A MAN OF THE FOREST
Few days were merrier in ancient England than the first day of the year.
Not so fatigued with the celebration of Christmas as to be incapable of
continuing the festivity, the inhabitants--especially the
young--welcomed the new year with uproarious mirth.
Even before the Saxon, or Dane, or Norman had set foot in Britain--even
before the apostles of Christianity had found their way to our
shores--the season had been the occasion of religious rites and
observances. It is well known that, on the last night of the year, the
Druids were in the habit of going into the woods, cutting the mistletoe
off the oak with golden bills, bringing it next morning into the towns,
distributing it among the people, who wore it as an amulet to preserve
them from danger, and performing certain pagan rites, which were
gradually turned by the early Church into such exhibitions as the “Fête
des Fous,” performed by companies of both sexes, dressed in fantastic
garments, who ran about on New Year’s Day, asking for gifts, rushing
into churches during the services of the vigils, and disturbing the
devout by their gestures and cries.
In England, on New Year’s Day, it was customary for every one who had it
in his power to wear new clothes; and unfortunate was deemed the wight
who had not the means that day of indulging in some luxury of the kind.
Now, on the 1st of January in the year 1215--a year destined to be
memorable in the annals of England--Wolf, the varlet, had been provided
with garments more befitting the sobriety observed in the house of Dame
Isabel Icingla than the scarlet striped with yellow, in which he had
strutted at the court of Castile; and, prompted by the vanity natural to
youth, he resolved on displaying his finery at the cottage inhabited by
his father, Styr, the Anglo-Saxon.
And the cottage of Styr, which stood about a mile from Oakmede, was not
without its pretensions. Indeed, it was a palace compared with the
squalid huts in which most of the labouring peasantry of England then
herded; for Styr, in his youth, had served the Icinglas with fidelity in
peace and war, and they had not proved forgetful of his services.
Moreover, it was rumoured that Styr had dealings with outlaws, and that,
at times, he so far forgot himself as to take out his crossbow on
moonlight nights with an eye to the king’s deer. But, however that may
have been, food in abundance, and, on such occasions as holidays, good
cheer in plenty, and tankards of foaming ale, were found under Styr’s
roof; and he could tell of war and of battles, especially of that last
battle in which Richard Cœur de Lion defeated Philip Augustus, and in
which Edric Icingla fell with his back to the ground and his feet to the
foe. Listening to stories of the past, and singing some songs he had
learned in Spain, Wolf found the hours glide away rather swiftly, and
the day was far spent when he rose to leave.
“And so, Wolf,” said Styr for the fifth or sixth time, “it is not, after
all, to the wars to which the young Hlaford has gone?”
“No, in truth,” replied Wolf, quickly, “or, credit me, he would not have
left me behind. Little better than a prisoner is he, mewed up in the
gloomy Tower, like bird in cage.”
“But hark thee, Wolf,” said the old man, “and I will tell thee a secret.
Forest Will, or Will with the Club, as they call him, passed this way
not later than yesterday.”
“And who is this Forest Will--knowest thou, father?” asked Wolf,
interrupting.
“Nay, lad, that is more than I can tell. Some say he is a great man
whose life is forfeit to the law; others that he is a captain of forest
outlaws. For my part, I know little more of him than do my neighbours;
but this little I do know, that he is wondrous familiar with all that is
doing, alike at the king’s court and the castles of the barons--ay, even
in foreign parts--and he foretells that, ere the harvest is ready for
the sickle, there will be war.”
“War in England?” said Wolf.
“Ay, war in England--and a bloody war to boot; and when swords are being
drawn, King John will know better than to keep an Icingla from drawing
his sword. Even mine must be scoured up if blows are to be going, and if
King Harry’s son has to defend himself against the men who have done all
but crush our race to the dust.”
And Styr bent his brows and clenched his hands as if eager for the
battle, which, with the instinct of an old warrior, he scented from
afar.
“Well, father,” said Wolf, “I hope it will all turn out for the best;
but what if my master took into his head to fight on the other side?”
“What if an Icingla took into his head to fight for Norman oppressors
against an English king, the heir of the Athelings!” cried Styr,
repeating his son’s words. “Why, just this, that he might expect his
ancestors to come out of their graves and cry ‘shame’ upon him.”
“May the saints forefend!” exclaimed Wolf, almost as much terrified as
if the Saxon chiefs alluded to had appeared before him in their shrouds.
“But, come what may, I must even take my departure, for the hour grows
late, and Dame Isabel is somewhat strict in her rules.”
“The better for thee and others that live under the Hleafdian’s roof,”
observed Styr.
It was about the fall of evening when Wolf left his father’s tenement to
return to Oakmede, and he hurried through the woodland and over the
crisp ground that he might reach the hall of the Icinglas before the
hour of supper, then an important meal under the roof of vanquished
Saxon as well as victorious Norman, and especially in seasons of
festivity. Notwithstanding the anxiety he felt about Oliver Icingla, and
the disappointment he had experienced in not being allowed to accompany
the young squire to the court or into captivity--just as might turn
out--Wolf’s heart was not heavy, and as he neared the old house of brick
and timber, and anticipated the good cheer that awaited him, he began to
believe that all would come right in the end, and whistled almost
joyously as his spirits rose and he thought of the good time that was
coming. Suddenly a hare crossed his path. “A bad omen,” said Wolf, who
had all the superstitious feelings of his race and country; and scarcely
had he thus briefly soliloquised when his steps were arrested by a huge
white bulldog which growled menacingly in his face, and by the voice of
a man who leant against the trunk of a leafless oak.
