After the Battle of the Pass we had a season of quiet at Mountjoy. King
Richard had sailed on the Great Crusade, leaving his brother John as
Regent; and the people of England, nobles and commons alike, learned
that there was a far worse rule than that of stern old Henry of Anjou,
for John Lackland, his younger son, had at once the greed of a tiger and
the meanness of a rat. Many of the high places of Church and State were
filled with his favorites--miserable creatures for the most part whose
only merits were a ready complaisance to the wishes of their master and
a measure of craft and subtlety in furtherance of his schemes. Sheriffs
and bailiffs of a yet more contemptible strain hurried to do the bidding
of these velvet-clad beggars and thieves, and honest and forthright men
led a hard life indeed unless they were themselves high in power and of
numerous following.
Among these last might be reckoned the Mountjoys and their friends and
allies, the Carletons of Teramore. We were too strong and too valuable
in the defense of the Western Marches to be meddled with save for the
greatest cause; so the land for some leagues about us was in a measure
free from the ills which now and again brought other portions of the
Kingdom to the verge of rebellion.
Sir Cedric, as now we gladly styled him, was high in the councils of
Mountjoy. My father consulted him as often as myself on the gravest
questions; and Lady Mountjoy willingly spent uncounted hours in
bettering his knowledge of polite and courtly ways and of those divers
little matters of knightly bearing to which in our rough Western land we
give mayhap too little heed. At the books, to her amaze, he soon had far
outstripped her. An uncle of his was one of the monks at Kirkwald Abbey,
and a famous Latin scholar. For a year past, Cedric had been making
frequent journeys to the Abbey; and once we had old Father Benedict at
Mountjoy for a month or more. For hours together they would pore over
dusty and ancient tomes that made me ache with weariness but to look
upon them. The first we knew, our Cedric was better at the Latin reading
than any layman we had seen or heard of. History and chronicles were
good meat and drink to him; and often, with his head between the covers
of a book, his dinner would be quite forgot but for my lusty calling.
Withal he was no pale bookworm, but a lusty and rollicking lad who in
rough and tumble play could lay me on the broad of my back with scarce a
minute's striving. At the sword-play I was ever his better, but his
mastery of the cross-bow grew yet more wonderful as the seasons passed.
Even the oldsters admitted that he equalled Marvin at Marvin's best.
Already he had the name of the best cross-bowman in England; and I found
that strangers to our county, who had heard nothing of the deeds of my
father and all our noble forbears, had knowledge, nevertheless, of
Mountjoy as the house to which Sir Cedric gave allegiance.
But I think the thing that warmed me most toward my former squire and
constant comrade was the loyalty he ever had to the class of folk from
which he sprung. Lord Mountjoy often gave to him authority over working
crews at some necessary task on farm or highway or scouting parties of
swordsmen and archers that rode the Marches to guard against the Welsh
marauders. It would have been no wonder had such a sudden rise to title
and preferment bred in a youth who had been born in a forester's cot a
certain arrogance of manner and an overweening confidence in his own
worth and deserts. But, by his own desire, the archers and men-at-arms
of Mountjoy still addressed him as they had when his station was no
higher than theirs; and though he could be quick and firm on occasion,
he was never above listening to and profiting by the counsels of the
elder men in buckram or in hodden gray. Nor did he forget the cottage in
Pelham Wood which housed his old father and his small, tow-headed
brethren. Since he had dwelt at Mountjoy Hall, scarce a month had passed
without his riding thence and leaving with them some share in any
guerdon he had won.
It was after such a journey that Cedric returned to the Hall one autumn
evening in such a mood of silence and depression as I had never seen
since those sad days when he quarreled with my father over the
punishment due the churls of De Lancey Manor. At his supper he spoke no
word, and ate and drank but little. My lady mother did anxiously inquire
if he were ill, for we knew him well as a valiant trencherman, and he
had ridden far in a frosty air. He put away her questionings with his
usual courtesy, denying that aught ailed him; but me he could not so
easily check, for I followed him to his room, and, finding him sitting
with his face in his hands, demanded to know as friend and comrade what
had turned his world awry.
