THE CHASE
"Hail, smiling morn,
That tips the hills with gold."
The merry sound of horns blowing the _reveillée_ greeted the sleepers as
they awoke, lazily, and saw the morning dawn shining through their
windows of horn, or stretched skin, or through the chinks of their
shutters in the chambers of Wallingford Castle, and in a very short
space of time the brief toilettes were performed, the hunting garb
donned, and the whole precincts swarmed with life, while the clamour of
dogs or of men filled the air.
Soon the doughty Baron with his commanding voice stilled the tumult, as
he gave his orders for the day; the _déjeûner_ or breakfast of cold
meats, washed down with ale, mead, or wine, was next despatched, a
hunting Mass was said in "St. Nicholas his Chapel"--that is, a Mass
shorn of its due proportions and reduced within the reasonable compass
of a quarter of an hour--and before the hour of Prime (7 A.M.) the whole
train issued from the gates, Milo, Sheriff of Gloucester,[4] riding by
the side of his host.
It was a bright, bracing morning that First of October, the air keen but
delicious--one of those days when we hardly regret the summer which has
left us and say we like autumn best; every one felt the pulses of life
beat the more healthily, as the hunting train rode up by the side of the
Moreton brook, towards distant Estune or East-town, as Aston was then
called.
They were now approaching a densely-wooded district, for all that
portion of the "honour" of Wallingford which lay beneath the downs, was
filled with wood and marsh nourished by many slow and half stagnant
streams, or penetrated by swiftly running brooks which still follow the
same general course through the district in its cultivated state.
At length they reached a wide open moor covered with gorse or heather;
gay and brilliant looked the train as it passed over the spot. The
hunters generally wore a garb familiar to some of us by pictorial
representations, a green hunting tunic girded by a belt with silver
clasps, a hunting knife in the girdle, a horn swung round the shoulder
dependent from the neck; but beneath this gay attire the great men wore
suits of chain mail, so flexible that it did not impede their movements
nor feel half so uncomfortable as some present suits of corduroy would
feel to a modern dandy. There were archers a few, there were also
spearmen who ran well and kept up with the mounted company at a steady
swinging trot, then there were fine-looking dogs of enormous size, and
of wondrous powers of strength and motion. The very thought of it is
enough to make the modern hunter sigh for the "good old times."
Onward! onward! we fly, the moor is past, the hunting train turns to the
right and follows the course of the brook towards the park of Blidberia
(or Blewbery), the wood gets thicker and thicker; it is a tangled marsh,
and yet a forest; tall trees rise in endless variety, oaks that might
have borne mistletoes for the Druids; huge beeches with spreading
foliage, beneath which Tityrus might have reclined nor complained of
want of shade; willows rooted in water; decaying trunks of trees,
rotting in sullen pools of stagnant mire; yet, a clear, fresh spring
rushes along by the side of the track.
And at intervals the outline of the Bearroc hills, the Berkshire downs,
rises above the forest, and solemnly in the distance looms the huge
tree-covered barrow, where Cwichelm, the last King of Wessex, sleeps his
long sleep while his subjugated descendants serve their Norman masters
in the country around his hill-tomb.
And now a gallant stag is roused--a stag of ten branches. He scents the
dogs as the wind blows from them to him, he shakes the dewdrops from his
flanks, he listens one moment to the clamour of the noisy pack of canine
foes, he shakes his head disdainfully, and rushes on his headlong
course. The dogs bark and bay, the horns ring out, the voices of men and
boys, cheering and shouting as they spur their willing steeds, join the
discord. Hark! hark! Halloa! halloa! Whoop! whoop! and onward they fly.
The timid hares and rabbits rush away or seek their burrows. The hawks
and birds of prey fly wildly overhead in puzzled flight, as the wild
huntsmen rush along.
