girl. “I was indeed coming to Cosford.”
“Then we shall ride back together, for I will go no farther. How think
you that I am looking?”
Nigel’s answer was in his eyes as he glanced at the fair flushed face,
the golden hair, the sparkling eyes and the daintily graceful figure
set off in a scarlet-and-black riding-dress. “You are as fair as ever,
Edith.”
“Oh, cold of speech! Surely you were bred for the cloisters, and not
for a lady’s bower, Nigel. Had I asked such a question from young Sir
George Brocas or the Squire of Fernhurst, he would have raved from here
to Cosford. They are both more to my taste than you are, Nigel.”
“It is the worse for me, Edith,” said Nigel ruefully.
“Nay, but you must not lose heart.”
“Have I not already lost it?” said he.
“That is better,” she cried, laughing. “You can be quick enough when
you choose, Master Malapert. But you are more fit to speak of high and
weary matters with my sister Mary. She will have none of the prattle
and courtesy of Sir George, and yet I love them well. But tell me,
Nigel, why do you come to Cosford to-night?”
“To bid you farewell.”
“Me alone?”
“Nay, Edith, you and your sister Mary and the good knight your father.”
“Sir George would have said that he had come for me alone. Indeed you
are but a poor courtier beside him. But is it true, Nigel, that you go
to France?”
“Yes, Edith.”
“It was so rumored after the King had been to Tilford. The story goes
that the King goes to France and you in his train. Is that true?”
“Yes, Edith, it is true.”
“Tell me, then, to what part you go, and when?”
“That, alas! I may not say.”
“Oh, in sooth!” She tossed her fair head and rode onward in silence,
with compressed lips and angry eyes.
Nigel glanced at her in surprise and dismay. “Surely, Edith,” said he
at last, “you have overmuch regard for my honor that you should wish me
to break the word that I have given?”
“Your honor belongs to you, and my likings belong to me,” said she.
“You hold fast to the one, and I will do the same by the other.”
They rode in silence through Thursley village. Then a thought came to
her mind and in an instant her anger was forgotten and she was hot on a
new scent.
“What would you do if I were injured, Nigel? I have heard my father say
that small as you are there is no man in these parts could stand
against you. Would you be my champion if I suffered wrong?”
“Surely I or any man of gentle blood would be the champion of any woman
who had suffered wrong.”
“You or any and I or any—what sort of speech is that? Is it a
compliment, think you, to be mixed with a drove in that fashion? My
question was of you and me. If I were wronged would you be my man?”
“Try me and see, Edith!”
“Then I will do so, Nigel. Either Sir George Brocas or the Squire of
Fernhurst would gladly do what I ask, and yet I am of a mind, Nigel, to
turn to you.”
“I pray you to tell me what it is.”
“You know Paul de la Fosse of Shalford?”
“You mean the small man with the twisted back?”
“He is no smaller than yourself, Nigel, and as to his back there are
many folk that I know who would be glad to have his face.”
“Nay, I am no judge of that, and I spoke out of no discourtesy. What of
the man?”
“He has flouted me, Nigel, and I would have revenge.”
“What—on that poor twisted creature?”
“I tell you that he has flouted me!”
“But how?”
“I should have thought that a true cavalier would have flown to my aid,
withouten all these questions. But I will tell you, since I needs must.
Know then that he was one of those who came around me and professed to
be my own. Then, merely because he thought that there were others who
were as dear to me as himself he left me, and now he pays court to
Maude Twynham, the little freckle-faced hussy in his village.”
“But how has this hurt you, since he was no man of thine?”
“He was one of my men, was he not? And he has made game of me to his
wench. He has told her things about me. He has made me foolish in her
eyes. Yes, yes, I can read it in her saffron face and in her watery
eyes when we meet at the church door on Sundays. She smiles—yes, smiles
at me! Nigel, go to him! Do not slay him, nor even wound him, but lay
his face open with thy riding-whip, and then come back to me and tell
me how I can serve you.”
Nigel’s face was haggard with the strife within, for desire ran hot in
every vein, and yet reason shrank with horror. “By Saint Paul! Edith,”
he cried, “I see no honor nor advancement of any sort in this thing
which you have asked me to do. Is it for me to strike one who is no
better than a cripple? For my manhood I could not do such a deed, and I
pray you, dear lady, that you will set me some other task.”
Her eyes flashed at him in contempt. “And you are a man-at-arms!” she
cried, laughing in bitter scorn. “You are afraid of a little man who
can scarce walk. Yes, yes, say what you will, I shall ever believe that
you have heard of his skill at fence and of his great spirit, and that
your heart has failed you! You are right, Nigel. He is indeed a
perilous man. Had you done what I asked he would have slain you, and so
you have shown your wisdom.”
Nigel flushed and winced under the words, but he said no more, for his
mind was fighting hard within him, striving to keep that high image of
woman which seemed for a moment to totter on the edge of a fall.
Together in silence, side by side, the little man and the stately
woman, the yellow charger and the white jennet, passed up the sandy
winding track with the gorse and the bracken head-high on either side.
Soon a path branched off through a gateway marked with the boar-heads
of the Buttesthorns, and there was the low widespread house heavily
timbered, loud with the barking of dogs. The ruddy Knight limped forth
with outstretched hand and roaring voice—
“What how, Nigel! Good welcome and all hail! I had thought that you had
given over poor friends like us, now that the King had made so much of
you. The horses, varlets, or my crutch will be across you! Hush,
Lydiard! Down, Pelamon! I can scarce hear my voice for your yelping.
Mary, a cup of wine for young Squire Loring!”
She stood framed in the doorway, tall, mystic, silent, with strange,
wistful face and deep soul shining in her dark, questioning eyes. Nigel
kissed the hand that she held out, and all his faith in woman and his
reverence came back to him as he looked at her. Her sister had slipped
behind her and her fair elfish face smiled her forgiveness of Nigel
over Mary’s shoulder.
The Knight of Duplin leaned his weight upon the young man’s arm and
limped his way across the great high-roofed hall to his capacious oaken
chair. “Come, come, the stool, Edith!” he cried. “As God is my help,
that girl’s mind swarms with gallants as a granary with rats. Well,
Nigel, I hear strange tales of your spear-running at Tilford and of the
visit of the King. How seemed he? And my old friend Chandos—many happy
hours in the woodlands have we had together—and Manny too, he was ever
a bold and a hard rider—what news of them all?”
Nigel told to the old Knight all that had occurred, saying little of
his own success and much of his own failure, yet the eyes of the dark
woman burned the brighter as she sat at her tapestry and listened.
Sir John followed the story with a running fire of oaths, prayers,
thumps with his great fist and flourishes of his crutch. “Well, well,
lad, you could scarce expect to hold your saddle against Manny, and you
have carried yourself well. We are proud of you, Nigel, for you are our
own man, reared in the heather country. But indeed I take shame that
you are not more skilled in the mystery of the woods, seeing that I
have had the teaching of you, and that no one in broad England is my
master at the craft. I pray you to fill your cup again whilst I make
use of the little time that is left to us.”
And straightway the old Knight began a long and weary lecture upon the
times of grace and when each beast and bird was seasonable, with many
anecdotes, illustrations, warnings and exceptions, drawn from his own
great experience. He spoke also of the several ranks and grades of the
chase: how the hare, hart and boar must ever take precedence over the
buck, the doe, the fox, the marten and the roe, even as a knight
banneret does over a knight, while these in turn are of a higher class
to the badger, the wildcat or the otter, who are but the common
populace of the world of beasts. Of blood-stains also he spoke—how the
skilled hunter may see at a glance if blood be dark and frothy, which
means a mortal hurt, or thin and clear, which means that the arrow has
struck a bone.
“By such signs,” said he, “you will surely know whether to lay on the
hounds and cast down the blinks which hinder the stricken deer in its
flight. But above all I pray you, Nigel, to have a care in the use of
the terms of the craft, lest you should make some blunder at table, so
that those who are wiser may have the laugh of you, and we who love you
may be shamed.”
“Nay, Sir John,” said Nigel. “I think that after your teaching I can
hold my place with the others.”
The old Knight shook his white head doubtfully. “There is so much to be
learned that there is no one who can be said to know all,” said he.
“For example, Nigel, it is sooth that for every collection of beasts of
the forest, and for every gathering of birds of the air, there is their
own private name so that none may be confused with another.”
“I know it, fair sir.”
“You know it, Nigel, but you do not know each separate name, else are
you a wiser man than I had thought you. In truth—none can say that they
know all, though I have myself picked off eighty, and six for a wager
at court, and it is said that the chief huntsman of the Duke of
Burgundy has counted over a hundred—but it is in my mind that he may
have found them as he went, for there was none to say him nay. Answer
me now, lad, how would you say if you saw ten badgers together in the
forest?”
“A cete of badgers, fair sir.”
“Good, Nigel—good, by my faith! And if you walk in Woolmer Forest and
see a swarm of foxes, how would you call it?”
“A skulk of foxes.”
“And if they be lions?”
“Nay, fair sir, I am not like to meet several lions in Woolmer Forest.”
“Aye, lad, but there are other forests besides Woolmer, and other lands
besides England, and who can tell how far afield such a knight errant
as Nigel of Tilford may go, when he sees worship to be won? We will say
that you were in the deserts of Nubia, and that afterward at the court
of the great Sultan you wished to say that you had seen several lions,
which is the first beast of the chase, being the king of all animals.
How then would you say it?”
Nigel scratched his head. “Surely, fair sir, I would be content to say
that I had seen a number of lions, if indeed I could say aught after so
wondrous an adventure.”
“Nay, Nigel, a huntsman would have said that he had seen a pride of
lions, and so proved that he knew the language of the chase. Now had it
been boars instead of lions?”
“One says a singular of boars.”
“And if they be swine?”
“Surely it is a herd of swine.”
“Nay, nay, lad, it is indeed sad to see how little you know. Your
hands, Nigel, were always better than your head. No man of gentle birth
would speak of a herd of swine; that is the peasant speech. If you
drive them it is a herd. If you hunt them it is other. What call you
them, then, Edith?”
“Nay, I know not,” said the girl listlessly. A crumpled note brought in
by a varlet was clinched in her right hand and her blue eyes looked
afar into the deep shadows of the roof.
“But you can tell us, Mary?”
“Surely, sweet sir, one talks of a sounder of swine.”
The old Knight laughed exultantly. “Here is a pupil who never brings me
shame!” he cried. “Be it lore—of chivalry or heraldry or woodcraft or
what you will, I can always turn to Mary. Many a man can she put to the
blush.”
“Myself among them,” said Nigel.
“Ah, lad, you are a Solomon to some of them. Hark ye! only last week
that jack-fool, the young Lord of Brocas, was here talking of having
seen a covey of pheasants in the wood. One such speech would have been
the ruin of a young Squire at the court. How would you have said it,
Nigel?”
“Surely, fair sir, it should be a nye of pheasants.”
“Good, Nigel—a nye of pheasants, even as it is a gaggle of geese or a
badling of ducks, a fall of woodcock or a wisp of snipe. But a covey of
pheasants! What sort of talk is that? I made him sit even where you are
sitting, Nigel, and I saw the bottom of two pots of Rhenish ere I let
him up. Even then I fear that he had no great profit from his lesson,
for he was casting his foolish eyes at Edith when he should have been
turning his ears to her father. But where is the wench?”
“She hath gone forth, father.”
“She ever doth go forth when there is a chance of learning aught that
is useful indoors. But supper will soon be ready, and there is a boar’s
ham fresh from the forest with which I would ask your help, Nigel, and
a side of venison from the King’s own chase. The tinemen and verderers
have not forgotten me yet, and my larder is ever full. Blow three moots
on the horn, Mary, that the varlets may set the table, for the growing
shadow and my loosening belt warn me that it is time.”
XII.
HOW NIGEL FOUGHT THE TWISTED MAN OF SHALFORD
In the days of which you read all classes, save perhaps the very poor,
fared better in meat and in drink than they have ever done since. The
country was covered with woodlands—there were seventy separate forests
in England alone, some of them covering half a shire. Within these
forests the great beasts of the chase were strictly preserved, but the
smaller game, the hares, the rabbits, the birds, which swarmed round
the coverts, found their way readily into the poor man’s pot. Ale was
very cheap, and cheaper still was the mead which every peasant could
make for himself out of the wild honey in the tree-trunks. There were
many tea-like drinks also, which were brewed by the poor at no expense:
mallow tea, tansy tea, and others the secret of which has passed.