"Sir Richard," he replied sadly, "hast ever had friend of thine flung
into dungeon cell, there to lie at the pleasure of some low-living
scoundrel?"
"Nay," I answered quickly, "this evil I have thus far 'scaped, though I
well know 'tis common enough in these days, and many there be that
suffer it."
"Of those I am one," replied Cedric. "And now I rack my head to know
whether or not there be any possible help for it. Wilfrid, son of the
farmer of Birkenhead, was my comrade and playmate since ever I can
remember. We hunted and fished and swam together and willingly fought
each other's battles when we were but little lads. Once he plunged in
and pulled me from the Tarleton Water, when, far gone with cramp, I had
twice sunken. His handling of the long-bow is well-nigh equal to my
father's, and better than that of any youth I know. I had lately planned
to bring him to Mountjoy and to say a word to thy father of his
deserts."
"And who is it that now hath seized him?"
"'Tis that wry-mouthed and rat-eyed scoundrel, Bardolph, that lately
hath been made King's Bailiff, and hath in charge the rebuilding of
Kimberley Castle."
"He that plundered the chapel at Ravenstone?"
"The same. He would steal the pennies from the eyes of the dead, if no
avenger were by. But 'tis spite rather than greed that prompts him in
this matter of my friend. Some years ago, when we were all lads
together, young Bardolph, who is the son of an innkeeper at Rothwell,
came riding past Birkenhead with some village comrades of his. In a
foolish attempt at wit, he cast some foul insult at Wilfrid who stood by
the way, watching them pass. In an instant, Wilfrid had snatched him
from the saddle and rolled him well in a puddle of mud that chanced to
be at hand, so that Bardolph rode home at last a sorry spectacle indeed.
That day he ne'er forgot, it seems, and only now has found an
opportunity for vengeance. He hath been given the charge of the work at
Kimberley where Prince John plans to enlarge and strengthen the fortress
and fill it with a numerous garrison. He hath need of many cattle for
the work of hauling the stone and timber; and though we are not now at
war, and there can be seen no pressing need for haste, he seizes the
horses and oxen from the farmers roundabout and drives the work as
though the Scotch and Welsh were o'er the borders both at once. With
this excuse he seized the yoke cattle at Birkenhead."
"But Birkenhead is full five leagues from Kimberley."
"Aye, and that it is that shows the act was done with malice and with
none of necessity. A hundred farms were nearer to the castle, and some
of them might far better spare their oxen. 'Twas in the thick of harvest
too. Thou knowest how the rains have held it back till it seems that the
snows may cover the uncut grain if the farmers make not haste. But
Wilfrid made shift to go on with his hauling in some sort. He put to the
yoke a pair of half-broke steers that should not have worked till the
spring, and with half loads was bringing his crops to barn and stack.
Then what did Bardolph do but come again, with two soldiers at his back,
and make demand of Wilfrid for these cattle also."
"The hound! I would I had been there to tell him straight what manner of
cur he is."
"There was no need for that. Wilfrid forthwith flew into such a rage as
drove from him all fear of what might betide. First he shouted at the
bailiff some most naked truths as to his character and doings, then he
rushed upon him, and, warding off a sword blow, pulled him from his
horse, even as he had done that other time, and ere the soldiers could
interfere had broken Bardolph's nose with one great blow from his fist."
"Oh Saints above! Did he so indeed? There's a yeoman for thee of the
sort that win England's battles. I would we _had_ him under Mountjoy
banner. But what next occurred?"
"The soldiers had leaped from their horses as soon as the bailiff went
down, and both together they seized Wilfrid and overthrew and bound him
fast. Then, lashing him on the back of a horse, they set out for
Kimberley, with he of the broken nose riding close behind, shedding a
stream of blood and furious oaths. The neighbor folk say that over and
over again he swore that young Birkenhead should never leave Kimberley
alive."