But now the natural obstacles retard their flight, and the stag gains
the downs first, and speeds over the upper plains. A mile after him, the
hunt emerges just above the tangled maze of Blewbery. Now all is open
ground, and the stag heads for Cwichelm's Hlawe.
Swiftly they sweep along; the footmen are left far behind. The wind is
blowing hard, and the shadows of fleecy clouds are cast upon the downs,
but the riders outstrip them, and leave the dark outlines behind them.
The leaves blow from many a fading tree, but faster rush the wild
huntsmen, and Brian Fitz-Count rides first.
They have left the clump on Blewbery down behind: the sacred mound on
which St. Birinus once stood when he first preached the Gospel of Christ
to the old English folk of Wessex, is passed unheeded. When lo! they
cross a lateral valley and the stag stops to gaze, then as if mature
reflection teaches him the wood and tangled marsh are safer for him,
descends again to the lower ground.
What a disappointment to be checked in such a gallant run, to leave the
springy turf and have again to seek the woods and abate their speed, and
what is worse, when they enter the forest they find all the dogs at
variance of purpose; a fox, their natural enemy, has crossed the track
but recently, and nearly all the pack are after him, while the rest
hesitate and rush wildly about. The huntsmen strive to restore order,
but meanwhile the stag has gained upon his pursuers. The poor hunted
beast, panting as though its heart would break, is safe for a while.
Let us use a tale-teller's privilege and guide the reader to another
scene.
Not many furlongs from the spot where the hunters stopped perplexed,
stood a lonely cot in a green islet of ground, amidst the mazy windings
of a brook, which sprang from the hills and rising from the ground in
copious streams, inundated the marsh and gave protection to the dwellers
of this primæval habitation.
It was a large cottage for that period, divided into three rooms, the
outer and larger one for living, the two inner and smaller for
bedchambers. Its construction was simple and not unlike those raised by
the dwellers in the wild parts of the earth now. Larches or pines, about
the thickness of a man's leg, had been cut down, shaped with an axe,
driven into the earth at the intervals of half a yard, willow-twigs had
been twined round them, the interstices had been filled with clay, cross
beams had been laid upon the level summits of the posts, a roof of bark
supported on lighter timber placed upon it, slightly shelving from the
ridge, and the outer fabric was complete. Then the inner partitions had
been made, partly with bark, partly with skins, stretched from post to
post; light doors swung on hinges of leather, small apertures covered
with semitransparent skin formed the windows, and a huge aperture in the
roof over a hearth, whereon rested a portable iron grate, served for
chimney.
A table, roughly made, stood upon trestles, two or three seats, like
milking-stools, supplied the lack of chairs--such was the furniture of
the living room.
Over the fire sat the occupants of the house--whom we must particularly
introduce to our readers.
The first and most conspicuous was an old man, dressed mainly in
vestments of skin, but the one impression he produced upon the beholder
was "fallen greatness." Such a face, such noble features, withered and
wrinkled though they were by age; long masses of white hair, untouched
by barber or scissors, hung down his back, and a white wavy beard
reached almost to his waist.
By his side, attentive to his every word, sat a youth of about sixteen
summers, and he was also worthy of notice--he seemed to combine the
characteristic features of the two races, Norman and English--we will
not use that misnomer "Saxon," our ancestors never called themselves by
other name than English after the Heptarchy was dissolved. His hair was
dark, his features shapely, but there was that one peculiarity of
feature which always gives a pathetic look to the face--large blue eyes
under dark eyebrows.
The third person was evidently of lower rank than the others, although
this was not evident from any distinction of dress, for poverty had
obliterated all such tokens, but from the general manner, the look of
servitude, the air of submission which characterised one born of a race
of thralls. In truth she was the sole survivor of a race of hereditary
bondsmen, who had served the ancestors of him whom she now tended with
affectionate fidelity amidst poverty and old age.
Let us listen to their conversation, and so introduce them to the
reader.
"And so, grandfather," said the boy in a subdued voice of deep feeling,
"you saw him, your father, depart for the last time--the very last?"
