The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories Read online

  The Highwaymen

  Tom o' the Roads had ridden his last ride, and was now alone in thenight. From where he was, a man might see the white recumbent sheepand the black outline of the lonely downs, and the grey line of thefarther and lonelier downs beyond them; or in hollows far below him,out of the pitiless wind, he might see the grey smoke of hamletsarising from black valleys. But all alike was black to the eyes ofTom, and all the sounds were silence in his ears; only his soulstruggled to slip from the iron chains and to pass southwards intoParadise. And the wind blew and blew.

  For Tom tonight had nought but the wind to ride; they had taken histrue black horse on the day when they took from him the green fieldsand the sky, men's voices and the laughter of women, and had lefthim alone with chains about his neck to swing in the wind for ever.And the wind blew and blew.

  But the soul of Tom o' the Roads was nipped by the cruel chains, andwhenever it struggled to escape it was beaten backwards into theiron collar by the wind that blows from Paradise from the south.And swinging there by the neck, there fell away old sneers from offhis lips, and scoffs that he had long since scoffed at God fell fromhis tongue, and there rotted old bad lusts out of his heart, andfrom his fingers the stains of deeds that were evil; and they allfell to the ground and grew there in pallid rings and clusters. Andwhen these ill things had all fallen away, Tom's soul was cleanagain, as his early love had found it, a long while since in spring;and it swung up there in the wind with the bones of Tom, and withhis old torn coat and rusty chains.

  And the wind blew and blew.

  And ever and anon the souls of the sepultured, coming fromconsecrated acres, would go by beating up wind to Paradise past theGallows Tree and past the soul of Tom, that might not go free.

  Night after night Tom watched the sheep upon the downs with emptyhollow sockets, till his dead hair grew and covered his poor deadface, and hid the shame of it from the sheep. And the wind blew andblew.

  Sometimes on gusts of the wind came someone's tears, and beat andbeat against the iron chains, but could not rust them through.And the wind blew and blew.

  And every evening all the thoughts that Tom had ever uttered cameflocking in from doing their work in the world, the work that maynot cease, and sat along the gallows branches and chirrupped to thesoul of Tom, the soul that might not go free. All the thoughts thathe had ever uttered! And the evil thoughts rebuked the soul thatbore them because they might not die. And all those that he haduttered the most furtively, chirrupped the loudest and the shrillestin the branches all the night.

  And all the thoughts that Tom had ever thought about himself nowpointed at the wet bones and mocked at the old torn coat. But thethoughts that he had had of others were the only companions that hissoul had to soothe it in the night as it swung to and fro. And theytwittered to the soul and cheered the poor dumb thing that couldhave dreams no more, till there came a murderous thought and drovethem all away.

  And the wind blew and blew.

  Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence, lay in his white sepulchre ofmarble, facing full to the southwards towards Paradise. And overhis tomb was sculptured the Cross of Christ, that his soul mighthave repose. No wind howled here as it howled in lonely tree-topsup upon the downs, but came with gentle breezes, orchard scented,over the low lands from Paradise from the southwards, and playedabout forget-me-nots and grasses in the consecrated land where laythe Reposeful round the sepulchre of Paul, Archbishop of Alois andVayence. Easy it was for a man's soul to pass from such asepulchre, and, flitting low over remembered fields, to come uponthe garden lands of Paradise and find eternal ease.

  And the wind blew and blew.

  In a tavern of foul repute three men were lapping gin. Their nameswere Joe and Will and the gypsy Puglioni; none other names had they,for of whom their fathers were they had no knowledge, but only darksuspicions.

  Sin had caressed and stroked their faces often with its paws, butthe face of Puglioni Sin had kissed all over the mouth and chin.Their food was robbery and their pastime murder. All of them hadincurred the sorrow of God and the enmity of man. They sat at atable with a pack of cards before them, all greasy with the marks ofcheating thumbs. And they whispered to one another over their gin,but so low that the landlord of the tavern at the other end of theroom could hear only muffled oaths, and knew not by Whom they sworeor what they said.