Amid the richer classes there was rude profusion, great joints ever on
the sideboard, huge pies, beasts of the field and beasts of the chase,
with ale and rough French or Rhenish wines to wash them down. But the
very rich had attained to a high pitch of luxury in their food, and
cookery was a science in which the ornamentation of the dish was almost
as important as the dressing of the food. It was gilded, it was
silvered, it was painted, it was surrounded with flame. From the boar
and the peacock down to such strange food as the porpoise and the
hedgehog, every dish had its own setting and its own sauce, very
strange and very complex, with flavorings of dates, currants, cloves,
vinegar, sugar and honey, of cinnamon, ground ginger, sandalwood,
saffron, brawn and pines. It was the Norman tradition to eat in
moderation, but to have a great profusion of the best and of the most
delicate from which to choose. From them came this complex cookery, so
unlike the rude and often gluttonous simplicity of the old Teutonic
stock.
Sir John Buttesthorn was of that middle class who fared in the old
fashion, and his great oak supper-table groaned beneath the generous
pastries, the mighty joints and the great flagons. Below were the
household, above on a raised dais the family table, with places ever
ready for those frequent guests who dropped in from the high road
outside. Such a one had just come, an old priest, journeying from the
Abbey of Chertsey to the Priory of Saint John at Midhurst. He passed
often that way, and never without breaking his journey at the
hospitable board of Cosford.
“Welcome again, good Father Athanasius!” cried the burly Knight. “Come
sit here on my right and give me the news of the country-side, for
there is never a scandal but the priests are the first to know it.”
The priest, a kindly, quiet man, glanced at an empty place upon the
farther side of his host. “Mistress Edith?” said he.
“Aye, aye, where is the hussy?” cried her father impatiently. “Mary, I
beg you to have the horn blown again, that she may know that the supper
is on the table. What can the little owlet do abroad at this hour of
the night?”
There was trouble in the priest’s gentle eyes as he touched the Knight
upon the sleeve. “I have seen Mistress Edith within this hour,” said
he. “I fear that she will hear no horn that you may blow, for she must
be at Milford ere now.”
“At Milford? What does she there?”
“I pray you, good Sir John, to abate your voice somewhat, for indeed
this matter is for our private discourse, since it touches the honor of
a lady.”
“Her honor?” Sir John’s ruddy face had turned redder still, as he
stared at the troubled features of the priest. “Her honor, say you—the
honor of my daughter? Make good those words, or never set your foot
over the threshold of Cosford again!”
“I trust that I have done no wrong, Sir John, but indeed I must say
what I have seen, else would I be a false friend and an unworthy
priest.”
“Haste man, haste! What in the Devil’s name have you seen?”
“Know you a little man, partly misshapen, named Paul de la Fosse?”
“I know him well. He is a man of noble family and coat-armor, being the
younger brother of Sir Eustace de la Fosse of Shalford. Time was when I
had thought that I might call him son, for there was never a day that
he did not pass with my girls, but I fear that his crooked back sped
him ill in his wooing.”
“Alas, Sir John! It is his mind that is more crooked than his back. He
is a perilous man with women, for the Devil hath given him such a
tongue and such an eye that he charms them even as the basilisk.
Marriage may be in their mind, but never in his, so that I could count
a dozen and more whom he has led to their undoing. It is his pride and
his boast over the whole countryside.”
“Well, well, and what is this to me or mine?”
“Even now, Sir John, as I rode my mule up the road I met this man
speeding toward his home. A woman rode by his side, and though her face
was hooded I heard her laugh as she passed me. That laugh I have heard
before, and it was under this very roof, from the lips of Mistress
Edith.”
The Knight’s knife dropped from his hand. But the debate had been such
that neither Mary nor Nigel could fail to have heard it. Mid the rough
laughter and clatter of voices from below the little group at the high
table had a privacy of their own.
“Fear not, father,” said the girl—“indeed, the good Father Athanasius
hath fallen into error, and Edith will be with us anon. I have heard
her speak of this man many times of late, and always with bitter
words.”
“It is true, sir,” cried Nigel eagerly. “It was only this very evening
as we rode over Thursley Moor that Mistress Edith told me that she
counted him not a fly, and that she would be glad if he were beaten for
his evil deeds.”
But the wise priest shook his silvery locks. “Nay, there is ever danger
when a woman speaks like that. Hot hate is twin brother to hot love.
Why should she speak so if there were not some bond between them?”
“And yet,” said Nigel, “what can have changed her thoughts in three
short hours? She was here in the hall with us since I came. By Saint
Paul, I will not believe it!”
Mary’s face darkened. “I call to mind,” said she, “that a note was
brought her by Hannekin the stable varlet when you were talking to us,
fair sir, of the terms of the chase. She read it and went forth.”
Sir John sprang to his feet, but sank into his chair again with a
groan. “Would that I were dead,” he cried, “ere I saw dishonor come
upon my house, and am so tied with this accursed foot that I can
neither examine if it be true, nor yet avenge it! If my son Oliver were
here, then all would be well. Send me this stable varlet that I may
question him.”
“I pray you, fair and honored sir,” said Nigel, “that you will take me
for your son this night, that I may handle this matter in the way which
seems best. On jeopardy of my honor I will do all that a man may.”
“Nigel, I thank you. There is no man in Christendom to whom I would
sooner turn.”
“But I would lean your mind in one matter, fair sir. This man, Paul de
la Fosse, owns broad acres, as I understand, and comes of noble blood.
There is no reason if things be as we fear that he should not marry
your daughter?”
“Nay, she could not wish for better.”
“It is well. And first I would question this Hannekin; but it shall be
done in such a fashion that none shall know, for indeed it is not a
matter for the gossip of servants. But if you will show me the man,
Mistress Mary, I will take him out to tend my own horse, and so I shall
learn all that he has to tell.”
Nigel was absent for some time, and when he returned the shadow upon
his face brought little hope to the anxious hearts at the high table.
“I have locked him in the stable loft, lest he talk too much,” said he,
“for my questions must have shown him whence the wind blew. It was
indeed from this man that the note came, and he had brought with him a
spare horse for the lady.”
The old Knight groaned, and his face sank upon his hands.
“Nay, father, they watch you!” whispered Mary. “For the honor of our
house let us keep a bold face to all.” Then, raising her young clear
voice, so that it sounded through the room: “If you ride eastward,
Nigel, I would fain go with you, that my sister may not come back
alone.”
“We will ride together, Mary,” said Nigel, rising; then in a lower
voice: “But we cannot go alone, and if we take a servant all is known.
I pray you to stay at home and leave the matter with me.”
“Nay, Nigel, she may sorely need a woman’s aid, and what woman should
it be save her own sister? I can take my tire-woman with us.”
“Nay, I shall ride with you myself if your impatience can keep within
the powers of my mule,” said the old priest.
“But it is not your road, father?”
“The only road of a true priest is that which leads to the good of
others. Come, my children, and we will go together.”
And so it was that stout Sir John Buttesthorn, the aged Knight of
Duplin, was left alone at his own high table, pretending to eat,
pretending to drink, fidgeting in his seat, trying hard to seem
unconcerned with his mind and body in a fever, while below him his
varlets and handmaids laughed and jested, clattering their cups and
clearing their trenchers, all unconscious of the dark shadow which
threw its gloom over the lonely man upon the dais above.
Meantime the Lady Mary upon the white jennet which her sister had
ridden on the same evening, Nigel on his war-horse, and the priest on
the mule, clattered down the rude winding road which led to London. The
country on either side was a wilderness of heather moors and of
morasses from which came the strange crying of night-fowl. A half-moon
shone in the sky between the rifts of hurrying clouds. The lady rode in
silence, absorbed in the thought of the task before them, the danger
and the shame.
Nigel chatted in a low tone with the priest. From him he learned more
of the evil name of this man whom they followed. His house at Shalford
was a den of profligacy and vice. No woman could cross that threshold
and depart unstained. In some strange fashion, inexplicable and yet
common, the man, with all his evil soul and his twisted body, had yet
some strange fascination for women, some mastery over them which
compelled them to his will. Again and again he had brought ruin to a
household, again and again his adroit tongue and his cunning wit had in
some fashion saved him from the punishment of his deeds. His family was
great in the county, and his kinsmen held favor with the King, so that
his neighbors feared to push things too far against him. Such was the
man, malignant and ravenous, who had stooped like some foul night-hawk
and borne away to his evil nest the golden beauty of Cosford. Nigel
said little as he listened, but he raised his hunting-dagger to his
tightened lips, and thrice he kissed the cross of its handle.
They had passed over the moors and through the village of Milford and
the little township of Godalming, until their path turned southward
over the Pease marsh and crossed the meadows of Shalford. There on the
dark hillside glowed the red points of light which marked the windows
of the house which they sought. A somber arched avenue of oak-trees led
up to it, and then they were in the moon-silvered clearing in front.
From the shadow of the arched door there sprang two rough serving-men,
bearded and gruff, great cudgels in their hands, to ask them who they
were and what their errand. The Lady Mary had slipped from her horse
and was advancing to the door, but they rudely barred her way.
“Nay, nay, our master needs no more!” cried one, with a hoarse laugh.
“Stand back, mistress, whoever you be! The house is shut, and our lord
sees no guests to-night.”
“Fellow,” said Nigel, speaking low and clear, “stand back from us! Our
errand is with your master.”
“Bethink you, my children,” cried the old priest, “would it not be best
perchance, that I go in to him and see whether the voice of the Church
may not soften this hard heart? I fear bloodshed if you enter.”
“Nay, father, I pray you to stay here for the nonce,” said Nigel. “And
you, Mary, do you bide with the good priest, for we know not what may
be within.”
Again he turned to the door, and again the two men barred his passage.
“Stand back, I say, back for your lives!” said Nigel. “By Saint Paul! I
should think it shame to soil my sword with such as you, but my soul is
set, and no man shall bar my path this night.”
The men shrank from the deadly menace of that gentle voice.
“Hold!” said one of them, peering through the darkness, “is it not
Squire Loring of Tilford?”
“That is indeed my name.”
“Had you spoken it I for one would not have stopped your way. Put down
your staff, Wat, for this is no stranger, but the Squire of Tilford.”
“As well for him,” grumbled the other, lowering his cudgel with an
inward prayer of thanksgiving. “Had it been otherwise I should have had
blood upon my soul to-night. But our master said nothing of neighbors
when he ordered us to hold the door. I will enter and ask him what is
his will.”
But already Nigel was past them and had pushed open the outer door.
Swift as he was, the Lady Mary was at his very heels, and the two
passed together into the hall beyond.
It was a great room, draped and curtained with black shadows, with one
vivid circle of light in the center, where two oil lamps shone upon a
small table. A meal was laid upon the table, but only two were seated
at it, and there were no servants in the room. At the near end was
Edith, her golden hair loose and streaming down over the scarlet and
black of her riding-dress.
At the farther end the light beat strongly upon the harsh face and the
high-drawn misshapen shoulders of the lord of the house. A tangle of
black hair surmounted a high rounded forehead, the forehead of a
thinker, with two deep-set cold gray eyes twinkling sharply from under
tufted brows. His nose was curved and sharp, like the beak of some
cruel bird, but below the whole of his clean-shaven powerful face was
marred by the loose slabbing mouth and the round folds of the heavy
chin. His knife in one hand and a half-gnawed bone in the other, he
looked fiercely up, like some beast disturbed in his den, as the two
intruders broke in upon his hall.
Nigel stopped midway between the door and the table. His eyes and those
of Paul de la Fosse were riveted upon each other. But Mary, with her
woman’s soul flooded over with love and pity, had rushed forward and
cast her arms round her younger sister. Edith had sprung up from her
chair, and with averted face tried to push the other away from her.
“Edith, Edith! By the Virgin, I implore you to come back with us, and
to leave this wicked man!” cried Mary. “Dear sister, you would not
break our father’s heart, nor bring his gray head in dishonor to the
grave! Come back Edith, come back and all is well.”
But Edith pushed her away, and her fair cheeks were flushed with her
anger. “What right have you over me, Mary, you who are but two years
older, that you should follow me over the country-side as though I were
a runagate villain and you my mistress? Do you yourself go back, and
leave me to do that which seems best in my own eyes.”