"By'r Lady!" I cried, "there's naught to prevent him making good his
threats. He is in command at Kimberley now that the Sheriff hath left
for the North."
Cedric nodded sadly.
"'Tis so. He dares not put him to death openly, but he may starve him in
his cell and report that he died of a sickness. And if the Sheriff
returns, I doubt of much betterment for one in Wilfrid's plight. Thou
knowest well that throughout England at this moment there are lying in
dungeons, with chains on their limbs, full many honest men who are as
innocent of any crime as thou or me."
"I know it well indeed. And of these there are many as to whom their
very jailers know not the charge against them, for their accusers are
long ago dead. 'Tis a hard world we live in, Cedric; but I see not how
we may better it."
Cedric sprang up and faced me with high-held head and blazing eyes.
"Sir Richard, if thou'lt help me, we _may_ better this hard world for
one luckless man. It has come to me how we may take Wilfrid of
Birkenhead from the very walls of Kimberley."
"Help thee? My word upon it, I _will_ help thee if it can be done at
all. Say on."
"My thought is this," answered Cedric quickly, whilst tears of joy
sprang to his eyes at my hearty seconding, "one that came from Kimberley
even as we talked at my father's to-day hath told us that Wilfrid is
confined not in the castle dungeons, since those are in some way
concerned in the present changes, but in a strong room in the tower,
some forty feet above the moat. The window is not barred, since the
apartment was never meant to serve for prison; but the wall is sheer
below it to the cliff that steeply slopes from thence to the moat.
'Twould be sure death to fling one's self down, since the rock at the
base is after all too wide to be passed by a leap from the window. But
with a stout rope now, and with friends on the farther side with horses
not far off--"
"But the sentries on the battlements would surely spy him as he
descended."
"Not on a moonless night, and especially if he knew the moment when the
sentry had just passed overhead and therefore would not soon return.
'Tis a desperate thing, I own; but believe me, Sir Richard, we shall not
fail. Already I see the way to take the rope and our messages to Wilfrid
in his cell. There is a group of trees which in the last score of years
while the castle has been little used as a stronghold, has been allowed
to grow on the hither side of the moat, just opposite the tower. There
we will hide and do our part in the venture. To-morrow night will be
moonless. What sayest thou?"
----
The next day at noon, soon after Bardolph of the Broken Nose had ridden
away from Kimberley on some necessary errand, a stout old monk, in the
flowing robe of his order, with hood and cowl closely drawn about his
face, and bearing a basket on his arm, appeared at the gate of
Kimberley. He wished to see the prisoner, Wilfrid, and to bear to him
the consolations of religion and also some articles of food which
friends of his had prepared. The clerkly youth who seemed in authority
in the absence of the bailiff was much in doubt as to the wisdom of
permitting any such entry, and, indeed, at first refused. But the good
monk fairly overwhelmed him with quotations from the Scripture and the
writings of the Holy Fathers relative to his duty to visit those who
were sick or in prison, and quoted so many Latin texts that the youth
was soon fairly bewildered and overcome. Stipulating only that the
basket be left below, since the bailiff had given strict orders that no
food was to be taken to the prisoner by any save himself, he led the way
up the tower stairs, and unlocking the heavy oaken door, admitted the
monk to the room where Birkenhead was confined.
In another quarter of an hour the monk had departed as he came, taking
up his basket again at the gateway and leaving with the chatelaine his
heartiest blessing. To me, who had been anxiously watching from one of
the village houses, a furlong from the walls, it seemed that he walked
with much firmer and more vigorous step as he returned o'er the
drawbridge than he had when first he crossed it. But if this were so,
none in the castle seemed to remark it--at any rate the monk's departure
was not interrupted, and he passed out of the village, looking neither
to the right nor the left.
Soon after, I followed and overtook him after he had entered a thick
copse of yew and hazel half a mile away. Beneath that leafy screen,
Cedric flung off the monkish gown and hood, dropped the basket on the
ground, and stood gazing at it gloomily.
