Chapter 8 JUSTICE IN BONDS.

A few mornings later the two worshipful justices of the king, Thomas de Muleton and Henry de Braybrooke, were riding together through the central part of the county, a few miles south of Bedford.

They had been engaged at Northampton in making preliminary arrangements for the great council which the king proposed to hold there in the summer, and having concluded that part of the business, were now journeying towards Dunstable to clear off certain matters which had been left unfinished, as their time there previously had been entirely taken up with examining the many suits brought before them against Fulke de Breauté.

They had entered the county from Northamptonshire by the ford through the Ouse at Turvey, and were riding leisurely along on their stout palfreys, with their serving-men jogging behind them, and discussed as they went grave legal questions and learned points of law.

For about eight miles after passing the ford, they took their way along the boundary-line between the counties of Bedford and Buckingham, in a southerly direction. Then turning eastward, they reached the amphitheatre of hills which encloses the vale of Bedford on the south-west. Passing the village of Cranfield and its Norman church, still in part existing, they rode under the old fortifications and earth-works of Brogborough--old even at that time--until at noon they reached the castle of Rougemount, standing on a red sandy hill (whence its name, corrupted in modern pronunciation and spelling into Ridgmount) and commanding the country to the north.

Here they were expected by the lord of the castle, the Baron Lisle, who had invited them to rest upon their journey and partake of his mid-day meal. Here also they had arranged to meet their colleague, Archdeacon Martin de Pateshulle, with whom they proposed to travel on to Dunstable.

As soon as the retreat at Elstow was over, the archdeacon had promised to come direct to Rougemount, but Lord Lisle had awaited him in vain. So when the other justices made their appearance, their host commanded the repast to be served, without any further waiting for the absent guest, whose non-arrival was unexplained.

Lord Lisle had exerted himself to provide a suitable entertainment for guests of such high degree as the lords justices of the king.

"'Twas now the merry hour of noon,

And in the lofty arched hall

Was spread the gorgeous festival.

Steward and squire, with heedful haste,

Marshalled the rank of every guest;

Pages with ready blade were there,

The mighty meal to carve and share.

O'er capon, heronshaw, and crane,

And princely peacock's gilded train,

And o'er the boar-head, garnished brave,

And cygnet......

The priest had spoke his benison."

At the high table sat the host, his distinguished visitors on either hand. Some of the notables of the neighbourhood were also present, among whom was the lord abbot of the abbey of Woburn hard by. The head of the Cistercian house, founded not a century before by Hugh de Bolebec, had already come to hold a high position in the county.

Thronging the hall and the castle-yard was a crowd of servants and retainers, who had accompanied their masters, many of them strangers not only to one another, but to the servants belonging to the castle. In those days any festivities at a great castle were attended by a motley crowd of hangers-on, such as beggars, travelling minstrels, and the like, who seemed to scent from afar the preparations for the banquet.

"Thronging the castle-yard was a crowd of servants and retainers."

On this occasion, however, these gentry were somewhat disappointed to find that the expected guests were to be grave judges and churchmen. The beggars, indeed, ranged themselves into position to ask for alms in the name of religion, but the minstrels and the jugglers felt themselves de trop. Finding their entertainments unacceptable to the guests, they betook themselves to an audience of grooms and varlets in the castle-yard.

The ancient seneschal of the castle, moving through the various groups, his keys of office jingling at his side, remarked a swarthy man of considerable height and size, who was evidently not connected with the Saxon peasants around him. He was wrapped in a long, large cloak.

"So ho, friend! and whence comest thou?" asked the seneschal.

The nondescript stranger answered him in French; not in the Norman-French which his interlocutor could easily have followed, but in a dialect imperfectly known to the worthy head of the household of Lord Lisle.

"I come from distant lands, noble seneschal. I chant love-lays to fair ladies' ears."

"We have e'en no ladies here anon," replied the functionary gruffly, "naught but abbots and justices. So get thee gone!"

At the mention of the word "justices" a momentary gleam of satisfaction passed over the swarthy face of the stranger.

"Justices, good my lord seneschal?" he repeated.

