THE PURSUIT.
"Now tell me thy name, good fellow, said he,
Under the leaves of lyne.
Nay, by my faith, quoth bold Robin,
Till thou have told mo thine."
ROBIN HOOD AND GUY OF GISBORNE.
Until the last glimmer of daylight had faded out in the west, and
total darkness had prevailed for several hours through the forest,
Eadwulf remained a prisoner in his hollow trunk, unable to discover
the whereabout of his enemies, yet well-assured that they had not
returned, but had taken up some bivouac for the night, not very far in
advance of his hiding-place, with the intention of again seeking for
his trail on the morrow, when they judged that he would have once more
taken the road. But as soon as, looking up the chimney-like aperture
of his hiding-place, he discovered the foliage silvered by the
moonbeams, he scaled the inside of the trunk, not without some
difficulty, working his way upward with his back and knees, after the
fashion of a modern chimney-sweep, and, emerging into the open air,
drew a long breath, and again lowered himself as he had ascended, by
the drooping-branches, and once more entered the channel of the
stream. The rivulet was in this place shallow, with a hard bottom, the
current which was swift and noisy, scarce rising to his knee, so that
he waded down it without much difficulty, and at a tolerable speed.
After he had proceeded in this manner about two miles, he discovered a
red-light in an open glade of the forest, at a short distance ahead,
on the left bank of the river; and, as he came abreast of it, readily
discovered his enemies, with the bloodhounds in their leashes, sitting
or lying around a fire which they had kindled, ready, it was evident,
to resume the search with the earliest dawn. This he was enabled to
discern without quitting the bed of the stream, whose brawling ripples
drowned the sound of his footsteps; and as the water deepened
immediately ahead of him, he again plunged noiselessly, and swam
forward at least two miles farther; when, calculating that he had
given them a task of two or three hours at least before they could
succeed in finding where he had quitted the water-course, if he had
not entirely thrown them out, he took land on the opposite side to
that, on which they were posted, and struck at his best pace across
the waste.
It might have been ten o'clock in the evening when he left the
oak-tree, and, though weary and hungry, he plodded forward at a steady
pace, never falling short of four miles an hour, and often greatly
exceeding that speed, where the ground favored his running, until
perhaps an hour before daybreak. At that darkest moment of the night,
after the moon had set, he paused in a little hollow of the hills,
having placed, as he calculated, at least five-and-thirty miles
between himself and his hunters, lighted a fire, cooked a portion of
his venison, and again, just as the skies began to brighten, got under
way, supposing that at about this hour his foes would resume their
search, and might probably in a couple of hours get the hounds again
upon his scent. Ere that, however, he should have gained another ten
miles on them, and he well knew that the scent would be so cold that
it would be many hours more before they could hunt it up, if they
should succeed in doing so at all.
All day, until the sun was high at noon, he strode onward across the
barren heath and wild moors into which the forest had now subsided,
when, after catching from a hill-top a distant view of a town and
castle to the northward, which he rightly judged to be Skipton, he
reached an immense tract, seeming almost interminable, of green, oozy
morasses, cut up by rivulets and streamlets, and often intersected by
dangerous bogs, from which flowed the interlinked tributaries of the
Eyre, the Ribble, and the Hodder. Through this tract, he was well
aware, neither horse could follow nor bloodhound track him; and it was
overgrown in so many places with dense brakes of willow and alder,
that his flight could not be discovered by the eye from any of the
surrounding eminences. Into this dreary region he, therefore, plunged
joyously, feeling half-secure, and purposely selecting the deepest and
wettest portions of the bog, and, where he could do so without losing
the true line of his course, wading along the water-courses until
about two in the afternoon, when he reached an elevated spot or island
in the marsh, covered with thrifty underwood, and there, having fed
sparingly on the provision he had cooked on the last evening, made
himself a bed in the heather, and slept undisturbed, and almost
lethargically, until the moon was up in the skies. Then he again
cooked and ate; but, before resuming his journey, he climbed a small
ash-tree, which overlooked the level swamp, and thence at once
descried three watch-fires, blazing brilliantly at three several spots
on the circumference of the morass, one almost directly ahead of him,
and nearly at the spot where he proposed to issue on to the wild
heathery moors of Bolland Forest, on the verge of the counties of York
and Lancaster, and within fifty miles of the provincial capital and
famous sands of the latter. By these fires he judged easily that thus
far they had traced him, and found the spot where he had entered the
bogs, the circuit of which they were skirting, in order once more to
lay the death-hounds on his track, where ever he should again strike
the firm ground.
In one hour after perceiving the position of his pursuers, he passed
out of the marsh at about a mile north of the western-most watch-fire,
and, in order as much as possible to baffle them, crawled for a couple
of hundred yards up a shallow runnel of water, which drained down from
the moorland into the miry bottom land.
