The Roots of the Mountains Page 11

  CHAPTER X. NEW TIDINGS IN THE DALE.

  IT was three days thereafter that Gold-mane, leading an ass, went alongthe highway to fetch home certain fleeces which were needed for the housefrom a stead a little west of Wildlake; but he had gone scant half a mileere he fell in with a throng of folk going to Burgstead. They were ofthe Shepherds; they had weapons with them, and some were clad in coats offence. They went along making a great noise, for they were all talkingeach to each at the same time, and seemed very hot and eager about somematter. When they saw Gold-mane anigh, they stopped, and the throngopened as if to let him into their midmost; so he mingled with them, andthey stood in a ring about him and an old man more ill-favoured than itwas the wont of the Dalesmen to be.

  For he was long, stooping, gaunt and spindle-shanked, his hands big andcrippled with gout: his cheeks were red after an old man’s fashion,covered with a crimson network like a pippin; his lips thin and not wellhiding his few teeth; his nose long like a snipe’s neb. In short, ashame and a laughing-stock to the Folk, and a man whom the kindreds hadin small esteem, and that for good reasons.

  Face-of-god knew him at once for a notable close-fist and starve-all foolof the Shepherds; and his name was now become Penny-thumb the Lean,whatever it might once have been.

  So Face-of-god greeted all men, and they him again; and he said: ‘Whataileth you, neighbours? Your weapons, are bare, but I see not that theybe bloody. What is it, goodman Penny-thumb?’

  Penny-thumb did but groan for all answer; but a stout carle who stood bywith a broad grin on his face answered and said:

  ‘Face-of-god, evil tidings be abroad; the strong-thieves of the wood areastir; and some deem that the wood-wights be helping them.’

  ‘Yea, and what is the deed they have done?’ said Gold-mane.

  Said the carle: ‘Thou knowest Penny-thumb’s abode?’

  ‘Yea surely,’ said Face-of-god; ‘fair are the water-meadows about it;great gain of cheese can be gotten thence.’

  ‘Hast thou been within the house?’ said the carle.

  ‘Nay,’ said Gold-mane.

  Then spake Penny-thumb: ‘Within is scant gear: we gather for others toscatter; we make meat for others’ mouths.’

  The carle laughed: ‘Sooth is that,’ said he, ‘that there is little geartherein now; for the strong-thieves have voided both hall and bower andbyre.’

  ‘And when was that?’ said Face-of-god.

  ‘The night before last night,’ said the carle, ‘the door was smitten on,and when none answered it was broken down.’

  ‘Yea,’ quoth Penny-thumb, ‘a host entered, and they in arms.’

  ‘No host was within,’ said the carle, ‘nought but Penny-thumb and hissister and his sister’s son, and three carles that work for him; and oneof them, Rusty to wit, was the worst man of the hill-country. These thenthe host whereof the goodman telleth bound, but without doing them anyscathe; and they ransacked the house, and took away much gear; yet leftsome.’

  ‘Thou liest,’ said Penny-thumb; ‘they took little and left none.’

  Thereat all men laughed, for this seemed to them good game, and anotherman said: ‘Well, neighbour Penny-thumb, if it was so little, thou hastdone unneighbourly in giving us such a heap of trouble about it.’

  And they laughed again, but the first carle said: ‘True it is, goodman,that thou wert exceeding eager to raise the hue and cry after that littlewhen we happed upon thee and thy housemates bound in your chairsyesterday morning. Well, Alderman’s son, short is the tale to tell: wecould not fail to follow the gear, and the slot led us into the wood, andill is the going there for us shepherds, who are used to the bare downs,save Rusty, who was a good woodsman and lifted the slot for us; so heoutwent us all, and ran out of sight of us, so presently we came upon himdead-slain, with the manslayer’s spear in his breast. What then could wedo but turn back again, for now was the wood blind now Rusty was dead,and we knew not whither to follow the fray; and the man himself was butlittle loss: so back we turned, and told goodman Penny-thumb of all this,for we had left him alone in his hall lamenting his gear; so we bidedto-day’s morn, and have come out now, with our neighbour and the spear,and the dead corpse of Rusty. Stand aside, neighbours, and let theAlderman’s son see it.’

  They did so, and there was the corpse of a thin-faced tall wiry man,somewhat foxy of aspect, lying on a hand-bier covered with black cloth.

  ‘Yea, Face-of-god,’ said the carle, ‘he is not good to see now he isdead, yet alive was he worser: but, look you, though the man was no goodman, yet was he of our people, and the feud is with us; so we would seethe Alderman, and do him to wit of the tidings, that he may call theneighbours together to seek a blood-wite for Rusty and atonement for theransacking. Or what sayest thou?’

  ‘Have ye the spear that ye found in Rusty?’ quoth Gold-mane.

  ‘Yea verily,’ said the carle. ‘Hither with it, neighbours; give it tothe Alderman’s son.’