“Wolf, boy, where is thy master?” said the man. “I have not seen him
once of late, albeit he was wont to seek my company often enough.”
Wolf turned to the speaker, and, as he found his sleeve grasped,
appeared somewhat more awed than was reasonable at finding himself alone
with such a person and in such a place, and he would have been still
more so had it been an hour after dark.
He was, so far as could be judged from his appearance, not more than
thirty-five--that age which has been called “the second prime of
man”--and had nothing about him to daunt or terrify a youth who, like
Wolf, had been in Spain, and watched eagerly while grim warriors engaged
in mortal combat. Indeed, the expression of his countenance was frank,
and even kindly, and to the ordinary eye would have been prepossessing,
while his figure was tall and of herculean strength, with mighty limbs,
the arms long and muscular. His dress was that which might have been
worn by any forester or forest outlaw, and he had a bugle-horn at his
girdle, to which also was attached a heavy club of iron, which was
likely, in his hands, to do terrible execution whenever necessity or
inclination made him use it. But, as I have said, there was nothing in
his appearance to excite alarm. Nevertheless, Wolf gazed on him with an
awe that every moment increased, for he had often seen this person
before, and knew him as Forest Will, or Will with the Club, whose
existence was enveloped in mystery, but who was suspected of being a
chief of outlaws, and by most people, particularly by Dame Isabel
Icingla, deemed a dangerous man, with whom it was as impossible to hold
converse without being led into mischief as to touch pitch without being
defiled. Such being the case, Wolf felt almost as much alarmed as if
Satan had suddenly started up in his path, and with difficulty mustered
voice to say in a tremulous tone--
“I am in haste; I pray thee permit me to pass on my way.”
“Have patience and fear nothing,” said the man of the forest. “I asked
thee what had become of thy master. I fain would see him.”
“May it please thee,” replied Wolf, after a pause, “my master has gone
to the king’s court.”
“Gone to the king’s court! Oliver Icingla gone to the king’s court!”
exclaimed the man of the forest, wonderingly. “What in the fiend’s name
took him there?”
“In truth,” answered Wolf, slowly but gradually recovering his
self-possession, “it was not of his own will that he went thither; but
‘needs must when the devil drives.’ He was conducted to the Tower of
London as a hostage by his mother’s kinsman, the Lord Hugh de
Moreville.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” cried the man of the forest, stamping his foot with anger
and vexation; “I see it all. He is destined to feed the crows, if not
saved by a miracle. I marvel much that a youth of his wit could be so
blind as to be led by his false kinsman into such a snare. Hugh de
Moreville,” he continued, speaking to himself, but still loud enough to
be heard by Wolf, whose hearing was acute--“Hugh de Moreville gives
Oliver Icingla to King John as a hostage for his good faith. Hugh breaks
faith with the king and rises with the barons, and Oliver is hung up to
punish Hugh’s perfidy, which is just what Hugh wants; and when peace is
patched up between the king and the barons, and the past forgiven and
forgotten, Hugh remains in undisputed possession of the castles and
baronies, which otherwise he might one day have to surrender to the
rightful heir at the bidding of the law. By the rood, this lord is wise
in his own generation, and, doubtless, knows it; yet, had he asked my
counsel, I could have shown him a less hazardous way to accomplish his
wishes; for Hugh has but one daughter, who is marvellous fair to look
upon; and the Icinglas, whatever their pride and prejudices as to race,
are as wax in the presence of Norman women of beauty and blood. What
thinkest thou the life of Master Oliver Icingla may be worth,” asked he,
again addressing Wolf, “now that he is securely mewed in the Tower?”
“I know not,” said Wolf, mournfully. “I would fain hope my lady’s son is
in no real danger.”
“Your lady,” continued the man of the forest, with an air of careless
indifference, “relished not the thought of her son holding so much
discourse as he was wont to do with one like me. Was it not so?”
Wolf hesitated.
“Nay, boy, speak, and fear not. Knowest thou not it is good to tell
truth and shame the devil?”
“In good sooth, then,” replied Wolf, at length yielding to the pressure
of his questioner, “I know right well that my lady did much fear that
her son might be tempted into some enterprise perilous to his life.”
“Even so,” said the man of the forest; “and it is ever in this way that
women err as to the quarter where danger lies; and now her noble kinsman
has led her son into far greater peril than he was ever like to be
exposed to in my company.”
“I grieve to hear thee speak of his danger in such terms,” said Wolf,
gloomily.
“Matters may yet be remedied,” continued the man of the forest, “and I
own I would do much for thy master. Would that this false step of his
could have been prevented! Better far that he had taken to the greenwood
or to the caves in the rocks, or roamed the sea as a pirate, than gone
to the Tower as hostage for a kinsman who to treachery adds the cunning
of a fox and the cruelty of a tiger.”
And, releasing Wolf’s sleeve, Forest Will, _alias_ Will with the Club,
turned on his heel, and, whistling on his dog, made for the forest, and
disappeared.
Wolf, not much pleased with the interview, nor with himself for having
been so confidential in his communications, pursued his way to Oakmede.
“On my faith,” said he to himself, as he came in sight of the house and
breathed more freely, “that terrible man has well-nigh scared all the
blood out of my body. May the saints so order it that I see his face no
more!”
Wolf’s prayer, however, was not to be granted. It was not the last time
that his eyes were to alight on the man of the forest; in fact, that
person was to cut rather a prominent figure in the exciting scenes which
were about to be enacted in England.