But Mary still held her in her arms, and still strove to soften the
hard and angry heart. “Our mother is dead, Edith. I thank God that she
died ere she saw you under this roof! But I stand for her, as I have
done all my life, since I am indeed your elder. It is with her voice
that I beg and pray you that you will not trust this man further, and
that you will come back ere it be too late!”
Edith writhed from her grasp, and stood flushed and defiant, with
gleaming, angry eyes fixed upon her sister. “You may speak evil of him
now,” said she, “but there was a time when Paul de la Fosse came to
Cosford, and who so gentle and soft-spoken to him then as wise, grave,
sister Mary? But he has learned to love another; so now he is the
wicked man, and it is shame to be seen under his roof! From what I see
of my good pious sister and her cavalier it is sin for another to ride
at night with a man at your side, but it comes easy enough to you. Look
at your own eye, good sister, ere you would take the speck from that of
another.”
Mary stood irresolute and greatly troubled, holding down her pride and
her anger, but uncertain how best to deal with this strong wayward
spirit.
“It is not a time for bitter words, dear sister,” said she, and again
she laid her hand upon her sister’s sleeve. “All that you say may be
true. There was indeed a time when this man was friend to us both, and
I know even as you do the power which he may have to win a woman’s
heart. But I know him now, and you do not. I know the evil that he has
wrought, the dishonor that he has brought, the perjury that lies upon
his soul, the confidence betrayed, the promise unfulfilled—all this I
know. Am I to see my own sister caught in the same well-used trap? Has
it shut upon you, child? Am I indeed already too late? For God’s sake,
tell me, Edith, that it is not so?”
Edith plucked her sleeve from her sister and made two swift steps to
the head of the table. Paul de la Fosse still sat silent with his eyes
upon Nigel. Edith laid her hand upon his shoulder: “This is the man I
love, and the only man that I have ever loved. This is my husband,”
said she.
At the word Mary gave a cry of joy.
“And is it so?” she cried. “Nay, then all is in honor, and God will see
to the rest. If you are man and wife before the altar, then indeed why
should I, or any other, stand between you? Tell me that it is indeed
so, and I return this moment to make your father a happy man.”
Edith pouted like a naughty child. “We are man and wife in the eyes of
God. Soon also we shall be wedded before all the world. We do but wait
until next Monday when Paul’s brother, who is a priest at St. Albans,
will come to wed us. Already a messenger has sped for him, and he will
come, will he not, dear love?”
“He will come,” said the master of Shalford, still with his eyes fixed
upon the silent Nigel.
“It is a lie; he will not come,” said a voice from the door.
It was the old priest, who had followed the others as far as the
threshold.
“He will not come,” he repeated as he advanced into the room.
“Daughter, my daughter, hearken to the words of one who is indeed old
enough to be your earthly father. This lie has served before. He has
ruined others before you with it. The man has no brother at Saint
Albans. I know his brothers well, and there is no priest among them.
Before Monday, when it is all too late, you will have found the truth
as others have done before you. Trust him not, but come with us!”
Paul de la Fosse looked up at her with a quick smile and patted the
hand upon his shoulder.
“Do you speak to them, Edith,” said he.
Her eyes flashed with scorn as she surveyed them each in turn, the
woman, the youth and the priest.
“I have but one word to say to them,” said she. “It is that they go
hence and trouble us no more. Am I not a free woman? Have I not said
that this is the only man I ever loved? I have loved him long. He did
not know it, and in despair he turned to another. Now he knows all and
never again can doubt come between us. Therefore I will stay here at
Shalford and come to Cosford no more save upon the arm of my husband.
Am I so weak that I would believe the tales you tell against him? Is it
hard for a jealous woman and a wandering priest to agree upon a lie?
No, no, Mary, you can go hence and take your cavalier and your priest
with you, for here I stay, true to my love and safe in my trust upon
his honor!”
“Well spoken, on my faith, my golden bird!” said the little master of
Shalford. “Let me add my own word to that which has been said. You
would not grant me any virtue in your unkindly speech, good Lady Mary,
and yet you must needs confess that at least I have good store of
patience, since I have not set my dogs upon your friends who have come
between me and my ease. But even to the most virtuous there comes at
last a time when poor human frailty may prevail, and so I pray you to
remove both yourself, your priest and your valiant knight errant, lest
perhaps there be more haste and less dignity when at last you do take
your leave. Sit down, my fair love, and let us turn once more to our
supper.” He motioned her to her chair, and he filled her wine-cup as
well as his own.
Nigel had said no word since he had entered the room, but his look had
never lost its set purpose, nor had his brooding eyes ever wandered
from the sneering face of the deformed master of Shalford. Now he
turned with swift decision to Mary and to the priest.
“That is over,” said he in a low voice. “You have done all that you
could, and now it is for me to play my part as well as I am able. I
pray you, Mary, and you, good father, that you will await me outside.”
“Nay, Nigel, if there is danger—”
“It is easier for me, Mary, if you are not there. I pray you to go. I
can speak to this man more at my ease.”
She looked at him with questioning eyes and then obeyed.
Nigel plucked at the priest’s gown.
“I pray you, father, have you your book of offices with you?”
“Surely, Nigel, it is ever in my breast.”
“Have it ready, father!”
“For what, my son?”
“There are two places you may mark; there is the service of marriage
and there is the prayer for the dying. Go with her, father, and be
ready at my call.”
He closed the door behind them and was alone with this ill-matched
couple. They both turned in their chairs to look at him, Edith with a
defiant face, the man with a bitter smile upon his lips and malignant
hatred in his eyes.
“What,” said he, “the knight errant still lingers? Have we not heard of
his thirst for glory? What new venture does he see that he should tarry
here?”
Nigel walked to the table.
“There is no glory and little venture,” said he; “but I have come for a
purpose and I must do it. I learn from your own lips, Edith, that you
will not leave this man.”
“If you have ears you have heard it.”
“You are, as you have said, a free woman, and who can gainsay you? But
I have known you, Edith, since we played as boy and girl on the
heather-hills together. I will save you from this man’s cunning and
from your own foolish weakness.”
“What would you do?”
“There is a priest without. He will marry you now. I will see you
married ere I leave this hall.”
“Or else?” sneered the man.
“Or else you never leave this hall alive. Nay, call not for your
servants or your dogs! By Saint Paul! I swear to you that this matter
lies between us three, and that if any fourth comes at your call you,
at least, shall never live to see what comes of it! Speak then, Paul of
Shalford! Will you wed this woman now, or will you not?”
Edith was on her feet with outstretched arms between them. “Stand back,
Nigel! He is small and weak. You would not do him a hurt! Did you not
say so this very day? For God’s sake, Nigel, do not look at him so!
There is death in your eyes.”
“A snake may be small and weak, Edith, yet every honest man would place
his heel upon it. Do you stand back yourself, for my purpose is set.”
“Paul!” she turned her eyes to the pale sneering face. “Bethink you,
Paul! Why should you not do what he asks? What matter to you whether it
be now or on Monday? I pray you, dear Paul, for my sake let him have
his way! Your brother can read the service again if it so please him.
Let us wed now, Paul, and then all is well.”
He had risen from his chair, and he dashed aside her appealing hands.
“You foolish woman,” he snarled, “and you, my savior of fair damsels,
who are so bold against a cripple, you have both to learn that if my
body be weak there is the soul of my breed within it! To marry because
a boasting, ranting, country Squire would have me do so—no, by the soul
of God, I will die first! On Monday I will marry, and no day sooner, so
let that be your answer.”
“It is the answer that I wished,” said Nigel, “for indeed I see no
happiness in this marriage, and the other may well be the better way.
Stand aside, Edith!” He gently forced her to one side and drew his
sword.
De la Fosse cried aloud at the sight. “I have no sword. You would not
murder me?” said he, leaning back with haggard-face and burning eyes
against his chair. The bright steel shone in the lamp-light. Edith
shrank back, her hand over her face.
“Take this sword!” said Nigel, and he turned the hilt to the cripple.
“Now!” he added, as he drew his hunting knife. “Kill me if you can,
Paul de la Fosse, for as God is my help I will do as much for you!”
The woman, half swooning and yet spellbound and fascinated, looked on
at that strange combat. For a moment the cripple stood with an air of
doubt, the sword grasped in his nerveless fingers. Then as he saw the
tiny blade in Nigel’s hand the greatness of the advantage came home to
him, and a cruel smile tightened his loose lips. Slowly, step by step
he advanced, his chin sunk upon his chest, his eyes glaring from under
the thick tangle of his brows like fires through the brushwood. Nigel
waited for him, his left hand forward, his knife down by his hip, his
face grave, still and watchful.
Nearer and nearer yet, with stealthy step, and then with a bound and a
cry of hatred and rage Paul de la Fosse had sped his blow. It was well
judged and well swung, but point would have been wiser than edge
against that supple body and those active feet. Quick as a flash, Nigel
had sprung inside the sweep of the blade, taking a flesh wound on his
left forearm, as he pressed it under the hilt. The next instant the
cripple was on the ground and Nigel’s dagger was at his throat.
“You dog!” he whispered. “I have you at my mercy! Quick ere I strike,
and for the last time! Will you marry or no?”
The crash of the fall and the sharp point upon his throat had cowed the
man’s spirit. He looked up with a white face and the sweat gleamed upon
his forehead. There was terror in his eyes.
“Nay, take your knife from me!” he cried. “I cannot die like a calf in
the shambles.”
“Will you marry?”
“Yes, yes, I will wed her! After all she is a good wench and I might do
worse. Let me up! I tell you I will marry her! What more would you
have?”
Nigel stood above him with his foot upon his misshapen body. He had
picked up his sword, and the point rested upon the cripple’s breast.
“Nay, you will bide where you are! If you are to live—and my conscience
cries loud against it—at least your wedding will be such as your sins
have deserved. Lie there, like the crushed worm that you are!” Then he
raised his voice. “Father Athanasius!” he cried. “What ho! Father
Athanasius!”
The old priest ran to the cry, and so did the Lady Mary. A strange
sight it was that met them now in the circle of light, the frightened
girl, half-unconscious against the table, the prostrate cripple, and
Nigel with foot and sword upon his body.
“Your book, father!” cried Nigel. “I know not if what we do is good or
ill; but we must wed them, for there is no way out.”
But the girl by the table had given a great cry, and she was clinging
and sobbing with her arms round her sister’s neck.
“Oh, Mary, I thank the Virgin that you have come! I thank the Virgin
that it is not too late! What did he say? He said that he was a de la
Fosse and that he would not be married at the sword-point. My heart
went out to him when he said it. But I, am I not a Buttesthorn, and
shall it be said that I would marry a man who could be led to the altar
with a knife at his throat? No, no, I see him as he is! I know him now,
the mean spirit, the lying tongue! Can I not read in his eyes that he
has indeed deceived me, that he would have left me as you say that he
has left others? Take me home, Mary, my sister, for you have plucked me
back this night from the very mouth of Hell!”
And so it was that the master of Shalford, livid and brooding, was left
with his wine at his lonely table, while the golden beauty of Cosford,
hot with shame and anger, her fair face wet with tears, passed out safe
from the house of infamy into the great calm and peace of the starry
night.
XIII.
HOW THE COMRADES JOURNEYED DOWN THE OLD, OLD ROAD
And now the season of the moonless nights was drawing nigh and the
King’s design was ripe. Very secretly his preparations were made.
Already the garrison of Calais, which consisted of five hundred archers
and two hundred men-at-arms, could, if forewarned, resist any attack
made upon it. But it was the King’s design not merely to resist the
attack, but to capture the attackers. Above all it was his wish to find
the occasion for one of those adventurous passages of arms which had
made his name famous throughout Christendom as the very pattern and
leader of knight-errant chivalry.
But the affair wanted careful handling. The arrival of any,
reinforcements, or even the crossing of any famous soldier, would have
alarmed the French and warned them that their plot had been discovered.
Therefore it was in twos and threes in the creyers and provision ships
which were continually passing from shore to shore that the chosen
warriors and their squires were brought to Calais. There they were
passed at night through the water-gate into the castle where they could
lie hidden, unknown to the townsfolk, until the hour for action had
come.