"Sir Richard," he said at length, "Wilfrid of Birkenhead hath been for
three days close shut in that tower room, and no least morsel of food
hath been given him. Bardolph verily means to compass his death by
starving."
"The miserable hound!" I answered between set teeth, "'tis a pity
Wilfrid did not strike a thought harder and break his worthless skull."
Cedric's face was wried with pain and wrath. He stamped upon the ground
in bitter impatience. Then, pulling from the basket the huge meat pie
which had formed the greater part of the provision he had sought to
carry to the prisoner, he dropped it before him and struck it with most
vicious kick before it reached the ground. The crust flew off in a dozen
pieces, and revealed the inner part as no juicy slices of flesh of fowl
or pig but a close-wound coil of hempen rope, such as no mortal man
could feed upon.
"Had I placed this beneath my armpits as was my first thought," growled
Cedric, "it would now have been safe hidden in the bundle of straw they
have given Wilfrid for a bed. Fortune favored us not, it seems; but
mayhap that fickle jade will smile on our further contrivings. I made a
new plan even as I climbed the tower stairs; and Wilfrid is well
apprised of it. 'Tis not so simple as the first nor seemingly so sure;
but it may serve our turn."
"Must we wait till the morrow and risk another entry of the castle?" I
questioned. "Mayhap the bailiff will not ride abroad so opportunely."
"Nay, we shall make the essay to-night," he answered slowly. "Time
presses, if Wilfrid is not to be so weakened by fasting as to be
incapable of any effort in his own behalf. Marcel hath already been told
to have the horses here at nine and await our coming till dawn if need
be. If we can come by a ball of fine, stout cord like fishing lines, we
will have that rope in the tower room by midnight. Then all the rest
will be quickly done, and Wilfrid a dozen leagues from Kimberley ere
sunrise."
----
An hour before midnight Cedric and I lay under the group of saplings,
ten yards from the castle moat and opposite the window of the room which
held young Wilfrid of Birkenhead. Beside us on the ground, lay the ball
of cord, with one projecting end fastened to the coil of rope. Now
Cedric took a cross-bow bolt from the sack at his girdle and tied the
other end of the cord firmly about it. Then, drawing the bow, he placed
the bolt in groove.
The sky was covered with thin clouds that half obscured the stars; and
the moon had not yet risen. The castle wall on the other side of the
moat was a gray blur in the murk, but we could clearly see the sentinel
as he slowly paced his rounds of the battlements. The steel cap that he
wore and the point of his spear caught now and again a gleam of the
starlight. Twenty feet below the tower's summit a blacker square in the
wall was the window of Wilfrid's cell; and to the right of this could
barely be discerned the lattice which had been swung wide as though to
admit the fresher air.
Cedric crouched on his knees, gazing at the window till the sentry
passed from sight; then softly he uttered the cry of an owl. At once
some white object fluttered in the blackness of the cell window. Cedric
rose to his feet, took careful aim at the window and let fly the bolt.
But alas! the pull of the cord as it unwound from the ball checked the
quarrel sadly, and it rang on the stones of the wall no higher than our
heads. We crouched at once in the shadows, certain that the sentry had
heard its steely stroke; but he came not back to the tower; and soon we
breathed again.
Cedric drew in the line and recharged his weapon, whispering to me the
while that he should have better known than to have it so tightly
coiled, and that another try, with the cord lying loose, would surely
place the bolt within the window.
Now the sentry came again on his rounds; and we waited perforce for his
passing. When he had gone once more Cedric threw his weapon to his
shoulder and sent the bolt on its way. How my ears strained in
listening! And, an instant later, how my heart sank when I heard once
more the clang of iron 'gainst the tower stones and realized that Cedric
had failed a second time to strike his mark at fifty paces.
This time the sentry heard the stroke--or so it seemed--for he came
hurrying back to the tower battlements, and peered downward past the
open window for minutes together. But all had become as still as death,
and there was naught that he could see; so at length he turned away and
resumed his pacing.
