Produced by Sandra Laythorpe
THE HERD BOY AND HIS HERMIT
By Charlotte M. Yonge
Henry, thou of holy birth,
Thou, to whom thy Windsor gave
Nativity and name and grave
Heavily upon his head
Ancestral crimes were visited.
Meek in heart and undefiled,
Patiently his soul resigned,
Blessing, while he kissed the rod,
His Redeemer and his God.
SOUTHEY
LIST OF CONTENTS
I. IN THE MOSS
II. THE SNOW-STORM
III. OVER THE MOOR
IV. A SPORTING PRIORESS
V. MOTHER AND SON
VI. A CAUTIOUS STEPFATHER
VII. ON DERWENT BANKS
VIII. THE HERMIT
IX. HENRY OF WINDSOR
X. THE SCHOLAR OF THE MOUNTAINS
XI. THE RED ROSE
XII. A PRUDENT RECEPTION
XIII. FELLOW TRAVELLERS
XIV. THE JOURNEY
XV. BLETSO
XVI. THE HERMIT IN THE TOWER
XVII. A CAPTIVE KING
XVIII. AT THE MINORESSES
XIX. A STRANGE EASTER EVE
XX. BARNET
XXI. TEWKESBURY
XXII. THE NUT BROWN MAID
XXIII. BROUGHAM CASTLE
THE HERD BOY AND HIS HERMIT
CHAPTER I. -- IN THE MOSS
I can conduct you, lady, to a low
But loyal cottage where you may be safe
Till further quest.--MILTON.
On a moorland slope where sheep and goats were dispersed among the
rocks, there lay a young lad on his back, in a stout canvas cassock
over his leathern coat, and stout leathern leggings over wooden shoes.
Twilight was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light rested on the
top of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading away, though the sky
to the westward still preserved a little pale golden light by the help
of the descending crescent moon.
‘Go away, horned moon,’ murmured the boy. ‘I want to see my stars come
out before Hob comes to call me home, and the goats are getting up
already. Moon, moon, thou mayst go quicker. Thou wilt have longer time
to-morrow--and be higher in the sky, as well as bigger, and thou mightst
let me see my star to-night! Ah! there is one high in the sunset, pale
and fair, but not mine! That’s the evening star--one of the wanderers.
Is it the same as comes in the morning betimes, when we do not have
it at night? Like that it shines with steady light and twinkles not. I
would that I knew! There! there’s mine, my own star, far up, only paling
while the sun glaring blazes in the sky; mine own, he that from afar
drives the stars in Charles’s Wain. There they come, the good old
twinkling team of three, and the four of the Wain! Old Billy Goat knows
them too! Up he gets, and all in his wake “Ha-ha-ha” he calls, and the
Nannies answer. Ay, and the sheep are rising up too! How white they look
in the moonshine! Piers--deaf as he is--waking at their music. Ba, they
call the lambs! Nay, that’s no call of sheep or goat! ‘Tis some child
crying, all astray! Ha! Hilloa, where beest thou? Tarry till I come!
Move not, or thou mayst be in the bogs and mosses! Come, Watch’--to a
great unwieldy collie puppy--‘let us find her.’
A feeble piteous sound answered him, and following the direction of the
reply, he strode along, between the rocks and thorn-bushes that guarded
the slope of the hill, to a valley covered with thick moss, veiling
treacherously marshy ground in which it was easy to sink.
The cry came from the further side, where a mountain stream had force
enough to struggle through the swamp. There were stepping-stones across
the brook, which the boy knew, and he made his way from one to the
other, calling out cheerily to the little figure that he began to
discern in the fading light, and who answered him with tones evidently
girlish, ‘O come, come, shepherd! Here I am! I am lost and lorn! They
will reward thee! Oh, come fast!’
‘All in good time, lassie! Haste is no good here! I must look to my
footing.’
Presently he was by the side of the wanderer, and could see that it was
a maiden of ten or twelve years old, who somehow, even in the darkness,
had not the air of one of the few inhabitants of that wild mountain
district.
‘Lost art thou, maiden,’ he said, as he stood beside her; ‘where is
thine home?’
‘I am at Greystone Priory,’ replied the girl. ‘I went out hawking to-day
with the Mother Prioress and the rest. My pony fell with me when we were
riding after a heron. No one saw me or heard me, and my pony galloped
home. I saw none of them, and I have been wandering miles and miles! Oh
take me back, good lad; the Mother Prioress will give thee--’
‘’Tis too far to take thee back to-night,’ he said. ‘Thou must come with
me to Hob Hogward, where Doll will give thee supper and bed, and we will
have thee home in the morning.’
‘I never lay in a hogward’s house,’ she said primly.
‘Belike, but there be worse spots to be harboured in. Here, I must carry
thee over the burn, it gets wider below! Nay, ‘tis no use trying to leap
it in the dark, thou wouldst only sink in. There!’
And as he raised her in his arms, the touch of her garment was delicate,
and she on her side felt that his speech, gestures and touch were not
those of a rustic shepherd boy; but nothing was said till he had waded
through the little narrow stream, and set her down on a fairly firm
clump of grass on the other side. Then she asked, ‘What art thou,
lad?--Who art thou?’
‘They call me Hal,’ was the answer; ‘but this is no time for questions.
Look to thy feet, maid, or thou wilt be in a swamp-hole whence I may
hardly drag thee out.’