Once more he had secured a start of six hours over the Normans, but
with this disadvantage--that they would have little difficulty in
finding his trail on the morrow, and that the country which he had to
traverse was so open, that he dared not attempt to journey over it by
daylight.
Forward he fared, therefore, though growing very weak and weary, for
he was foot-sore and exhausted, and chilled with his long immersion in
the waters, until the sun had been over the hills for about two hours,
much longer than which he dared not trust himself on the moors, when
he began to look about eagerly for some water-course or extensive bog,
by which he might again hope to avoid the scent of the unerring
hounds.
None such appeared, however, and desperately he plodded onward, almost
despairing and utterly exhausted, without a hope of escaping by speed
of foot, and seeing no longer a hope of concealment. Suddenly when the
sun was getting high, and he began to expect, at every moment, the
sounds of the death-dogs opening behind him, he crossed the brow of a
round-topped heathery hill, crested with crags of gray limestone, and
from its brow, at some thirty miles distance, faintly discerned the
glimmering expanse of Morecambe Bay, and the great fells of
Westmoreland and Cumberland looming up like blue clouds beyond them.
But through the narrow ghyll, immediately at his feet, a brawling
stream rushed noisily down the steep gorge from the north, southerly.
Headlong he leaped down to it, through the tall heather, which here
grew rank, and overtopped his head, but before he reached it, he
blundered into a knot of six or seven men, sleeping on a bare spot of
greensward, round the extinct ashes of a fire, and the carcass of a
deer, which they had slain, and on which they had broken their fast.
Startled by his rapid and unceremonious intrusion into their circle,
the men sprang to their feet with the speed of light, each laying a
cloth-yard arrow to the string of a bended long-bow, bidding him
"Stand, or die."
For a moment, he thought his hour was come; but the next glance
reassured him, and he saw that his fortune had again brought him
safety, in the place of ruin.
The men were Saxons, outlaws, fugitives from the Norman tyranny, and
several of them, like himself, serfs escaped from the cruelty of their
masters. One of them had joined the party so recently, that, like
Eadwulf, he yet wore the brazen collar about his neck, the badge of
servitude and easy means of detection, of which he had not yet found
the means to rid himself.
A few words sufficed to describe his piteous flight, and to win the
sympathy and a promise of protection from the outlaws; but when the
bloodhounds were named, and their probably close proximity, they
declared with one voice that there was not a moment to be lost, and
that they could shelter him without a possibility of danger.
Without farther words, one by one they entered the brook, scattering
into it as if they were about to pass down it to the southward, but
the moment their feet were in the water, turning upward and ascending
the gorge, which grew wilder and steeper as they proceeded, until, at
a mile's distance, they came to a great circular cove of rocks, walled
in by crags of three hundred feet in height, with the little stream
plunging down it, at the upward extremity, small in volume, but
sprinkling the staircase of rocks, down which it foamed, with
incessant sheets of spray.
Scarcely had they turned the projecting shoulder of rock which guarded
the entrance of this stern circle, before the distant bay of the
bloodhounds came heavily down the air; and, at the same instant, the
armed party galloped over the brow of the bare moor which Eadwulf had
passed so recently, cheering the fierce dogs to fresh exertions, and
expecting, so hotly did their sagacious guides press upon the recent
trail, to see the fugitive fairly before them.
Much to their wonder, however, though the country lay before their
eyes perfectly open, in a long stretch of five or six miles, without a
bush, a brake, or apparently a hollow which could conceal a man if he
were in motion, he was not to be discovered within the limits of the
horizon.
"By St. Paul!" exclaimed the foremost rider; shading his eyes with his
hand, to screen them from the rays of the level sun, "he can not have
gained so much on us as to have got already beyond the range of
eyeshot. He must have laid up in the heather. At all events, we are
sure of him. Forward! forward! Halloo! hark, forward!"
Animated by his cheering cry, the dogs dashed onward furiously,
reached the brink of the rill, and were again at fault. "Ha! he is at
his old tricks again;" shouted the leader, who was no other than
Hugonet, surnamed the Black, the brother of the murdered bailiff. "But
it shall not avail him. We will beat the brook on both banks, up and
down, to its source and to its mouth, if it needs, but we will have
him. You, Wetherall, follow it northerly to the hills with six spears
and three couple of the hounds. I will ride down toward the sea; I
fancy that will prove to be the line he has taken. If they hit off the
scent, or you catch a view of him, blow me five mots upon your bugle,
thus, _sa-sa-wa-la-roa_! and, lo! in good time, here comes Sir Foulke."
And thundering up on his huge Norman war-horse, cursing furiously when
he perceived that the hounds were at fault, came that formidable
baron; for his enormous weight had kept him far in the rear of his
lighter-armed, and less ponderous vassals. His presence stimulated
them to fresh exertions, but all exertions were in vain.