  So the spear came into his hand, and he looked at it and said:

  ‘This is no spear of the smiths’ work of the Dale, as my father will tellyou. We take but little keep of the forging of spearheads here, so thatthey be well-tempered and made so as to ride well on the shaft; but thishead, daintily is it wrought, the blood-trench as clean and trim asthough it were an Earl’s sword. See you withal this inlaying of runes onthe steel? It is done with no tin or copper, but with very silver; andthese bands about the shaft be of silver also. It is a fair weapon, andthe owner hath a loss of it greater than his gain in the slaying ofRusty; and he will have left it in the wound so that he might be knownhereafter, and that he might be said not to have murdered Rusty but tohave slain him. Or how think ye?’

  They all said that this seemed like to be; but that if the man who hadslain Rusty were one of the ransackers they might have a blood-wite ofhim, if they could find him. Gold-mane said that so it was, andtherewithal he gave the shepherds good-speed and went on his way.

  But they came to Burgstead and found the Alderman, and in due time was aCourt held, and a finding uttered, and outlawry given forth for themanslaying and the ransacking against certain men unknown. As for thespear, it was laid up in the House of the Face.

  But Face-of-god pondered these matters in his mind, for such ransackingsthere had been none of in late years; and he said to himself that hisfriends of the Mountain must have other folk, of which the Dalesmen knewnought, whose gear they could lift, or how could they live in that place.And he marvelled that they should risk drawing the Dalesmen’s wrath uponthem; whereas they of the Dale were strong men not easily daunted, albeitpeaceable enough if not stirred to wrath. For in good sooth he had nodoubt concerning that spear, whose it was and whence it came: for thatvery weapon had been leaning against the panel of his shut-bed the nighthe slept on the Mountain, and all the other spears that he saw there weremore or less of the same fashion, and adorned with silver.

  Albeit all that he knew, and all that he thought of, he kept in his ownheart and said nothing of it.

  So wore the autumn into early winter; and the Westland merchants came indue time, and departed without Face-of-god, though his father made himthat offer one last time. He went to and fro about his work in the Dale,and seemed to most men’s eyes nought changed from what he had been. Butthe Bride noted that he saw her less often than his wont was, and abodewith her a lesser space when he met her; and she could not think whatthis might mean; nor had she heart to ask him thereof, though she wassorry and grieved, but rather withdrew her company from him somewhat; andwhen she perceived that he noted it not, and made no question of it, thenwas she the sorrier.

  But the first winter-snow came on with a great storm of wind from thenorth-east, so that no man stirred abroad who was not compelled thereto,and those who went abroad risked life and limb thereby. Next morning allwas calm again, and the snow was deep, but it did not endure long, forthe wind shifted to the southwest and the thaw came, and three daysafter, when folk could fare easily again
up and down the Dale, cametidings to Burgstead and the Alderman from the Lower Dale, how a housecalled Greentofts had been ransacked there, and none knew by whom. Nowthe goodman of Greentofts was little loved of the neighbours: he wasgrasping and overbearing, and had often cowed others out of their due: hewas very cross-grained, both at home and abroad: his wife had fled fromhis hand, neither did his sons find it good to abide with him:therewithal he was wealthy of goods, a strong man and a deft man-at-arms.When his sons and his wife departed from him, and none other of theDalesmen cared to abide with him, he went down into the Plain, and gotthence men to be with him for hire, men who were not well seen to intheir own land. These to the number of twelve abode with him, and didhis bidding whenso it pleased them. Two more had he had who had beenslain by good men of the Dale for their masterful ways; and no blood-witehad been paid for them, because of their ill-doings, though they had notbeen made outlaws. This man of Greentofts was called Harts-bane afterhis father, who was a great hunter.

  Now the full tidings of the ransacking were these: The storm began twohours before sunset, and an hour thereafter, when it was quite dark, forwithout none could see because the wind was at its height and the driftof the snow was hard and full, the hall-door flew open; and at first menthought it had been the wind, until they saw in the dimness (for alllights but the fire on the hearth had been quenched) certain thingstumbling in which at first they deemed were wolves; but when they tookswords and staves against them, lo they were met by swords and axes, andthey saw that the seeming wolves were men with wolf-skins drawn overthem. So the new-comers cowed them that they threw down their weapons,and were bound in their places; but when they were bound, and had hadtime to note who the ransackers were, they saw that there were but six ofthem all told, who had cowed and bound Harts-bane and his twelvemasterful men; and this they deemed a great shaming to them, as mightwell be.

  So then the stead was ransacked, and those wolves took away what theywould, and went their ways through the fierce storm, and none could tellwhether they had lived or died in it; but at least neither the men northeir prey were seen again; nor did they leave any slot, for next morningthe snow lay deep over everything.

  No doubt had Gold-mane but that these ransackers were his friends of theMountain; but he held his peace, abiding till the winter should be over.