He held her hand, for he could hardly carry her farther, since she
was almost as tall as himself, and more plump; and the rest of the
conversation for some little time consisted of, ‘There!’ ‘Where?’ ‘Oh,
I was almost down!’ ‘Take heed; give me thy other hand! Thou must leap
this!’ ‘Oh! what a place! Is there much more of it?’ ‘Not much! Come
bravely on! There’s a good maid.’ ‘Oh, I must get my breath.’ ‘Don’t
stand still. That means sinking. Leap! Leap! That’s right. No, not that
way, turn to the big stair.’ ‘Oh--h!’ ‘That’s my brave wench! Not far
now.’ ‘I’m down, I’m down!’ ‘Up! Here, this is safe! On that white
stone! Now, here’s sound ground! Hark!’ Wherewith he emitted a strange
wild whoop, and added, ‘That’s Hob come out to call me!’ He holloaed
again. ‘We shall soon be at home now. There’s Mother Doll’s light! Her
light below, the star above,’ he added to himself.
By this time it was too dark for the two young people to see more than
dim shapes of one another, but the boy knew that the hand he still held
was a soft and delicate one, and the girl that those which had grasped
and lifted her were rough with country labours. She began to assert her
dignity and say again, ‘Who art thou, lad? We will guerdon thee well for
aiding me. The Lord St. John is my father. And who art thou?’
‘I? Oh, I am Hob Hogward’s lad,’ he answered in an odd off-hand tone,
before whooping again his answer to the shouts of Hob, which were coming
nearer.
‘I am so hungry!’ said the little lady, in a weak, famished tone. ‘Hast
aught to eat?’
‘I have finished my wallet, more’s the pity!’ said the boy, ‘but never
fear! Hold out but a few steps more, and Mother Doll will give thee bite
and sup and bed.’
‘Alack! Is it much further! My feet! they are so sore and weary--’
‘Poor maiden, let me bear thee on!’
Hal took her up again, but they went more slowly, and were glad to see a
tall figure before them, and hear the cry, ‘How now, Hal boy, where hast
been? What hast thou there?’
‘A sorely weary little lady, Daddy Hob, lost from the hawking folk from
the Priory,’ responded Hal, panting a little as he set his burthen down,
and Hob’s stronger arms received her.
Hal next asked whether the flock had come back under charge of Piers,
and was answered that all were safely at home, and after ‘telling the
tale’ Hob had set out to find him. ‘Thou shouldst not stray so far,’ he
said.
‘I heard the maid cry, and went after her,’ said Hal, ‘all the way to
the Blackreed Moss, and the springs, and ‘twas hard getting over the
swamp.’
‘Well indeed ye were not both swallowed in it,’ said Hob; ‘God be
praised for bringing you through! Poor wee bairn! Thou hast come far!
From whence didst say?’
‘From Greystone Priory,’ wearily said the girl, who had her head down on
Hob’s shoulder, and seemed ready to fall asleep there.
‘Her horse fell with her, and they were too bent on their sport to heed
her,’ explained the boy, as he trudged along beside Hob and his charge,
‘so she wandered on foot till by good hap I heard her moan.’
‘Ay, there will be a rare coil to-night for having missed her,’ said
Hob; ‘but I’ve heard tell, my Lady Prioress heeds her hawks more than
her nuns! But be she who she may, we’ll have her home, and Mother Doll
shall see to her, for she needs it sure, poor bairn. She is asleep
already.’
So she was, with her head nestled into the shepherd’s neck, nor did she
waken when after a tramp of more than a mile the bleatings of the folded
sheep announced that they were nearly arrived, and in the low doorway
there shone a light, and in the light stood a motherly form, in a white
woollen hood and dark serge dress. Tired as he was, Hal ran on to her,
exclaiming ‘All well, Mammy Doll?’
‘Ah well!’ she answered, ‘thank the good God! I was in fear for thee, my
boy! What’s that Daddy hath? A strayed lamb?’
‘Nay, Mammy, but a strayed maiden! ‘Twas that kept me so long. I had to
bear her through the burn at Blackreed, and drag her on as best I might,
and she is worn out and weary.’
‘Ay,’ said Hob, as he came up. ‘How now, my bit lassie?’ as he put her
into the outstretched arms of his wife, who sat down on the settle to
receive her, still not half awake.
‘She is well-nigh clemmed,’ said Hal. ‘She has had no bite nor sup all
day, since her pony fell with her out a-hawking, and all were so hot on
the chase that none heeded her.’
Mother Doll’s exclamations of pity were profuse. There was a kettle of
broth on the peat fire, and after placing the girl in a corner of the
settle, she filled three wooden bowls, two of which she placed before
Hal and the shepherd, making signs to the heavy-browed Piers to wait;
and getting no reply from her worn-out guest, she took her in her arms,
and fed her from a wooden spoon. Though without clear waking, mouthfuls
were swallowed down, till the bowl was filled again and set before
Piers.
‘There, that will be enough this day!’ said the good dame. ‘Poor bairn!
‘Twas scurvy treatment. Now will we put her to bed, and in the morn we
will see how to deal with her.’
Hal insisted that the little lady should have his own bed--a
chaff-stuffed mattress, covered with a woollen rug, in the recess behind
the projecting hearth--a strange luxury for a farm boy; and Doll yielded
very unwillingly when he spoke in a tone that savoured of command.
The shaggy Piers had already curled himself up in a corner and gone to
sleep.