Nigel had received word from Chandos to join him at “The Sign of the
Broom-Pod” in Winchelsea. Three days beforehand he and Aylward rode
from Tilford all armed and ready for the wars. Nigel was in
hunting-costume, blithe and gay, with his precious armor and his small
baggage trussed upon the back of a spare horse which Aylward led by the
bridle. The archer had himself a good black mare, heavy and slow, but
strong enough to be fit to carry his powerful frame. In his brigandine
of chain mail and his steel cap, with straight strong sword by his
side, his yellow long-bow jutting over his shoulder, and his quiver of
arrows supported by a scarlet baldric, he was such a warrior as any
knight might well be proud to have in his train. All Tilford trailed
behind them, as they rode slowly over the long slope of heath land
which skirts the flank of Crooksbury Hill.
At the summit of the rise Nigel reined in Pommers and looked back at
the little village behind him. There was the old dark manor house, with
one bent figure leaning upon a stick and gazing dimly after him from
beside the door. He looked at the high-pitched roof, the timbered
walls, the long trail of swirling blue smoke which rose from the single
chimney, and the group of downcast old servants who lingered at the
gate, John the cook, Weathercote the minstrel, and Red Swire the broken
soldier. Over the river amid the trees he could see the grim, gray
tower of Waverley, and even as he looked, the iron bell, which had so
often seemed to be the hoarse threatening cry of an enemy, clanged out
its call to prayer. Nigel doffed his velvet cap and prayed also—prayed
that peace might remain at home, and good warfare, in which honor and
fame should await him, might still be found abroad. Then, waving his
hand to the people, he turned his horse’s head and rode slowly
eastward. A moment later Aylward broke from the group of archers and
laughing girls who clung to his bridle and his stirrup straps, and rode
on, blowing kisses over his shoulder. So at last the two comrades,
gentle and simple, were fairly started on their venture.
There are two seasons of color in those parts: the yellow, when the
country-side is flaming with the gorse-blossoms, and the crimson, when
all the long slopes are smoldering with the heather. So it was now.
Nigel looked back from time to time, as he rode along the narrow track
where the ferns and the ling brushed his feet on either side, and as he
looked it seemed to him that wander where he might he would never see a
fairer scene than that of his own home. Far to the westward, glowing in
the morning light, rolled billow after billow of ruddy heather land,
until they merged into the dark shadows of Woolmer Forest and the pale
clear green of the Butser chalk downs. Never in his life had Nigel
wandered far beyond these limits, and the woodlands, the down and the
heather were dear to his soul. It gave him a pang in his heart now as
he turned his face away from them; but if home lay to the westward, out
there to the eastward was the great world of adventure, the noble stage
where each of his kinsmen in turn had played his manly part and left a
proud name behind.
How often he had longed for this day! And now it had come with no
shadow cast behind it. Dame Ermyntrude was under the King’s protection.
The old servants had their future assured. The strife with the monks of
Waverley had been assuaged. He had a noble horse under him, the best of
weapons, and a stout follower at his back. Above all he was bound on a
gallant errand with the bravest knight in England as his leader. All
these thoughts surged together in his mind, and he whistled and sang,
as he rode, out of the joy of his heart, while Pommers sidled and
curveted in sympathy with the mood of his master. Presently, glancing
back, he saw from Aylward’s downcast eyes and Puckered brow that the
archer was clouded with trouble. He reined his horse to let him come
abreast of him.
“How now, Aylward?” said he. “Surely of all men in England you and I
should be the most blithe this morning, since we ride forward with all
hopes of honorable advancement. By Saint Paul! ere we see these heather
hills once more we shall either worshipfully win worship, or we shall
venture our persons in the attempt. These be glad thoughts, and why
should you be downcast?”
Aylward shrugged his broad shoulders, and a wry smile dawned upon his
rugged face. “I am indeed as limp as a wetted bowstring,” said he. “It
is the nature of a man that he should be sad when he leaves the woman
he loves.”
“In truth, yes!” cried Nigel, and in a flash the dark eyes of Mary
Buttesthorn rose before him, and he heard her low, sweet, earnest voice
as he had heard it that night when they brought her frailer sister back
from Shalford Manor, a voice which made all that was best and noblest
in a man thrill within his soul. “Yet, bethink you, archer, that what a
woman loves in man is not his gross body, but rather his soul, his
honor, his fame, the deeds with which he has made his life beautiful.
Therefore you are winning love as well as glory when you turn to the
wars.”
“It may be so,” said Aylward; “but indeed it goes to my heart to see
the pretty dears weep, and I would fain weep as well to keep them
company. When Mary—or was it Dolly?—nay, it was Martha, the red-headed
girl from the mill—when she held tight to my baldric it was like
snapping my heart-string to pluck myself loose.”
“You speak of one name and then of another,” said Nigel. “How is she
called then, this maid whom you love?”
Aylward pushed back his steel cap and scratched his bristling head with
some embarrassment. “Her name,” said he, “is Mary Dolly Martha Susan
Jane Cicely Theodosia Agnes Johanna Kate.”
Nigel laughed as Aylward rolled out this prodigious title. “I had no
right to take you to the wars,” said he; “for by Saint Paul! it is very
clear that I have widowed half the parish. But I saw your aged father
the franklin. Bethink you of the joy that will fill his heart when he
hears that you have done some small deed in France, and so won honor in
the eyes of all.”
“I fear that honor will not help him to pay his arrears of rent to the
sacrist of Waverley,” said Aylward. “Out he will go on the roadside,
honor and all, if he does not find ten nobles by next Epiphany. But if
I could win a ransom or be at the storming of a rich city, then indeed
the old man would be proud of me. ‘Thy sword must help my spade,
Samkin,’ said he as he kissed me goodby. Ah! it would indeed be a happy
day for him and for all if I could ride back with a saddle-bag full of
gold pieces, and please God, I shall dip my hand in somebody’s pocket
before I see Crooksbury Hill once more!”
Nigel shook his head, for indeed it seemed hopeless to try to bridge
the gulf between them. Already they had made such good progress along
the bridle-path through the heather that the little hill of Saint
Catharine and the ancient shrine upon its summit loomed up before them.
Here they crossed the road from the south to London, and at the
crossing two wayfarers were waiting who waved their hands in greeting,
the one a tall, slender, dark woman upon a white jennet, the other a
very thick and red-faced old man, whose weight seemed to curve the back
of the stout gray cob which he bestrode.
“What how, Nigel!” he cried. “Mary has told me that you make a start
this morning, and we have waited here this hour and more on the chance
of seeing you pass. Come, lad, and have a last stoup of English ale,
for many a time amid the sour French wines you will long for the white
foam under your nose, and the good homely twang of it.”
Nigel had to decline the draft, for it meant riding into Guildford
town, a mile out of his course, but very gladly he agreed with Mary
that they should climb the path to the old shrine and offer a last
orison together. The knight and Aylward waited below with the horses;
and so it came about that Nigel and Mary found themselves alone under
the solemn old Gothic arches, in front of the dark shadowed recess in
which gleamed the golden reliquary of the saint. In silence they knelt
side by side in prayer, and then came forth once more out of the gloom
and the shadow into the fresh sunlit summer morning. They stopped ere
they descended the path, and looked to right and left at the fair
meadows and the blue Wey curling down the valley.
“What have you prayed for, Nigel?” said she.
“I have prayed that God and His saints will hold my spirit high and
will send me back from France in such a fashion that I may dare to come
to you and to claim you for my own.”
“Bethink you well what it is that you say, Nigel,” said she. “What you
are to me only my own heart can tell; but I would never set eyes upon
your face again rather than abate by one inch that height of honor and
worshipful achievement to which you may attain.”
“Nay, my dear and most sweet lady, how should you abate it, since it is
the thought of you which will nerve my arm and uphold my heart?”
“Think once more, my fair lord, and hold yourself bound by no word
which you have said. Let it be as the breeze which blows past our faces
and is heard of no more. Your soul yearns for honor. To that has it
ever turned. Is there room in it for love also? or is it possible that
both shall live at their highest in one mind? Do you not call to mind
that Galahad and other great knights of old have put women out of their
lives that they might ever give their whole soul and strength to the
winning of honor? May it not be that I shall be a drag upon you, that
your heart may shrink from some honorable task, lest it should bring
risk and pain to me? Think well before you answer, my fair lord, for
indeed my very heart would break if it should ever happen that through
love of me your high hopes and great promise should miss fulfilment.”
Nigel looked at her with sparkling eyes. The soul which shone through
her dark face had transformed it for the moment into a beauty more
lofty and more rare than that of her shallow sister. He bowed before
the majesty of the woman, and pressed his lips to her hand. “You are
like a star upon my path which guides me on the upward way,” said he.
“Our souls are set together upon the finding of honor, and how shall we
hold each other back when our purpose is the same?”
She shook her proud head. “So it seems to you now, fair lord, but it
may be otherwise as the years pass. How shall you prove that I am
indeed a help and not a hindrance?”
“I will prove it by my deeds, fair and dear lady,” said Nigel. “Here at
the shrine of the holy Catharine, on this, the Feast of Saint Margaret,
I take my oath that I will do three deeds in your honor as a proof of
my high love before I set eyes upon your face again, and these three
deeds shall stand as a proof to you that if I love you dearly, still I
will not let the thought of you stand betwixt me and honorable
achievement!”
Her face shone with her love and her pride. “I also make my oath,” said
she, “and I do it in the name of the holy Catharine whose shrine is
hard by. I swear that I will hold myself for you until these three
deeds be done and we meet once more; also that if—which may dear Christ
forfend! you fall in doing them then I shall take the veil in Shalford
nunnery and look upon no man’s face again! Give me your hand, Nigel.”
She had taken a little bangle of gold filigree work from her arm and
fastened it upon his sunburnt wrist, reading aloud to him the engraved
motto in old French: “_Fais ce que dois, adviegne que pourra—c’est
commandé au chevalier_.” Then for one moment they fell into each
other’s arms and with kiss upon kiss, a loving man and a tender woman,
they swore their troth to each other. But the old knight was calling
impatiently from below and together they hurried down the winding path
to where the horses waited under the sandy bluff.
As far as the Shalford crossing Sir John rode by Nigel’s arm, and many
were the last injunctions which he gave him concerning woodcraft, and
great his anxiety lest he confuse a spay with a brocket, or either with
a hind. At last when they came to the reedy edge of the Wey the old
knight and his daughter reined up their horses. Nigel looked back at
them ere he entered the dark Chantry woods, and saw them still gazing
after him and waving their hands. Then the path wound amongst the trees
and they were lost to sight; but long afterwards when a clearing
exposed once more the Shalford meadows Nigel saw that the old man upon
the gray cob was riding slowly toward Saint Catharine’s Hill, but that
the girl was still where he had seen her last, leaning forward in her
saddle and straining her eyes to pierce the dark forest which screened
her lover from her view. It was but a fleeting glance through a break
in the foliage, and yet in after days of stress and toil in far distant
lands it was that one little picture—the green meadow, the reeds, the
slow blue-winding river, and the eager bending graceful figure upon the
white horse—which was the clearest and the dearest image of that
England which he had left behind him.
But if Nigel’s friends had learned that this was the morning of his
leaving, his enemies too were on the alert. The two comrades had just
emerged from the Chantry woods and were beginning the ascent of that
curving path which leads upward to the old Chapel of the Martyr when
with a hiss like an angry snake a long white arrow streaked under
Pommers and struck quivering in the grassy turf. A second whizzed past
Nigel’s ear, as he tried to turn; but Aylward struck the great
war-horse a sharp blow over the haunches, and it had galloped some
hundreds of yards before its rider could pull it up. Aylward followed
as hard as he could ride, bending low over his horse’s neck, while
arrows whizzed all around him.
“By Saint Paul!” said Nigel, tugging at his bridle and white with
anger, “they shall not chase me across the country as though I was a
frighted doe. Archer, how dare you to lash my horse when I would have
turned and ridden in upon them?”
“It is well that I did so,” said Aylward, “or by these ten
finger-bones! our journey would have begun and ended on the same day.
As I glanced round I saw a dozen of them at the least amongst the
brushwood. See now how the light glimmers upon their steel caps yonder
in the bracken under the great beech-tree. Nay, I pray you, my fair
lord, do not ride forward. What chance has a man in the open against
all these who lie at their ease in the underwood? If you will not think
of yourself, then consider your horse, which would have a cloth-yard
shaft feathered in its hide ere it could reach the wood.”