"I remember, as if it were but yesterday, when my father gathered his
churls and thralls[5] around him at our house at Kingestun under the
downs to the west: there were women and children, whose husbands and
fathers were going with him to join the army of Harold at London; they
were all on foot, for we had few knights in those days, but ere my
father mounted his favourite horse--'Whitefoot'--he lifted me in his
arms and kissed me. I was but five years old, and then he pressed my
mother to his bosom, she gave one sob but strove to stifle it, as the
wife of a warrior should. Then all tried to cry--'Long live Thurkill of
Kingestun.'
"'Come, my men,' said my father, 'we shall beat these dainty Frenchmen,
as our countrymen have beaten the Danes at Stamford, so the 'bode' here
tells me. We go to fill the places of the gallant dead who fell around
our Harold in the hour of victory--let there be no faint hearts amongst
us, 'tis for home and hearth; good-bye, sweethearts,' and they rode
away.
"They rode first to the Abbey town (Abingdon), and there made their vows
before the famous 'Black Cross' of that ancient shrine; then all bent
them for the long march to London town, where they arrived in time to
march southward with the hero king, the last English king, and
seventy-three years ago this very month of October the end came; blessed
were the dead who fell that awful day on the heights of Senlac, thrice
blessed--and cursed we who survived, to lose home, hearth, altar, and
all, and to beget a race of slaves."
"Nay, not slaves, grandfather; thou hast never bent the knee."
"Had I been ten years older, I had been at Senlac and died by my
father's side."
"But your mother, you lived to comfort her."
"Not long; when the news of our father's death came, she bore up for my
sake--but when our patrimony was taken by force, and we who had fought
for our true king were driven from our homes as rebels and traitors, to
herd with the beasts of the field; when our thralls became the bondsmen
of men of foreign tongues and hard hearts--her heart broke, and she
left me alone, after a few months of privation."
"But you fought against the Norman."
"I fought by the side of the last Englishman who fought at all, with
Hereward and his brave men at the 'Camp of Refuge'; and spent the prime
of my life a prisoner in the grim castle of the recreant Lords of
Wallingford."
And he lifted up his eyes, suffused with tears, to heaven.
"Why do you call the Lords of Wallingford Castle recreant?"
"Because they were false to their country, in submitting to the Norman
invader. When the Conqueror came to Southwark, the brave men of the city
of London, guarded by their noble river and Roman walls, bade him
defiance. So he came up the south bank of the stream to Wallingford,
where the shire-reeve (the sheriff), Wigod, was ready, like a base
traitor, to receive him. There Wigod sumptuously entertained him, and
the vast mound which told of English victory in earlier days, became the
kernel of a Norman stronghold. The Conqueror gave the daughter of Wigod
in marriage to his particular friend, Robert d'Oyley, of Oxford Castle;
and when men afterwards saw men like Wigod of Wallingford and Edward of
Salisbury glutted with the spoils of Englishmen, better and braver than
themselves, they ate their bread in bitterness of spirit, and praised
the dead more than the living."
Just then a rustling in the branches attracted their attention.
"Oh, grandfather, there is a gallant stag! may I go and take him?--it
will replenish our larder for days. We have been so hungry."
"It is death to kill the Baron's deer."
"When he can catch us!--that!--for him," and the boy snapped his
fingers.
"Hist! I hear the sound of hound and horn--be cautious, or we may get
into dire trouble."
"Trust me, grandfather. Where are my arrows? Oh, here they are. Come,
Bruno."
And a large wolf-hound bounded forth, eager as his young master.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Sir Milo was Sheriff of Gloucester, and was afterwards created Earl
of Hereford by the Empress Maude.
[5] Otherwise ceorls and theowes, tenant farmers and labourers, the
latter, bondsmen, "_adscripti glebæ_," bought with the land, but who
could not be sold apart from it.