"Yea, justices," retorted the seneschal, not noting the look. "Art deaf, man? My lord the king's justices who travel towards Dunstable. Did you jongleurs expect a bevy of giddy damsels and young gallants?"

The burden of his duties had made Lord Lisle's officer somewhat testy.

"But perchance, with your good leave, I may sing to my lords the justices' serving-men a song of fair France; or a love chansonnette will I teach them, wherewith to tingle the ears of their Saxon gills?"

"As you will, man," answered the seneschal with a shrug, turning away, "an you find fools to listen to such trash!"

"Thanks for your leave, good sir," the stranger called after him, with a queer twinkle in his dark eye. Then he turned to one of De Braybrooke's men, staring open-mouthed and stolid at the strange dialect and stranger countenance. "Wilt list to a song, friend? It hath a refrain will ring in thy ears and cheer thee on thy long journey."

"A long journey! Gramercy, a mole might see as how thou art a stranger in these parts. A long journey to Dunstable, forsooth!"

"And is it not far?"

"Nine miles as the crow flies, I trows, and but eke some ten the way we ride, through the woodland, by way of Eversholt," replied the varlet, with a snigger of contempt.

"Aver--aver--sole," repeated the dark stranger, mispronouncing the name. "This English tongue cracks the jaw!"

"Marry, he stammereth like a cuckoo at hay-harvest," jeered the other. "Say it plain, man--Eversholt."

"Gather your fellows together while I go fetch my rebec I left at the gate-house, and, pardie, you shall see what you shall see, and hear what you shall hear," retorted the stranger imperturbably. But as he strode across the yard, the serving-man, had he not been so busily engaged mimicking the Frenchman's accent to his companions, might have noticed an armed heel glitter beneath the folds of his cloak.

The day was wearing on ere the justices could tear themselves away from Lord Lisle's hospitable board and once more proceed on their journey.

Southwards, beyond Rougemount, the country becomes more wooded. In the higher parts of Woburn Park old timber trees even now show where once the forest extended round the famous Cistercian abbey. In the midst of this district stands a village, whose name, Eversholt--the holt, or wood, of the efer or wild boar--still hands down the characteristics of the neighbourhood.

Into this wood, in the waning afternoon, rode, unsuspectingly, the two justices, engaged in a warm discussion over some quibble of the law.

"Now, by my troth, brother Thomas," De Braybrooke was saying, "all our jurisconsults are agreed that if the judge be free to act--"

He stopped short, and never finished his sentence, for he was "free to act" no longer.

With a fierce cry of "A De Breauté! a De Breauté!" armed men rushed down from either side of the road upon the hapless representatives of the law, and surrounded them ere they could recover from their stupefaction.

"Let the varlets go free!" cried William de Breauté. "We have no need of grooms!" he added, as he saw his men seizing the bridles of the servants' horses as well as those of their masters.

It was a lucky cry for Thomas de Muleton, for it led to his escape. By some mistake, the men who held his horse, not distinguishing in the confusion between master and man, released their hold, and his servants, closing round him, hurried him back along the woodland bridle-path towards Rougemount.

Too late De Breauté saw the error. But De Muleton and his men had put spurs to their horses, and he and his men-at-arms were all dismounted, their horses tethered to the trees, or held by some of the band. Pursuit was out of the question, even had the marauders dared to follow up their prey to the very walls of Rougemount Castle.

William de Breauté's rage knew no bounds when he became aware that but one of the desired prisoners had been secured. Swearing roundly at his men for their blunder, he struck the unfortunate serving-man who had been detained instead of his master a blow with the flat of his sword which nearly knocked him off his horse, and allowed him to ride away after his fellows.

"Pardie!" he swore. "We trouble not ourselves with dogs that can pay no ransom. Get you gone!"

Disgusted with the less than half success of his scheme, he ordered his men to remount, and the party rode off rapidly towards Bedford, the hapless Henry de Braybrooke well guarded in their midst. De Breauté's rage was a little softened, however, when he learned that he had not missed two of his prey--that Martin de Pateshulle had not been of the party, though as to his whereabouts De Braybrooke could give no information.