Nigel chafed in impotent anger. “Am I to be shot at like a popinjay at
a fair, by any reaver or outlaw that seeks a mark for his bow?” he
cried. “By Saint Paul! Aylward, I will put on my harness and go further
into the matter. Help me to untruss, I pray you!”
“Nay, my fair lord, I will not help you to your own downfall. It is a
match with cogged dice betwixt a horseman on the moor and archers amid
the forest. But these men are no outlaws, or they would not dare to
draw their bows within a league of the sheriff of Guildford.”
“Indeed, Aylward, I think that you speak truth,” said Nigel. “It may be
that these are the men of Paul de la Fosse of Shalford, whom I have
given little cause to love me. Ah! there is indeed the very man
himself.”
They sat their horses with their backs to the long slope which leads up
to the old chapel on the hill. In front of them was the dark ragged
edge of the wood, with a sharp twinkle of steel here and there in its
shadows which spoke of these lurking foes. But now there was a long
moot upon a horn, and at once a score of russet-clad bowmen ran forward
from amid the trees, spreading out into a scattered line and closing
swiftly in upon the travelers. In the midst of them, upon a great gray
horse, sat a small misshapen man, waving and cheering as one sets
hounds on a badger, turning his head this way and that as he whooped
and pointed, urging his bowmen onward up the slope.
“Draw them on, my fair lord! Draw them on until we have them out on the
down!” cried Aylward, his eyes shining with joy. “Five hundred paces
more, and then we may be on terms with them. Nay, linger not, but keep
them always just clear of arrowshot until our turn has come.”
Nigel shook and trembled with eagerness, as with his hand on his
sword-hilt he looked at the line of eager hurrying men. But it flashed
through his mind what Chandos had said of the cool head which is better
for the warrior than the hot heart. Aylward’s words were true and wise.
He turned Pommers’ head therefore, and amid a cry of derision from
behind them the comrades trotted over the down. The bowmen broke into a
run, while their leader screamed and waved more madly than before.
Aylward cast many a glance at them over his shoulder.
“Yet a little farther! Yet a little farther still!” he muttered. “The
wind is towards them and the fools have forgot that I can overshoot
them by fifty paces. Now, my good lord, I pray you for one instant to
hold the horses, for my weapon is of more avail this day, than thine
can be. They may make sorry cheer ere they gain the shelter of the wood
once more.”
He had sprung from his horse, and with a downward wrench of his arm and
a push with his knee he slipped the string into the upper nock of his
mighty war-bow. Then in a flash he notched his shaft and drew it to the
pile, his keen blue eyes glowing fiercely behind it from under his
knotted brows. With thick legs planted sturdily apart, his body laid to
the bow, his left arm motionless as wood, his right bunched into a
double curve of swelling muscles as he stretched the white well-waxed
string, he looked so keen and fierce a fighter that the advancing line
stopped for an instant at the sight of him. Two or three loosed off
their arrows, but the shafts flew heavily against the head wind, and
snaked along the hard turf some score of paces short of the mark. One
only, a short bandy-legged man, whose squat figure spoke of enormous
muscular strength, ran swiftly in and then drew so strong a bow that
the arrow quivered in the ground at Aylward’s very feet.
“It is Black Will of Lynchmere,” said the bowman. “Many a match have I
shot with him, and I know well that no other man on the Surrey marches
could have sped such a shaft. I trust that you are houseled and
shriven, Will, for I have known you so long that I would not have your
damnation upon my soul.”
He raised his bow as he spoke, and the string twanged with a rich deep
musical note. Aylward leaned upon his bow-stave as he keenly watched
the long swift flight of his shaft, skimming smoothly down the wind.
“On him, on him! No, over him, by my hilt!” he cried. “There is more
wind than I had thought. Nay, nay, friend, now that I have the length
of you, you can scarce hope to loose again.”
Black Will had notched an arrow and was raising his bow when Aylward’s
second shaft passed through the shoulder of his drawing arm. With a
shout of anger and pain he dropped his weapon, and dancing in his fury
he shook his fist and roared curses at his rival.
“I could slay him; but I will not, for good bowmen are not so common,”
said Aylward. “And now, fair sir, we must on, for they are spreading
round on either side, and if once they get behind us, then indeed our
journey has come to a sudden end. But ere we go I would send a shaft
through yonder horseman who leads them on.”
“Nay, Aylward, I pray you to leave him,” said Nigel. “Villain as he is,
he is none the less a gentleman of coat-armor, and should die by some
other weapon than thine.”
“As you will,” said Aylward, with a clouded brow. “I have been told
that in the late wars many a French prince and baron has not been too
proud to take his death wound from an English yeoman’s shaft, and that
nobles of England have been glad enough to stand by and see it done.”
Nigel shook his head sadly. “It is sooth you say, archer, and indeed it
is no new thing, for that good knight Richard of the Lion Heart met his
end in such a lowly fashion, and so also did Harold the Saxon. But this
is a private matter, and I would not have you draw your bow against
him. Neither can I ride at him myself, for he is weak in body, though
dangerous in spirit. Therefore, we will go upon our way, since there is
neither profit nor honor to be gained, nor any hope of advancement.”
Aylward, having unstrung his bow, had remounted his horse during this
conversation, and the two rode swiftly past the little squat Chapel of
the Martyr and over the brow of the hill. From the summit they looked
back. The injured archer lay upon the ground, with several of his
comrades gathered in a knot around him. Others ran aimlessly up the
hill, but were already far behind. The leader sat motionless upon his
horse, and as he saw them look back he raised his hand and shrieked his
curses at them. An instant later the curve of the ground had hid them
from view. So, amid love and hate, Nigel bade adieu to the home of his
youth.
And now the comrades were journeying upon that old, old road which runs
across the south of England and yet never turns toward London, for the
good reason that the place was a poor hamlet when first the road was
laid. From Winchester, the Saxon capital, to Canterbury, the holy city
of Kent, ran that ancient highway, and on from Canterbury to the narrow
straits where, on a clear day, the farther shore can be seen. Along
this track as far back as history can trace the metals of the west have
been carried and passed the pack-horses which bore the goods which Gaul
sent in exchange. Older than the Christian faith and older than the
Romans, is the old road. North and south are the woods and the marshes,
so that only on the high dry turf of the chalk land could a clear track
be found. The Pilgrim’s Way, it still is called; but the pilgrims were
the last who ever trod it, for it was already of immemorial age before
the death of Thomas a Becket gave a new reason why folk should journey
to the scene of his murder.
From the hill of Weston Wood the travelers could see the long white
band which dipped and curved and rose over the green downland, its
course marked even in the hollows by the line of the old yew-trees
which flanked it. Neither Nigel nor Aylward had wandered far from their
own country, and now they rode with light hearts and eager eyes taking
note of all the varied pictures of nature and of man which passed
before them. To their left was a hilly country, a land of rolling
heaths and woods, broken here and there into open spaces round the
occasional farm-house of a franklin. Hackhurst Down, Dunley Hill, and
Ranmore Common swelled and sank, each merging into the other. But on
the right, after passing the village of Shere and the old church of
Gomshall, the whole south country lay like a map at their feet. There
was the huge wood of the Weald, one unbroken forest of oak-trees
stretching away to the South Downs, which rose olive-green against the
deep blue sky. Under this great canopy of trees strange folk lived and
evil deeds were done. In its recesses were wild tribes, little changed
from their heathen ancestors, who danced round the altar of Thor, and
well was it for the peaceful traveler that he could tread the high open
road of the chalk land with no need to wander into so dangerous a
tract, where soft clay, tangled forest and wild men all barred his
progress.
But apart from the rolling country upon the left and the great
forest-hidden plain upon the right, there was much upon the road itself
to engage the attention of the wayfarers. It was crowded with people.
As far as their eyes could carry they could see the black dots
scattered thickly upon the thin white band, sometimes single, sometimes
several abreast, sometimes in moving crowds, where a drove of pilgrims
held together for mutual protection, or a nobleman showed his greatness
by the number of retainers who trailed at his heels. At that time the
main roads were very crowded, for there were many wandering people in
the land. Of all sorts and kinds, they passed in an unbroken stream
before the eyes of Nigel and of Aylward, alike only in the fact that
one and all were powdered from their hair to their shoes with the gray
dust of the chalk.
There were monks journeying from one cell to another, Benedictines with
their black gowns looped up to show their white skirts, Carthusians in
white, and pied Cistercians. Friars also of the three wandering
orders—Dominicans in black, Carmelites in white and Franciscans in
gray. There was no love lost between the cloistered monks and the free
friars, each looking on the other as a rival who took from him the
oblations of the faithful; so they passed on the high road as cat
passes dog, with eyes askance and angry faces.
Then besides the men of the church there were the men of trade, the
merchant in dusty broadcloth and Flanders hat riding at the head of his
line of pack-horses. He carried Cornish tin, Welt-country wool, or
Sussex iron if he traded eastward, or if his head should be turned
westward then he bore with him the velvets of Genoa, the ware of
Venice, the wine of France, or the armor of Italy and Spain. Pilgrims
were everywhere, poor people for the most part, plodding wearily along
with trailing feet and bowed heads, thick staves in their hands and
bundles over their shoulders. Here and there on a gaily caparisoned
palfrey, or in the greater luxury of a horse-litter, some West-country
lady might be seen making her easy way to the shrine of Saint Thomas.
Besides all these a constant stream of strange vagabonds drifted along
the road: minstrels who wandered from fair to fair, a foul and
pestilent crew; jugglers and acrobats, quack doctors and tooth-drawers,
students and beggars, free workmen in search of better wages, and
escaped bondsmen who would welcome any wages at all. Such was the
throng which set the old road smoking in a haze of white dust from
Winchester to the narrow sea.
But of all the wayfarers those which interested Nigel most were the
soldiers. Several times they passed little knots of archers or
men-at-arms, veterans from France, who had received their discharge and
were now making their way to their southland homes. They were half
drunk all of them, for the wayfarers treated them to beer at the
frequent inns and ale-stakes which lined the road, so that they cheered
and sang lustily as they passed. They roared rude pleasantries at
Aylward, who turned in his saddle and shouted his opinion of them until
they were out of hearing.
Once, late in the afternoon, they overtook a body of a hundred archers
all marching together with two knights riding at their head. They were
passing from Guildford Castle to Reigate Castle, where they were in
garrison. Nigel rode with the knights for some distance, and hinted
that if either was in search of honorable advancement, or wished to do
some small deed, or to relieve himself of any vow, it might be possible
to find some means of achieving it. They were both, however, grave and
elderly men, intent upon their business and with no mind for fond
wayside adventures, so Nigel quickened his pace and left them behind.
They had left Boxhill and Headley Heath upon the left, and the towers
of Reigate were rising amid the trees in front of them, when they
overtook a large, cheery, red-faced man, with a forked beard, riding
upon a good horse and exchanging a nod or a merry word with all who
passed him. With him they rode nearly as far as Bletchingley, and Nigel
laughed much to hear him talk; but always under the raillery there was
much earnestness and much wisdom in all his words. He rode at his ease
about the country, he said, having sufficient money to keep him from
want and to furnish him for the road. He could speak all the three
languages of England, the north, the middle and the south, so that he
was at home with the people of every shire and could hear their
troubles and their joys. In all parts in town and in country there was
unrest, he said; for the poor folk were weary of their masters both of
the Church and State, and soon there would be such doings in England as
had never been seen before.
But above all this man was earnest against the Church its enormous
wealth, its possession of nearly one-third of the whole land of the
country, its insatiable greed for more at the very time when it claimed
to be poor and lowly. The monks and friars, too, he lashed with his
tongue: their roguish ways, their laziness and their cunning. He showed
how their wealth and that of the haughty lord must always be founded
upon the toil of poor humble Peter the Plowman, who worked and strove
in rain and cold out in the fields, the butt and laughing-stock of
everyone, and still bearing up the whole world upon his weary
shoulders. He had set it all out in a fair parable; so now as he rode
he repeated some of the verses, chanting them and marking time with his
forefinger, while Nigel and Aylward on either side of him with their
heads inclined inward listened with the same attention, but with very
different feelings—Nigel shocked at such an attack upon authority, and
Aylward chuckling as he heard the sentiments of his class so shrewdly
expressed. At last the stranger halted his horse outside the “Five
Angels” at Gatton.