  These three were the staunchest friends that ever God had given untoa man. And he to whom their friendship had been given had nothingelse besides, saving some bones that swung in the wind and rain, andan old torn coat and iron chains, and a soul that might not go free.

  But as the night wore on the three friends left their gin and stoleaway, and crept down to that graveyard where rested in his sepulchrePaul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence. At the edge of thegraveyard, but outside the consecrated ground, they dug a hastygrave, two digging while one watched in the wind and rain. Andthe worms that crept in the unhallowed ground wondered and waited.

  And the terrible hour of midnight came upon them with its fears, andfound them still beside the place of tombs. And the three friendstrembled at the horror of such an hour in such a place, and shiveredin the wind and drenching rain, but still worked on. And the windblew and blew.

  Soon they had finished. And at once they left the hungry grave withall its worms unfed, and went away over the wet fields stealthilybut in haste, leaving the place of tombs behind them in themidnight. And as they went they shivered, and each man as heshivered cursed the rain aloud. And so they came to the spot wherethey had hidden a ladder and a lantern. There they held long debatewhether they should light the lantern, or whether they should gowithout it for fear of the King's men. But in the end it seemed tothem better that they should have the light of their lantern, andrisk being taken by the King's men and hanged, than that they shouldcome suddenly face to face in the darkness with whatever one mightcome face to face with a little after midnight about the GallowsTree.

  On three roads in England whereon it was not the wont of folk to gotheir ways in safety, travellers tonight went unmolested. But thethree friends, walking several paces wide of the King's highway,approached the Gallows Tree, and Will carried the lantern and Joethe ladder, but Puglioni carried a great sword wherewith to do thework which must be done. When they came close, they saw how bad wasthe case with Tom, for little remained of that fine figure of a manand nothing at all of his great resolute spirit, only as they camethey thought they heard a whimpering cry like the sound of a thingthat was caged and unfree.

  To and fro, to and fro in the winds swung the bones and the soul ofTom, for the sins that he had sinned on the King's highway againstthe laws of the King; and with shadows and a lantern through thedarkness, at the peril of their lives, came the three friends thathis soul had won before it swung in chains. Thus the seeds of Tom'sown soul that he had sown all his life had grown into a Gallows Treethat bore in season iron chains in clusters; while the carelessseeds that he had strewn here and there, a kindly jest and a fewmerry words, had grown into the triple friendship that would notdesert his bones.

  Then the three set the ladder against the tree, and Puglioni went upwith his sword in his right hand, and at the top of it he reached upand began to hack at the neck below the iron collar. Presently, thebones and the old coat and the soul of Tom fell down with a rattle,and a moment afterwards his head that had watched so long aloneswung clear from the swinging chain. These things Will and Joegathered up, and Puglioni came running down his ladder, and theyheaped upon its rungs the terrible remains of their friend, andhastened away wet through with the rain, with the fear of phantomsin their hearts and horror lying before them on the ladder. By twoo'clock they were down again in the valley out of the bitter wind,but they went on past the open grave into the graveyard all amongthe tombs, with their lantern and their ladder and the terriblething upon it, which kept their friendship still. Then these three,that had robbed the Law of its due and proper victim, still sinnedon for
what was still their friend, and levered out the marble slabsfrom the sacred sepulchre of Paul, Archbishop of Alois and Vayence.And from it they took the very bones of the Archbishop himself, andcarried them away to the eager grave that they had left, and putthem in and shovelled back the earth. But all that lay on theladder they placed, with a few tears, within the great whitesepulchre under the Cross of Christ, and put back the marble slabs.

  Thence the soul of Tom, arising hallowed out of sacred ground, wentat dawn down the valley, and, lingering a little about his mother'scottage and old haunts of childhood, passed on and came to the widelands beyond the clustered homesteads. There, there met with it allthe kindly thoughts that the soul of Tom had ever had, and they flewand sang beside it all the way southwards, until at last, withsinging all about it, it came to Paradise.

  But Will and Joe and the gypsy Puglioni went back to their gin, androbbed and cheated again in the tavern of foul repute, and knew notthat in their sinful lives they had sinned one sin at which theAngels smiled.