As Cedric again drew in the quarrel, he whispered to me:
"I have it now. The line drew down my bolt by a yard or more. I must
allow for that by a higher aim. The third cast never fails; and for that
we yet have time ere yonder sentry is sure there's mischief afoot."
He took a fresh bolt and tied the cord with care about it. Then for the
third time he aimed at the tower above us. 'Twas the lucky third indeed,
for, close following the whir of the quarrel, came a muffled thud as it
struck the oaken door within the cell. This seemed not to reach the ears
of the sentry on the other side of the battlements, for though we
listened with bated breath, there was no sound of his returning
footsteps. The next instant we could see the unspent portion of the line
was tightening with a pull from the tower. Then straightway the coil of
rope left its place at our feet, swam through the moat and climbed the
tower's side.
Cedric and I clasped hands in joy, for now we could see our project
succeeding. In no more time than he needed to descend from the window,
swim the moat and reach the horses in the hazel copse, Wilfrid would be
safely away from Kimberley.
Once more the sentry made his rounds, and once more passed regardless of
what was going forward six yards below him. Wilfrid appeared at the
window, and, lowering himself hand over hand, came swiftly down the rope
to the cliff below. There misfortune awaited us. As he dangled from the
rope with his feet seeking a hold on the sloping cliff, he loosened a
bit of rock, the size of a man's head, that lay near the tower base; and
this accursed stone slid and rolled noisily down the crag and struck the
waters of the moat with a hideous splashing.
At once the sentry, whose ears mayhap had been sharpened by the other
noise for which he had found no reason, came running again to the tower.
Peering into the darkness below, he spied the prisoner just as he leaped
down the rock and plunged into the moat.
The sentinel was a ready man and determined,--such an one as might well
have served a better master. Setting up a lusty shout of alarm, he
turned at once to a pile of the stones that were kept on the battlements
for the repelling of besiegers, and began hurling these into the moat.
The water's surface was in shadow and we could not see the head of the
swimmer, nor could we tell whether any of the soldier's wild-flung
missiles had found their mark. A minute passed wherein my blood seemed
to freeze and my limbs to lock themselves fast like those of one who
perishes from a mad dog's bite. The stones still followed one another in
vicious plunges into the black waters: and the soldier continued to
halloo for the guardsmen at the gate to lower the bridge and search the
farther bank.
Then Cedric broke away from me and plunged into the moat. Forgetting all
else, I followed him to the water's edge, stood peering vainly into the
blackness, and might have dived in also had he not speedily returned. He
was swimming lustily with one hand, and with the other bearing up his
comrade. I seized them both as they came within reach, and hauled them
ashore. Cedric joined with me and we drew Wilfrid up the bank and half
way to the group of saplings. There Cedric stopped with a groan of
misery, and fell on his knees by the limp body of his friend. The wind
had brushed the clouds from the sky; and by the starlight I saw that
Wilfrid's head had been crushed by one of the stones from the
battlements.
Cedric rose to his feet and shook his fist in frenzy toward the King's
stronghold. But already the bridge was down, and the guard was pouring
across. I plucked my comrade by the sleeve.
"Come Cedric, come! Our friend is past all help. Let us away ere they
slay us also."
He turned to me with a face of deathly whiteness; and for a moment I
thought he would refuse. But I seized his hand, and he let me hurry him
to the shelter of the trees. Through these we quickly passed, and then
raced down the dim-lit field to a hedgerow a furlong away. Running
behind this, we soon distanced our pursuers.
In half an hour we had come by roundabout ways to the hazel copse where
Marcel and the horses awaited us. In silence we mounted, and in silence
rode through all the hours of darkness, Cedric sitting with head bowed
forward, enwrapped in gloomy thought as in a sable garment. The way was
rough and weary, and we found no solace in the fragrance of the harvest
fields and leaf-strewn woods or in the song of the night wind. As the
sun rose behind a veil of gray and chilling mists, we climbed the slopes
of Rowan Hill and sighted the towers of Mountjoy.