“It is a good inn, and I know the ale of old,” said he. “When I had
finished that ‘Dream of Piers the Plowman’ from which I have recited to
you, the last verses were thus:
“‘Now have I brought my little booke to an ende
God’s blessing be on him who a drinke will me sende’—
“I pray you come in with me and share it.”
“Nay,” said Nigel, “we must on our way, for we have far to go. But give
me your name, my friend, for indeed we have passed a merry hour
listening to your words.”
“Have a care!” the stranger answered, shaking his head. “You and your
class will not spend a merry hour when these words are turned into
deeds and Peter the Plowman grows weary of swinking in the fields and
takes up his bow and his staff in order to set this land in order.”
“By Saint Paul! I expect that we shall bring Peter to reason and also
those who have put such evil thoughts into his head,” said Nigel. “So
once more I ask your name, that I may know it if ever I chance to hear
that you have been hanged?”
The stranger laughed good-humoredly. “You can call me Thomas Lackland,”
said he. “I should be Thomas Lack-brain if I were indeed to give my
true name, since a good many robbers, some in black gowns and some in
steel, would be glad to help me upwards in the way you speak of. So
good-day to you, Squire, and to you also, archer, and may you find your
way back with whole bones from the wars!”
That night the comrades slept in Godstone Priory, and early next
morning they were well upon their road down the Pilgrim’s Way. At
Titsey it was said that a band of villeins were out in Westerham Wood
and had murdered three men the day before; so that Nigel had high hopes
of an encounter; but the brigands showed no sign, though the travelers
went out of their way to ride their horses along the edges of the
forest. Farther on they found traces of their work, for the path ran
along the hillside at the base of a chalk quarry, and there in the
cutting a man was lying dead. From his twisted limbs and shattered
frame it was easy to see that he had been thrown over from above, while
his pockets turned outward showed the reason for his murder. The
comrades rode past without too close a survey, for dead men were no
very uncommon objects on the King’s highway, and if sheriff or bailiff
should chance upon you near the body you might find yourself caught in
the meshes of the law.
Near Sevenoaks their road turned out of the old Canterbury way and
pointed south toward the coast, leaving the chalk lands and coming down
into the clay of the Weald. It was a wretched, rutted mule-track
running through thick forests with occasional clearings in which lay
the small Kentish villages, where rude shock-headed peasants with
smocks and galligaskins stared with bold, greedy eyes at the travelers.
Once on the right they caught a distant view of the Towers of
Penshurst, and once they heard the deep tolling of the bells of Bayham
Abbey, but for the rest of their day’s journey savage peasants and
squalid cottages were all that met their eyes, with endless droves of
pigs who fed upon the litter of acorns. The throng of travelers who
crowded the old road were all gone, and only here and there did they
meet or overtake some occasional merchant or messenger bound for Battle
Abbey, Pevensey Castle or the towns of the south.
That night they slept in a sordid inn, overrun with rats and with
fleas, one mile south of the hamlet of Mayfield. Aylward scratched
vigorously and cursed with fervor. Nigel lay without movement or sound.
To the man who had learned the old rule of chivalry there were no small
ills in life. It was beneath the dignity of his soul to stoop to
observe them. Cold and heat, hunger and thirst, such things did not
exist for the gentleman. The armor of his soul was so complete that it
was proof not only against the great ills of life but even against the
small ones; so the flea-bitten Nigel lay grimly still while Aylward
writhed upon his couch.
They were now but a short distance from their destination; but they had
hardly started on their journey through the forest next morning, when
an adventure befell them which filled Nigel with the wildest hopes.
Along the narrow winding path between the great oak trees there rode a
dark sallow man in a scarlet tabard who blew so loudly upon a silver
trumpet that they heard the clanging call long before they set eyes on
him. Slowly he advanced, pulling up every fifty paces to make the
forest ring with another warlike blast. The comrades rode forward to
meet him.
“I pray you,” said Nigel, “to tell me who you are and why you blow upon
this trumpet.”
The fellow shook his head, so Nigel repeated the question in French,
the common language of chivalry, spoken at that age by every gentleman
in Western Europe.
The man put his lips to the trumpet and blew another long note before
he answered. “I am Gaston de Castrier,” said he, “the humble Squire of
the most worthy and valiant knight Raoul de Tubiers, de Pestels, de
Grimsard, de Mersac, de Leoy, de Bastanac, who also writes himself Lord
of Pons. It is his order that I ride always a mile in front of him to
prepare all to receive him, and he desires me to blow upon a trumpet
not out of vainglory, but out of greatness of spirit, so that none may
be ignorant of his coming should they desire to encounter him.”
Nigel sprang from his horse with a cry of joy, and began to unbutton
his doublet. “Quick, Aylward, quick!” he said. “He comes, a knight
errant comes! Was there ever such a chance of worshipfully winning
worship? Untruss the harness whilst I loose my clothes! Good sir, I beg
you to warn your noble and valiant master that a poor Squire of England
would implore him to take notice of him and to do some small deed upon
him as he passes.”
But already the Lord of Pons had come in sight. He was a huge man upon
an enormous horse, so that together they seemed to fill up the whole
long dark archway under the oaks. He was clad in full armor of a brazen
hue with only his face exposed, and of this face there was little
visible save a pair of arrogant eyes and a great black beard, which
flowed through the open visor and down over his breastplate. To the
crest of his helmet was tied a small brown glove, nodding and swinging
above him. He bore a long lance with a red square banner at the end,
charged with a black boar’s head, and the same symbol was engraved upon
his shield. Slowly he rode through the forest, ponderous, menacing,
with dull thudding of his charger’s hoofs and constant clank of metal,
while always in front of him came the distant peal of the silver
trumpet calling all men to admit his majesty and to clear his path ere
they be cleared from it.
Never in his dreams had so perfect a vision come to cheer Nigel’s
heart, and as he struggled with his clothes, glancing up continually at
this wondrous traveler, he pattered forth prayers of thanksgiving to
the good Saint Paul who had shown such loving-kindness to his unworthy
servant and thrown him in the path of so excellent and debonair a
gentleman.
But alas! how often at the last instant the cup is dashed from the
lips! This joyful chance was destined to change suddenly to unexpected
and grotesque disaster—disaster so strange and so complete that through
all his life Nigel flushed crimson when he thought of it. He was busily
stripping his hunting-costume, and with feverish haste he had doffed
boots, hat, hose, doublet and cloak, so that nothing remained save a
pink jupon and pair of silken drawers. At the same time Aylward was
hastily unbuckling the load with the intention of handing his master
his armor piece by piece, when the Squire gave one last challenging
peal from his silver trumpet into the very ear of the spare horse.
In an instant it had taken to its heels, the precious armor upon its
back, and thundered away down the road which they had traversed.
Aylward jumped upon his mare, drove his prick spurs into her sides and
galloped after the runaway as hard as he could ride. Thus it came about
that in an instant Nigel was shorn of all his little dignity, had lost
his two horses, his attendant and his outfit, and found himself a
lonely and unarmed man standing in his shirt and drawers upon the
pathway down which the burly figure of the Lord of Pons was slowly
advancing.
The knight errant, whose mind had been filled by the thought of the
maiden whom he had left behind at St. Jean—the same whose glove dangled
from his helmet—had observed nothing that had occurred. Hence, all that
met his eyes was a noble yellow horse, which was tethered by the track,
and a small young man, who appeared to be a lunatic since he had
undressed hastily in the heart of the forest, and stood now with an
eager anxious face clad in his underlinen amid the scattered débris of
his garments. Of such a person the high Lord of Pons could take no
notice, and so he pursued his inexorable way, his arrogant eyes looking
out into the distance and his thoughts set intently upon the maiden of
St. Jean. He was dimly aware that the little crazy man in the
undershirt ran a long way beside him in his stockings, begging,
imploring and arguing.
“Just one hour, most fair sir, just one hour at the longest, and a poor
Squire of England shall ever hold himself your debtor! Do but
condescend to rein your horse until my harness comes back to me! Will
you not stoop to show me some small deed of arms? I implore you, fair
sir, to spare me a little of your time and a handstroke or two ere you
go upon your way!”
Lord de Pons motioned impatiently with his gauntleted hand, as one
might brush away an importunate fly, but when at last Nigel became
desperate in his clamor he thrust his spurs into his great war-horse,
and clashing like a pair of cymbals he thundered off through the
forest. So he rode upon his majestic way, until two days later he was
slain by Lord Reginald Cobham in a field near Weybridge.
When after a long chase Aylward secured the spare horse and brought it
back, he found his master seated upon a fallen tree, his face buried in
his hands and his mind clouded with humiliation and grief. Nothing was
said, for the matter was beyond words, and so in moody silence they
rode upon their way.
But soon they came upon a scene which drew Nigel’s thoughts away from
his bitter trouble, for in front of them there rose the towers of a
great building with a small gray sloping village around it, and they
learned from a passing hind that this was the hamlet and Abbey of
Battle. Together they drew rein upon the low ridge and looked down into
that valley of death from which even now the reek of blood seems to
rise. Down beside that sinister lake and amid those scattered bushes
sprinkled over the naked flank of the long ridge was fought that
long-drawn struggle betwixt two most noble foes with broad England as
the prize of victory. Here, up and down the low hill, hour by hour the
grim struggle had waxed and waned, until the Saxon army had died where
it stood, King, court, house-carl and fyrdsman, each in their ranks
even as they had fought. And now, after all the stress and toil, the
tyranny, the savage revolt, the fierce suppression, God had made His
purpose complete, for here were Nigel the Norman and Aylward the Saxon
with good-fellowship in their hearts and a common respect in their
minds, with the same banner and the same cause, riding forth to do
battle for their old mother England.
And now the long ride drew to an end. In front of them was the blue
sea, flecked with the white sails of ships. Once more the road passed
upward from the heavy-wooded plain to the springy turf of the chalk
downs. Far to the right rose the grim fortalice of Pevensey, squat and
powerful, like one great block of rugged stone, the parapet twinkling
with steel caps and crowned by the royal banner of England. A flat
expanse of reeded marshland lay before them, out of which rose a single
wooded hill, crowned with towers, with a bristle of masts rising out of
the green plain some distance to the south of it. Nigel looked at it
with his hand shading his eyes, and then urged Pommers to a trot. The
town was Winchelsea, and there amid that cluster of houses on the hill
the gallant Chandos must be awaiting him.
XIV.
HOW NIGEL CHASED THE RED FERRET
They passed a ferry, wound upward by a curving path, and then, having
satisfied a guard of men-at-arms, were admitted through the frowning
arch of the Pipewell Gate. There waiting for them, in the middle of the
east street, the sun gleaming upon his lemon-colored beard, and
puckering his single eye, stood Chandos himself, his legs apart, his
hands behind his back, and a welcoming smile upon his quaint high-nosed
face. Behind him a crowd of little boys were gazing with reverent eyes
at the famous soldier.
“Welcome, Nigel!” said he, “and you also, good archer! I chanced to be
walking on the city wall, and I thought from the color of your horse
that it was indeed you upon the Udimore Road. How have you fared, young
squire errant? Have you held bridges or rescued damsels or slain
oppressors on your way from Tilford?”
“Nay, my fair lord, I have accomplished nothing; but I once had hopes—”
Nigel flushed at the remembrance.
“I will give you more than hopes, Nigel. I will put you where you can
dip both arms to the elbow into danger and honor, where peril will
sleep with you at night and rise with you in the morning and the very
air you breathe be laden with it. Are you ready for that, young sir?”
“I can but pray, fair lord, that my spirit will rise to it.”
Chandos smiled his approval and laid his thin brown hand on the youth’s
shoulder. “Good!” said he. “It is the mute hound which bites the
hardest. The babbler is ever the hang-back. Bide with me here, Nigel,
and walk upon the ramparts. Archer, do you lead the horses to the ‘Sign
of the Broom Pod’ in the high street, and tell my varlets to see them
aboard the cog Thomas before nightfall. We sail at the second hour
after curfew. Come hither, Nigel, to the crest of the corner turret,
for from it I will show you what you have never seen.”