Evening fell on the wide purple moorlands, and they had found no track
of him they sought. Wetherall, after making a long sweep around the
cove and the waterfall, and tracing back the rill to its source, in a
mossy cairn among the hills, at some five miles' distance, descended
it again and rejoined the party, with the positive assurance that the
serf had not gone in that direction, for that the hounds had beaten
both banks the whole way to the spring-head, and that he had not come
out on either side, or their keen scent would have detected him.
Meantime, the other party had pursued the windings of the stream
downward, with the rest of the pack, for more than ten miles, at full
gallop, until they were convinced that had he gone in that direction,
they must long ere this have overtaken him. They were already
returning, when they were met by Wetherall, the bearer of no more
favorable tidings.
Sorely perplexed how their victim should have thus vanished from
them, in the midst of a bare open moor, as if he had been swallowed
up by the earth, _aut tenues evasit in auras_, and half suspecting
witchcraft, or magic agency, they lighted fires, and encamped on the
spot where they had lost his track, intending to resume the research
on the morrow, and, at last, if the latest effort should fail of
recovering the scent, to scatter over the moors, in small parties or
troops, and beat them toward the Lancaster sands, by which they were
well-assured, he meditated his escape.
In the interval, the band of outlaws quickening their pace as they
heard the cry of the bloodhounds freshening behind them, arrived at
the basin, into which fell the scattered rain of the mimic cataract,
taking especial care to set no foot on the moss or sand, by the brink,
which should betray them to the instinct of the ravening hounds.
"Up with thee, Wolfric," cried one of the men to one who seemed the
chief. "Up with thee! There is no time to lose. We must swear him
when we have entered the cave. Forward comrade; this way lies your
safety." And, with the words, he pointed up the slippery chasm of the
waterfall.
Up this perilous ladder, one by one, where to an unpracticed eye no
ascent appeared possible, the outlaws straggled painfully but in
safety, the spray effacing every track of their footsteps, and the
water carrying off every trace of the scent where they had passed,
until they reached the topmost landing-place. There the stream was
projected in an arch from the rock, which jutted out in a bold table;
and there, stooping under the foamy sheet, the leader entered a low
cavern, with a mouth scarce exceeding that of a fox earth, but
expanding within into a large and roomy apartment, where they ate and
caroused and slept at their ease, during the whole day and all the
succeeding night; for the robbers insisted that no foot must be set
without their cavern by the fugitive, until they should have
ascertained by their spies that the Normans had quitted their
neighborhood. This they did not until late in the following day, when
they divided themselves into three parties, and struck off
northwesterly toward the upper sands at the head of the bay, for which
they had evidently concluded that Eadwulf was making, after they had
exhausted every effort of ingenuity to discover the means of his
inexplicable disappearance, on the verge of that tiny rivulet, running
among open moors on the bare hill-sides.
So soon as they were certain of the direction which the enemy had
taken, and of the fact that they had abandoned the farther use of the
bloodhounds, as unprofitable, the whole party struck due westerly
across the hills, on a right line for Lancaster, guiding their
companion with unerring skill across some twenty miles of
partially-cultivated country, to the upper end of the estuary of the
Lon, about one mile north of the city, which dreary water they reached
in the gloaming twilight. Here a skiff was produced from its
concealment in the rushes, and he was ferried over the frith, as a
last act of kindness, by his entertainers, who, directing him on his
way to the sands, the roar of which might be heard already in the
distance, retreated with all speed to their hill fastnesses, from
which they felt it would be most unsafe for them to be found far
distant by the morning light.
The distance did not much exceed four miles; but, before he arrived at
the end, Eadwulf met the greatest alarm which had yet befallen him;
for, just as it was growing too dark to distinguish objects clearly, a
horseman overtook him, or rather crossed him from the northward,
riding so noiselessly over the sands, that he was upon him before he
heard the sound of his tread.
Though escape was impossible, had it been a foe, he started
instinctively to fly, when a voice hailed him friendly in the familiar
Saxon tongue.
"Ho! brother Saxon, this is thou, then, is it?"
"I know not who thou art," replied Eadwulf, "nor thou me, I'll be
sworn."
"Ay! but I do, though, bravely. Thou art the Saxon with the price of
blood on thy head, whom the Normans have chased these three days, from
beyond Rotherham. They lie five miles hence on the hither side the
Lon, and inquired after thee at twilight. But fear not for me. Only
cross the sands early; the tide will answer with the first gray
glimmer; and thou art safe in Westmoreland. And so God speed thee,
brother."
A mile or two farther brought him to the verge of the wet sands, and
there in the last brushwood he laid him down, almost too weary to be
anxious for the morrow.