And sickerlie she was of great disport,
And full pleasant and amiable of port;
Of small hounds had she that she fed
With roasted flesh and milk and wastel bread.
--CHAUCER.
Sir Giles Musgrave of Peelholm was an old campaigner, and when Hal came
out beyond the gate of the Threlkeld fortalice, he found him reviewing
his troop; a very disorderly collection, as Sir Lancelot pronounced with
a sneer, looking out on them, and strongly advising his step-son not to
cast in his lot with them, but to wait and see what would befall, and
whether the Nevils were in earnest in their desertion of the House of
York.
Hal restrained himself with difficulty enough to take a courteous leave
of his mother’s husband, to whose prudence and forbearance he was really
much beholden; though, with his spirit newly raised and burning for his
King, it was hard to have patience with neutrality.
He found Sir Giles employed in examining his followers, and rigidly
sending home all not properly equipped with bow, sheaf of arrows, strong
knife or pike, buff coat, head-piece and stout shoes; also a wallet of
provisions for three days, or a certain amount of coin. He would have
no marauding on the way, and refused to take any mere lawless camp
follower, thus disposing of a good many disreputable-looking fellows who
had flocked in his wake. Sir Lancelot’s steward seconded him heartily
by hunting back his master’s retainers; and there remained only about
five-and-twenty--mostly, in fact, yeomen or their sons--men who had
been in arms for Queen Margaret and had never made their submission,
but lived on unmolested in the hills, really outlawed, but not coming in
collision with the authorities enough to have their condition inquired
into. They had sometimes attacked Yorkist parties, sometimes resisted
Scottish raids, or even made a foray in return, and they were well used
to arms. These all had full equipments, and some more coin in their
pouches than they cared to avow. Three or four of them brought an ox,
calf or sheep, or a rough pony loaded with provisions, and driven by a
herd boy or a son eager to see life and ‘the wars.’ Simon Bunce, well
armed, was of this party. Hob Hogward, though he had come to see what
became of his young lord, was pronounced too stiff and aged to join the
band, which might now really be called a troop, not a mere lawless
crowd of rough lads. There were three trained men-at-arms, the regular
retainers of Sir Giles, who held a little peel tower on the borders
where nobody durst molest him, and these marshalled the little band in
fair order.
It was no season for roses, but a feather was also the cognisance of
Henry VI., and every one’s barret-cap mounted a feather, generally
borrowed from the goodwife’s poultry yard at home, but sometimes picked
up on the moors, and showing the barred black and brown patterns of the
hawk’s or the owl’s plumage. It was a heron’s feather that Hal assumed,
on the counsel of Sir Giles, who told him it was an old badge of the
Cliffords, and it became well his bright dark hair and brown face.
On they went, a new and wonderful march to Hal, who had only looked with
infant eyes on anything beyond the fells, and had very rarely been into
a little moorland church, or seen enough people together for a market
day in Penrith. Sir Giles directed their course along the sides of the
hills till he should gain further intelligence, and know how they would
be received. For the most part the people were well inclined to King
Henry, though unwilling to stir on his behalf in fear of Edward’s
cruelty.
However, it was as they had come down from the hills intending to
obtain fresh provisions at one of the villages, and Hal was beginning
to recognise the moors he had known in earlier childhood, that they
perceived a party on the old Roman road before them, which the outlaws’
keen eyes at once discovered to be somewhat of their own imputed trade.
There seemed to be a waggon upset, persons bound, and a buzz of men,
like wasps around a honeycomb preying on it. Something like women’s
veiled forms could be seen. ‘Ha! Mere robbery. This must not be. Upon
them! Form! Charge!’ were the brief commands of the leader, and the
compact body ran at a rapid but a regulated pace down the little slope
that gave them an advantage of ground with some concealment by a brake
of gorse. ‘Halt! Pikes forward!’ was the next order. The little band
were already close upon the robbers, in whom they began to recognise
some of those whom Sir Giles had dismissed as mere ruffians unequipped
a few days before. It was with a yell of indignation that the troop fell
on them, Sir Giles with a sharp blow severing the bridle of a horse that
a man was leading, but there was a cry back, ‘We are for King Harry!
These be Yorkists!’
‘Nay! nay!’ came back the voices of the overthrown. ‘Help! help! for
King Harry and Queen Margaret! These be rank thieves who have set on us!
