nevertheless took a thoughtful look at Hugh Beringar, and addressed himself
rather to the secular justice.
“True
enough, my lord! We found the place some days past. We’d got word of these
outlaws passing through the woods, though they never came near the villages,
and then this master-carpenter and his fellow came back to us and told us what
had befallen them, and we did what we could for them to set them on their way
back to Shrewsbury. I reasoned like you, my lord, that they’d rid themselves of
the load, it would only slow them down. I’ll take you to the place. It’s a
couple of miles into the forest.”
He
added nothing more until he had brought them deep into thick woodland, threaded
by a single open ride, where deep wheel-ruts still showed here and there in the
moist ground, even after so many days. The marauders had simply backed the
wagon into a relatively open grove, and tipped the stack of wood headlong,
raking out the last slim cordwood and dragging the cart away from under them.
It did not surprise Hugh to see that the stack had been scattered abroad from
the original untidy pile dumped thus, and most of the seasoned timber removed,
leaving the flattened bushes plain to be seen. Thrifty villagers had sorted out
the best for their own uses, present or future. Give them time, and the rest of
the coppice-wood would also find a good home. The reeve, attendant at Hugh’s
elbow, eyed him sidelong, and said insinuatingly: “You’ll not think it ill of
good husbandmen to take what God sends and be grateful for it?”
Herluin
remarked, but with controlled resignation: “This was the property of Ramsey
Abbey, nevertheless.”
“Why,
Father, there was but a few of us, those who talked with the lads from
Shrewsbury, ever knew that. The first here were from an assart only cut from
the woods a few years back, it was a godsend indeed to them. Why leave it to go
to waste? They never saw the wagon or the men that brought it here. And the
earl gives us the right to take fallen wood, and this was long felled.”
“As
well mending a roof as lying here,” said Hugh, shrugging. “Small blame to
them.” The heap of logs, probed and hauled apart days since, had spread over
the woodland ride and into the tangle of grass and undergrowth among the trees.
They walked the circuit of it, sifting among the remains, and Nicol, who had
strayed a little further afield, suddenly uttered a shout, and plunging among
the bushes, caught up and brandished before their eyes the small coffer which
had held Herluin’s treasury. Broken apart by force, the lid splintered, the box
shed a handful of stones and a drift of dead leaves as he turned it upside down
and shook it ruefully.
“You
see? You see? They never got the key from me, they never would have got it, but
that was no hindrance. A dagger prizing under the lid, close by the lock... And
all that good alms and good will gone to rogues and vagabonds!”
“I
expected no better,” said Herluin bitterly, and took the broken box in his
hands to stare at the damage. “Well, we have survived even worse, and shall
survive this loss also. There were times when I feared our house was lost for
ever. This is but a stumble on the way, we shall make good what we have vowed,
in spite of all.”
Small
chance, however, reflected Hugh, of recovering these particular gifts. All
Shrewsbury’s giving, whether from the heart or the conscience, all Donata’s
surrendered vanities, relinquished without regret, all gone with the fugitive
ruffians, how far distant already there was no guessing.
“So
this is all,” said Prior Robert sadly.
“My
lord...” The reeve edged closer to Hugh’s shoulder and leaned confidingly to
his ear. “My lord, there was something else found among the logs. Well hidden
underneath it was, or either the rogues would have found it when they tipped
the load, or else the first who came to carry off timber would
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