him to go to sleep. The boy, however, was too much excited by the rapidity of the past events, and the fever caused by his wound, to be able to sleep, and an occasional restless sigh showed that he was thinking of his father and his home.
“When I grow up,” he burst out impatiently, “I will wreak full vengeance on that nithing Arwald, for all that he has done to my house and father. I swear by Wod——”
“Hush! Ædric, hush!” broke in Corman, interrupting him, and putting his cool hand upon the boy’s fevered brow. “Swear not, my son, by anything; least of all by the false gods of the heathen. And when thou hast lived longer with us, thou wilt not, I hope, wish to avenge thyself on any being, whatever may be the wrongs he has done thee.”
Ædric stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment.
“What, not make those suffer who have made me suffer? Why, I have always heard it is the first duty of a hero to deal starkly with his foe!” exclaimed the boy, indignantly. “What would my father say when I meet him in Valhalla if I have not cleft the head of Arwald or died in the attempt?”
“My son, I trust thou wilt meet him in a better Valhalla; but thou must not talk too much now. Thou wilt make thy leg worse. Drink this cooling drink, and I will tell thee tales which may, perchance, lull thee to sleep.”
Then Corman began to tell in soft, melodious words, a wondrous tale, the like of which Ædric had never heard before, but which is now so well known that its very familiarity tends to weaken its beauty. He told how all things were lovely, how all things pleased the Creator, how sin entered in, and then came death, and how death ended in victory. But he told it all so simply, and made it so like a saga, that Ædric thought he was listening to one of old Deva’s tales, and gradually sleep stole over him, and he sank into profound slumber.
Corman sat silently by his side, fearing to move, lest he should disturb him.
Presently Dicoll and Malachi came in, and they began the morning service, but in low tones; while outside the door of the hut a few women and children stood round to listen.
The inherent reverence of the Teutonic nature showed itself strongly in these rude, suffering, untaught South Saxons, and the monks already saw promise of future good.
By the welcome aid of healing arts they had gradually obtained a hold on the little settlement; and as their practical sympathy with physical suffering found ready scope in their power to deal with it, so the purity of their worship attracted the gentler natures of the more reflecting among the people.
The religion of the South Saxons, like that of all the Teutonic tribes, was calculated to promote reverence, and was yet so vague in its teaching as to oppose but slight obstacles to the approaches of Christianity. Their deities were the elements, and, like the Greeks, they worshipped a divinity in every object of nature. Rude temples they seem to have had, which, as in the story of Coifi, appear to have had but little hold on the people; and as there were no material advantages at stake, so the opposition offered to the Christian missionary was much less envenomed than is usually the case where vested interests are at hazard.
Indeed, the Christian missionaries found, in one very important particular, a decided gain in dealing with the Teutonic peoples as compared with the Christian but Romance nations. The sanctity of domestic life contrasted strongly with the habits and customs of the laxer peoples of the South, habituated to vice in all its forms, and among whom the pursuit of pleasure had become almost a science as well as a passion.
The spirit of scoffing, of ridicule, was absent. Such a spirit seems inconsistent with the gloom of the vast primeval forest, of the solitudes of the hunter, and the earnestness produced by the stern fight for existence. Luxury, laziness, the energy of the body directed to the amusement of a debased intellect, and an intellect pandering to the unwholesome passions of the body, all these were absent, and the Christian missionaries found themselves confronted with an almost primitive state of life.
Notes
1 The title conferred on, or assumed by, the most powerful among the various Saxon kings, from Ælla of Sussex to Egbert of Wessex. The word occurs first in the “Chronicles” under the year 827, and probably meant “Wielder, of Britain.” See Freeman’s “Norman Conquest,” note B in the Appendix, vol. i.
2 Now Redbridge, at the head of Southampton Water.
3 A lake is the local word for a creek running in among the mud banks.
4 According to a well sustained theory the church of Bosham is built on the site, and its walls partly consist of those, of a Roman basilica erected by Vespasian. The tower of the church, tradition says, was founded by St. Wilfrid. Thus this obscure Sussex village has been trodden by Vespasian, Titus, Wilfrid, Canute, Harold.
5 Walter Mapes (quoted by Camden in his “Britannia,” translated by Philemon Holland, edit. 1637) says:—“This Boseam, underneath Chichester, Goodwin saw, and had a minde to it. Being accompanied therefore with a great traine of gentlemen, he comes smiling unto the Archbishop of Canterburie, whose towne then it was. ‘My lord,’ sayth he, ‘give you me Boseam.’ The Archbishop, marvelling what he demanded by that question answered, ‘I give you Boseam.’ Then he, with his company of knights and soldiers, fell down, and, kissing his feet with many thanks, went back to Boseam and kept it.” The point appears to be in the play upon the word Boseam and Basium, kiss or “buss” which was used in performing homage—so says Camden.
6 Isle of Wight.
7 Selsea.