It was but a dim and distant white cloud upon the blue water seen far
off over the Dungeness Point, and yet the sight of it flushed the young
Squire’s cheeks and sent the blood hot through his veins. It was the
fringe of France, that land of chivalry and glory, the stage where name
and fame were to be won. With burning eyes he gazed across at it, his
heart rejoicing to think that the hour was at hand when he might tread
that sacred soil. Then his gaze crossed the immense stretch of the blue
sea, dotted over with the sails of fishing-boats, until it rested upon
the double harbor beneath packed with vessels of every size and shape,
from the pessoners and creyers which plied up and down the coast to the
great cogs and galleys which were used either as war-ships or
merchantmen as the occasion served. One of them was at that instant
passing out to sea, a huge galleass, with trumpets blowing and nakers
banging, the flag of Saint George flaunting over the broad purple sail,
and the decks sparkling from end to end with steel. Nigel gave a cry of
pleasure at the splendor of the sight.
“Aye, lad,” said Chandos, “it is the Trinity of Rye, the very ship on
which I fought at Sluys. Her deck ran blood from stem to stern that
day. But turn your eyes this way, I beg you, and tell me if you see
aught strange about this town.”
Nigel looked down at the noble straight street, at the Roundel Tower,
at the fine church of Saint Thomas, and the other fair buildings of
Winchelsea. “It is all new,” said he—“church, castle, houses, all are
new.”
“You are right, fair son. My grandfather can call to mind the time when
only the conies lived upon this rock. The town was down yonder by the
sea, until one night the waves rose upon it and not a house was left.
See, yonder is Rye, huddling also on a hill, the two towns like poor
sheep when the waters are out. But down there under the blue water and
below the Camber Sand lies the true Winchelsea—tower, cathedral, walls
and all, even as my grandfather knew it, when the first Edward was
young upon the throne.”
For an hour or more Chandos paced upon the ramparts with his young
Squire at his elbow and talked to him of his duties and of the secrets
and craft of warfare, Nigel drinking in and storing in his memory every
word from so revered a teacher. Many a time in after life, in stress
and in danger, he strengthened himself by the memory of that slow walk
with the blue sea on one side and the fair town on the other, when the
wise soldier and noble-hearted knight poured forth his precept and
advice as the master workman to the apprentice.
“Perhaps, fair son,” said he, “you are like so many other lads who ride
to the wars, and know so much already that it is waste of breath to
advise them?”
“Nay, my fair lord, I know nothing save that I would fain do my duty
and either win honorable advancement or die worshipful on the field.”
“You are wise to be humble,” said Chandos; “for indeed he who knows
most of war knows best that there is much to learn. As there is a
mystery of the rivers and a mystery of woodcraft, even so there is a
mystery of warfare by which battles may be lost and gained; for all
nations are brave, and where the brave meets the brave it is he who is
crafty and war-wise who will win the day. The best hound will run at
fault if he be ill laid on, and the best hawk will fly at check if he
be badly loosed, and even so the bravest army may go awry if it be ill
handled. There are not in Christendom better knights and squires than
those of the French, and yet we have had the better of them, for in our
Scottish Wars and elsewhere we have learned more of this same mystery
of which I speak.”
“And wherein lies our wisdom, honored sir?” asked Nigel. “I also would
fain be war-wise and learn to fight with my wits as well as with my
sword.”
Chandos shook his head and smiled. “It is in the forest and on the down
that you learn to fly the hawk and loose the hound,” said he. “So also
it is in camp and on the field that the mystery of war can be learned.
There only has every great captain come to be its master. To start he
must have a cool head, quick to think, soft as wax before his purpose
is formed, hard as steel when once he sees it before him. Ever alert he
must be, and cautious also, but with judgment to turn his caution into
rashness where a large gain may be put against a small stake. An eye
for country also, for the trend of the rivers, the slope of the hills,
the cover of the woods, and the light green of the bog-land.”
Poor Nigel, who had trusted to his lance and to Pommers to break his
path to glory, stood aghast at this list of needs. “Alas!” he cried.
“How am I to gain all this?—I, who could scarce learn to read or write
though the good Father Matthew broke a hazel stick a day across my
shoulders?”
“You will gain it, fair son, where others have gained it before you.
You have that which is the first thing of all, a heart of fire from
which other colder hearts may catch a spark. But you must have
knowledge also of that which warfare has taught us in olden times. We
know, par exemple, that horsemen alone cannot hope to win against good
foot-soldiers. Has it not been tried at Courtrai, at Stirling, and
again under my own eyes at Crécy, where the chivalry of France went
down before our bowmen?”
Nigel stared at him, with a perplexed brow. “Fair sir, my heart grows
heavy as I hear you. Do you then say that our chivalry can make no head
against archers, billmen and the like?”
“Nay, Nigel, for it has also been very clearly shown that the best
foot-soldiers unsupported cannot hold their own against the mailed
horsemen.”
“To whom then is the victory?” asked Nigel.
“To him who can mix his horse and foot, using each to strengthen the
other. Apart they are weak. Together they are strong. The archer who
can weaken the enemy’s line, the horseman who can break it when it is
weakened, as was done at Falkirk and Duplin, there is the secret of our
strength. Now touching this same battle of Falkirk, I pray you for one
instant to give it your attention.”
With his whip he began to trace a plan of the Scottish battle upon the
dust, and Nigel with knitted brows was trying hard to muster his small
stock of brains and to profit by the lecture, when their conversation
was interrupted by a strange new arrival.
It was a very stout little man, wheezy and purple with haste, who
scudded down the rampart as if he were blown by the wind, his grizzled
hair flying and his long black gown floating behind him. He was clad in
the dress of a respectable citizen, a black jerkin trimmed with sable,
a black-velvet beaver hat and a white feather. At the sight of Chandos
he gave a cry of joy and quickened his pace so that when he did at last
reach him he could only stand gasping and waving his hands.
“Give yourself time, good Master Wintersole, give yourself time!” said
Chandos in a soothing voice.
“The papers!” gasped the little man. “Oh, my Lord Chandos, the papers—”
“What of the papers, my worthy sir?”
“I swear by our good patron Saint Leonard, it is no fault of mine! I
had locked them in my coffer. But the lock was forced and the coffer
rifled.”
A shadow of anger passed over the soldier’s keen face.
“How now, Master Mayor? Pull your wits together and do not stand there
babbling like a three-year child. Do you say that some one hath taken
the papers?”
“It is sooth, fair sir! Thrice I have been Mayor of the town, and
fifteen years burgess and jurat, but never once has any public matter
gone awry through me. Only last month there came an order from Windsor
on a Tuesday for a Friday banquet, a thousand soles, four thousand
plaice, two thousand mackerel, five hundred crabs, a thousand lobsters,
five thousand whiting—”
“I doubt not, Master Mayor, that you are an excellent fishmonger; but
the matter concerns the papers I gave into your keeping. Where are
they?”
“Taken, fair sir—gone!”
“And who hath dared to take them?”
“Alas! I know not. It was but for as long as you would say an angelus
that I left the chamber, and when I came back there was the coffer,
broken and empty, upon my table.”
“Do you suspect no one?”
“There was a varlet who hath come with the last few days into my
employ. He is not to be found, and I have sent horsemen along both the
Udimore road and that to Rye, that they may seize him. By the help of
Saint Leonard they can scarce miss him, for one can tell him a bow-shot
off by his hair.”
“Is it red?” asked Chandos eagerly. “Is it fox-red, and the man a small
man pocked with sun-spots, and very quick in his movements?”
“It is the man himself.”
Chandos shook his clenched hand with annoyance, and then set off
swiftly down the street.
“It is Peter the Red Ferret once more!” said he. “I knew him of old in
France, where he has done us more harm than a company of men-at-arms.
He speaks English as he speaks French, and he is of such daring and
cunning that nothing is secret from him. In all France there is no more
dangerous man, for though he is a gentleman of blood and coat-armor he
takes the part of a spy, because it hath the more danger and therefore
the more honor.”
“But, my fair lord,” cried the Mayor, as he hurried along, keeping pace
with the long strides of the soldier, “I knew that you warned me to
take all care of the papers; but surely there was no matter of great
import in it? It was but to say what stores were to be sent after you
to Calais?”
“Is that not everything?” cried Chandos impatiently. “Can you not see,
oh foolish Master Wintersole, that the French suspect we are about to
make some attempt and that they have sent Peter the Red Ferret, as they
have sent him many times before, to get tidings of whither we are
bound? Now that he knows that the stores are for Calais, then the
French near Calais will take his warning, and so the King’s whole plan
come to nothing.”
“Then he will fly by water. We can stop him yet. He has not an hour’s
start.”
“It may be that a boat awaits him at Rye or Hythe; but it is more like
that he has all ready to depart from here. Ah, see yonder! I’ll warrant
that the Red Ferret is on board!”
Chandos had halted in front of his inn, and now he pointed down to the
outer harbor, which lay two miles off across the green plain. It was
connected by a long winding canal with the inner dock at the base of
the hill, upon which the town was built. Between the two horns formed
by the short curving piers a small schooner was running out to sea,
dipping and rising before a sharp southerly breeze.
“It is no Winchelsea boat,” said the Mayor. “She is longer and broader
in the beam than ours.”
“Horses! bring horses!” cried Chandos. “Come, Nigel, let us go further
into the matter.”
A busy crowd of varlets, archers, and men-at-arms swarmed round the
gateway of the “Sign of the Broom Pod,” singing, shouting, and jostling
in rough good-fellowship. The sight of the tall thin figure of Chandos
brought order amongst them, and a few minutes later the horses were
ready and saddled. A breakneck ride down a steep declivity, and then a
gallop of two miles over the sedgy plain carried them to the outer
harbor. A dozen vessels were lying there, ready to start for Bordeaux
or Rochelle, and the quay was thick with sailors, laborers and townsmen
and heaped with wine-barrels and wool-packs.
“Who is warden here?” asked Chandos, springing from his horse.
“Badding! Where is Cock Badding? Badding is warden!” shouted the crowd.
A moment later a short swarthy man, bull-necked and deep-chested,
pushed through the people. He was clad in rough russet wool with a
scarlet cloth tied round his black curly head. His sleeves were rolled
up to his shoulders, and his brown arms, all stained with grease and
tar, were like two thick gnarled branches from an oaken stump. His
savage brown face was fierce and frowning, and was split from chin to
temple with the long white wale of an ill-healed wound.
“How now, gentles, will you never wait your turn?” he rumbled in a deep
angry voice. “Can you not see that we are warping the Rose of Guienne
into midstream for the ebb-tide? Is this a time to break in upon us?
Your goods will go aboard in due season, I promise you; so ride back
into the town and find such pleasure as you may, while I and my mates
do our work without let or hindrance.”
“It is the gentle Chandos!” cried some one in the crowd. “It is the
good Sir John.”
The rough harbor-master changed his gruffness to smiles in an instant.
“Nay, Sir John, what would you? I pray you to hold me excused if I was
short of speech, but we port-wardens are sore plagued with foolish
young lordlings, who get betwixt us and our work and blame us because
we do not turn an ebb-tide into a flood, or a south wind into a north.
I pray you to tell me how I can serve you.”
“That boat!” said Chandos, pointing to the already distant sail rising
and falling on the waves. “What is it?”
Cock Badding shaded his keen eyes with his strong brows hand. “She has
but just gone out,” said he. “She is La Pucelle, a small wine-sloop
from Gascony, home-bound and laden with barrel-staves.”
“I pray you did any man join her at the very last?”
“Nay, I know not. I saw no one.”
“But I know,” cried a seaman in the crowd. “I was standing at the
wharf-side and was nigh knocked into the water by a little red-headed
fellow, who breathed as though he had run from the town. Ere I had time
to give him a cuff he had jumped aboard, the ropes were cast off, and
her nose was seaward.”
In a few words Chandos made all clear to Badding, the crowd pressing
eagerly round.
“Aye, aye!” cried a seaman, “the good Sir John is right. See how she
points. It is Picardy and not Gascony that she will fetch this journey
in spite of her wine-staves.”
“Then we must lay her aboard!” cried Cock Badding. “Come, lads, here is
my own Marie Rose ready to cast off. Who’s for a trip with a fight at
the end of it?”
There was a rush for the boat; but the stout little seaman picked his
men. “Go back, Jerry! Your heart is good, but you are overfat for the
work. You, Luke, and you, Thomas, and the two Deedes, and William of
Sandgate. You will work the boat. And now we need a few men of their
hands. Do you come, little sir?”