Holy women are here!’
These exclamations came broken and in utter confusion, mingled with
cries for mercy and asseverations on the part of the thieves, and fierce
shouts from Sir Giles’s men. All was hubbub, barking dogs, shouting
men, and Hal scarcely knew anything till he was aware of two or three
shrouded nuns, as it seemed, standing by their ponies, of merchantmen
or carters trying to quiet and harness frightened mules, of waggons
overturned, of a general confusion over which arose Lord Musgrave’s
powerful authoritative voice.
‘Kit of Clumber! Why should I not hang you for thieving on yonder tree,
with your fellow thieves?’
‘Yorkists, sir! It was all in the good cause,’ responded a sullen voice,
as a grim red and scarred face was seen on a ruffian held by two of the
archers.
‘No Yorkists we, sir!’ began a stout figure, coming forward from the
waggon. ‘We be peaceable merchants and this is a holy dame, the--’
‘The Prioress Selby of Greystone,’ interrupted one of the nuns, coming
forward with a hawk on her wrist. ‘Sir Giles of Musgrave, I am beholden
to you! I was on my way to take the young damsel of Bletso to her
father, the Lord St. John, with Earl Warwick in London. He sent us an
escort, but they being arrant cravens, as it seems, we thought it well
to join company with these same merchants, and thus we became a bait for
the outlaws of the Border.’
‘Lady, lady,’ burst from one of the prisoners, ‘I swear that we kenned
not holy dames to be of the company! Sir, my lord, we thought to serve
the cause of King Harry, and how any man is to guess which side is Earl
Warwick’s is past an honest man.’
‘An honest man whose cause is his own pouch!’ returned Sir Giles.
‘Miscreants all! But I trow we are scarce yet out of the land of
misrule! So if the Lady Prioress will say a word for such a sort of
sorners, I’ll e’en let you go on your way.’
‘They have had a warning, the poor rogues, and that will suffice for
this time! Nay, now, fellows, let my wimple alone! You’ll not find
another lord to let you off so easy, nor another Prioress to stand your
friend. Get off, I say.’
An archer enforced her words with a blow, and by some means, rough or
otherwise, a certain amount of order was restored, the ruffians slinking
off among the gorse bushes, their flight hastened by the pointing of
pikes and levelling of arrows at them. While the merchants, diving into
their packages, produced horns of ale which a younger man offered to
their defenders, the chief of the party, a portly fellow, interrupted
certain civilities between the Prioress and Sir Giles by praying them to
partake of a cup of malmsey, and adding an entreaty that they might be
allowed to join company with so brave an escort, explaining that he was
a poor merchant of London and the Hans towns who had been beguiled into
an expedition to Scotland to the young King James, who was said to have
a fair taste. He waved his hands as if his sufferings had been beyond
description.
‘Went for wool and came back shorn!’ said the Prioress, laughing. ‘Well,
my Lord Musgrave, what say you to letting us join company?--as I see
your band is afoot it will be no great delay, and the more the safer as
well as the merrier! Here, let me present to you my young maid, the Lady
Anne of Bletso, whom I in person am about to deliver to her father.’
‘And let me present privately to both ladies,’ said Sir Giles, ‘the
young squire Harry of Derwentdale, who hath been living as a shepherd in
the hills during the York rule.’
‘Ha! my lord, methinks this may not be the first meeting between Lady
Anne and you, though she would not know who the herd boy was who found
her, a stray lambkin on the moor.’
The young people looked at each other with eyes of recognition, and as
Hal made his best bow, he said, ‘Forsooth, lady, I did not know myself
till afterwards.’
‘Your shepherd and his wife gave me to understand that I should do hurt
by inquiring too much,’ said the young lady smiling, and holding out her
hand, which Hal did not know whether to kiss or to shake. ‘I hope the
kind old goodwife is well, who cosseted me so lovingly.’
‘She fares well, indeed, lady, only grieved at parting with me.’
‘There now,’ said the Prioress, ‘since we are quit of the robbers,
methinks we cannot do better than halt awhile for Master Lorimer’s folk
to mend the tackling of their gear, while we make our noonday meal and
provide for our further journey. Allow me to be your hostess for the
nonce, my lords.’
And between the lady’s sumpter mules and the merchant’s stores a far
more sumptuous meal was produced than would have otherwise been the
share of the Lancastrian party.