“I pray you, my dear lord, to let me go!” cried Nigel.
“Yes, Nigel, you can go, and I will bring your gear over to Calais this
night.”
“I will join you there, fair sir, and with the help of Saint Paul I
will bring this Red Ferret with me.”
“Aboard, aboard! Time passes!” cried Badding impatiently, while already
his seamen were hauling on the line and raising the mainsail. “Now
then, sirrah! who are you?” It was Aylward, who had followed Nigel and
was pushing his way aboard.
“Where my master goes I go also,” cried Aylward, “so stand clear,
master-shipman, or you may come by a hurt.”
“By Saint Leonard! archer,” said Cock Badding, “had I more time I would
give you a lesson ere I leave land. Stand back and give place to
others!”
“Nay, stand back and give place to me!” cried Aylward, and seizing
Badding round the waist he slung him into the dock.
There was a cry of anger from the crowd, for Badding was the hero of
all the Cinque Ports and had never yet met his match in manhood. The
epitaph still lingers in which it was said that he “could never rest
until he had foughten his fill.” When, therefore, swimming like a duck,
he reached a rope and pulled himself hand over hand up to the quay, all
stood aghast to see what fell fate would befall this bold stranger. But
Badding laughed loudly, dashing the saltwater from his eyes and hair.
“You have fairly won your place, archer,” said he. “You are the very
man for our work. Where is Black Simon of Norwich?”
A tall dark young man with a long, stern, lean face came forward. “I am
with you, Cock,” said he, “and I thank you for my place.”
“You can come, Hugh Baddlesmere, and you, Hal Masters, and you, Dicon
of Rye. That is enough. Now off, in God’s name, or it will be night ere
we can come up with them!”
Already the head-sails and the main-sail had been raised, while a
hundred willing hands poled her off from the wharf. Now the wind caught
her; heeling over, and quivering with eagerness like an unleashed hound
she flew through the opening and out into the Channel. She was a famous
little schooner, the Marie Rose of Winchelsea, and under her daring
owner Cock Badding, half trader and half pirate, had brought back into
port many a rich cargo taken in mid-Channel, and paid for in blood
rather than money. Small as she was, her great speed and the fierce
character of her master had made her a name of terror along the French
coast, and many a bulky Eastlander or Fleming as he passed the narrow
seas had scanned the distant Kentish shore, fearing lest that
ill-omened purple sail with a gold Christopher upon it should shoot out
suddenly from the dim gray cliffs. Now she was clear of the land, with
the wind on her larboard quarter, every inch of canvas set, and her
high sharp bows smothered in foam, as she dug through the waves.
Cock Badding trod the deck with head erect and jaunty bearing, glancing
up at the swelling sails and then ahead at the little tilted white
triangle, which stood out clear and hard against the bright blue sky.
Behind was the lowland of the Camber marshes, with the bluffs of Rye
and Winchelsea, and the line of cliffs behind them. On the larboard bow
rose the great white walls of Folkestone and of Dover, and far on the
distant sky-line the gray shimmer of those French cliffs for which the
fugitives were making.
“By Saint Paul!” cried Nigel, looking with eager eyes over the tossing
waters, “it seems to me, Master Badding, that already we draw in upon
them.”
The master measured the distance with his keen steady gaze, and then
looked up at the sinking sun. “We have still four hours of daylight,”
said he; “but if we do not lay her aboard ere darkness falls she will
save herself, for the nights are as black as a wolf’s mouth, and if she
alter her course I know not how we may follow her.”
“Unless, indeed, you might guess to which port she was bound and reach
it before her.”
“Well thought of, little master!” cried Badding. “If the news be for
the French outside Calais, then Ambleteuse would be nearest to Saint
Omer. But my sweeting sails three paces to that lubber’s two, and if
the wind holds we shall have time and to spare. How now, archer? You do
not seem so eager as when you made your way aboard this boat by
slinging me into the sea.”
Aylward sat on the upturned keel of a skiff which lay upon the deck. He
groaned sadly and held his green face between his two hands. “I would
gladly sling you into the sea once more, master-shipman,” said he, “if
by so doing I could get off this most accursed vessel of thine. Or if
you would wish to have your turn, then I would thank you if you would
lend me a hand over the side, for indeed I am but a useless weight upon
your deck. Little did I think that Samkin Aylward could be turned into
a weakling by an hour of salt water. Alas the day that ever my foot
wandered from the good red heather of Crooksbury!”
Cock Badding laughed loud and long. “Nay, take it not to heart,
archer,” he cried; “for better men than you or I have groaned upon this
deck. The Prince himself with ten of his chosen knights crossed with me
once, and eleven sadder faces I never saw. Yet within a month they had
shown at Crécy that they were no weaklings, as you will do also, I dare
swear, when the time comes. Keep that thick head of thine down upon the
planks, and all will be well anon. But we raise her, we raise her with
every blast of the wind!”
It was indeed evident, even to the inexperienced eyes of Nigel, that
the Marie Rose was closing in swiftly upon the stranger. She was a
heavy, bluff-bowed, broad-sterned vessel which labored clumsily through
the seas. The swift, fierce little Winchelsea boat swooping and hissing
through the waters behind her was like some keen hawk whizzing down
wind at the back of a flapping heavy-bodied duck. Half an hour before
La Pucelle had been a distant patch of canvas. Now they could see the
black hull, and soon the cut of her sails and the lines of her
bulwarks. There were at least a dozen men upon her deck, and the
twinkle of weapons from amongst them showed that they were preparing to
resist. Cock Badding began to muster his own forces.
He had a crew of seven rough, hardy mariners, who had been at his back
in many a skirmish. They were armed with short swords, but Cock Badding
carried a weapon peculiar to himself, a twenty-pound blacksmith’s
hammer, the memory of which, as “Badding’s cracker,” still lingers in
the Cinque Ports. Then there were the eager Nigel, the melancholy
Aylward, Black Simon who was a tried swordsman, and three archers,
Baddlesmere, Masters and Dicon of Rye, all veterans of the French War.
The numbers in the two vessels might be about equal; but Badding as he
glanced at the bold harsh faces which looked to him for orders had
little fear for the result.
Glancing round, however, he saw something which was more dangerous to
his plans than the resistance of the enemy. The wind, which had become
more fitful and feebler, now fell suddenly away, until the sails hung
limp and straight above them. A belt of calm lay along the horizon, and
the waves around had smoothed down into a long oily swell on which the
two little vessels rose and fell. The great boom of the Marie Rose
rattled and jarred with every lurch, and the high thin prow pointed
skyward one instant and seaward the next in a way that drew fresh
groans from the unhappy Aylward. In vain Cock Badding pulled on his
sheets and tried hard to husband every little wandering gust which
ruffled for an instant the sleek rollers. The French master was as
adroit a sailor, and his boom swung round also as each breath of wind
came up from astern.
At last even these fitful puffs died finally away, and a cloudless sky
overhung a glassy sea. The sun was almost upon the horizon behind
Dungeness Point, and the whole western heaven was bright with the glory
of the sunset, which blended sea and sky in one blaze of ruddy light.
Like rollers of molten gold, the long swell heaved up Channel from the
great ocean beyond. In the midst of the immense beauty and peace of
nature the two little dark specks with the white sail and the purple
rose and fell, so small upon the vast shining bosom of the waters, and
yet so charged with all the unrest and the passion of life.
The experienced eye of the seaman told him that it was hopeless to
expect a breeze before nightfall. He looked across at the Frenchman,
which lay less than a quarter of a mile ahead, and shook his gnarled
fist at the line of heads which could be seen looking back over her
stern. One of them waved a white kerchief in derision, and Cock Badding
swore a bitter oath at the sight.
“By Saint Leonard of Winchelsea,” he cried, “I will rub my side up
against her yet! Out with the skiff, lads, and two of you to the oars.
Make fast the line to the mast, Will. Do you go in the boat, Hugh, and
I’ll make the second. Now if we bend our backs to it we may have them
yet ere night cover them.”
The little skiff was swiftly lowered over the side and the slack end of
the cable fastened to the after thwart. Cock Badding and his comrades
pulled as if they would snap their oars, and the little vessel began
slowly to lurch forward over the rollers. But the next moment a larger
skiff had splashed over the side of the Frenchman, and no less than
four seamen were hard at work under her bows. If the Marie Rose
advanced a yard the Frenchman was going two. Again Cock Badding raved
and shook his fist. He clambered aboard, his face wet with sweat and
dark with anger.
“Curse them! they have had the best of us!” he cried. “I can do no
more. Sir John has lost his papers, for indeed now that night is at
hand I can see no way in which we can gain them.”
Nigel had leaned against the bulwark during these events, watching with
keen attention the doings of the sailors, and praying alternately to
Saint Paul, Saint George, and Saint Thomas for a slant of wind which
would put them along side their enemy. He was silent; but his hot heart
was simmering within him. His spirit had risen even above the
discomfort of the sea, and his mind was too absorbed in his mission to
have a thought for that which had laid Aylward flat upon the deck. He
had never doubted that Cock Badding in one way or another would
accomplish his end, but when he heard his speech of despair he bounded
off the bulwark and stood before the seaman with his face flushed and
all his soul afire.
“By Saint Paul! master-shipman,” he cried, “we should never hold up our
heads in honor if we did not go further into the matter! Let us do some
small deed this night upon the water, or let us never see land again,
for indeed we could not wish fairer prospect of winning honorable
advancement.”
“With your leave, little master, you speak like a fool,” said the gruff
seaman. “You and all your kind are as children when once the blue water
is beneath you. Can you not see that there is no wind, and that the
Frenchman can warp her as swiftly as we? What then would you do?”
Nigel pointed to the boat which towed astern. “Let us venture forth in
her,” said he, “and let us take this ship or die worshipful in the
attempt.”
His bold and fiery words found their echo in the brave rough hearts
around him. There was a deep-chested shout from both archers and
seamen. Even Aylward sat up, with a wan smile upon his green face.
But Cock Badding shook his head. “I have never met the man who could
lead where I would not follow,” said he; “but by Saint Leonard! this is
a mad business, and I should be a fool if I were to risk my men and my
ship. Bethink you, little master, that the skiff can hold only five,
though you load her to the water’s edge. If there is a man yonder,
there are fourteen, and you have to climb their side from the boat.
What chance would you have? Your boat stove and you in the water—there
is the end of it. No man of mine goes on such a fool’s errand, and so I
swear!”
“Then, Master Badding, I must crave the loan of your skiff, for by
Saint Paul! the good Lord Chandos’ papers are not to be so lightly
lost. If no one else will come, then I will go alone.”
The shipman smiled at the words; but the smile died away from his lips
when Nigel, with features set like ivory and eyes as hard as steel,
pulled on the rope so as to bring the skiff under the counter. It was
very clear that he would do even as he said. At the same time Aylward
raised his bulky form from the deck, leaned for a moment against the
bulwarks, and then tottered aft to his master’s side.
“Here is one that will go with you,” said he, “or he would never dare
show his face to the girls of Tilford again. Come, archers, let us
leave these salt herrings in their pickle tub and try our luck out on
the water.”
The three archers at once ranged themselves on the same side as their
comrade. They were bronzed, bearded men, short in stature, as were most
Englishmen of that day, but hardy, strong and skilled with their
weapons. Each drew his string from its waterproof case and bent the
huge arc of his war-bow as he fitted it into the nocks.
“Now, master, we are at your back,” said they as they pulled and
tightened their sword-belts.
But already Cock Badding had been carried away by the hot lust of
battle and had thrown aside every fear and doubt which had clouded him.
To see a fight and not to be in it was more than he could bear.
“Nay, have it your own way!” he cried, “and may Saint Leonard help us,
for a madder venture I have never seen! And yet it may be worth the
trial. But if it be done let me have the handling of it, little master,
for you know no more of a boat than I do of a war-horse. The skiff can
bear five and not a man more. Now, who will come?”
They had all caught fire, and there was not one who would be left out.
Badding picked up his hammer. “I will come myself,” said he, “and you
also, little master, since it is your hot head that has planned it.
Then there is Black Simon, the best sword of the Cinque Ports. Two
archers can pull on the oars, and it may be that they can pick off two
or three of these Frenchmen before we close with them. Hugh
Baddlesmere, and you, Dicon of Rye—into the boat with you!”