NIGHT IN THE WOODS: ALICIA RISINGHAM
It was almost certain that Sir Daniel had made for the Moat House; but,
considering the heavy snow, the lateness of the hour, and the necessity
under which he would lie of avoiding the few roads and striking across
the wood, it was equally certain that he could not hope to reach it ere
the morrow.
There were two courses open to Dick: either to continue to follow in the
knight’s trail, and, if he were able, to fall upon him that very night
in camp, or to strike out a path of his own, and seek to place himself
between Sir Daniel and his destination.
Either scheme was open to serious objection, and Dick, who feared to
expose Joanna to the hazards of a fight, had not yet decided between
them when he reached the borders of the wood.
At this point Sir Daniel had turned a little to his left, and then
plunged straight under a grove of very lofty timber. His party had then
formed to a narrower front, in order to pass between the trees, and the
track was trod proportionally deeper in the snow. The eye followed it,
under the leafless tracery of the oaks, running direct and narrow; the
trees stood over it, with knotty joints and the great, uplifted forest
of their boughs; there was no sound, whether of man or beast--not so
much as the stirring of a robin; and over the field of snow the winter
sun lay golden among netted shadows.
“How say ye,” asked Dick of one of the men, “to follow straight on, or
strike across for Tunstall?”
“Sir Richard,” replied the man-at-arms, “I would follow the line until
they scatter.”
“Ye are, doubtless, right,” returned Dick; “but we came right hastily
upon the errand, even as the time commanded. Here are no houses, neither
for food nor shelter, and by the morrow’s dawn we shall know both cold
fingers and an empty belly. How say ye, lads? Will ye stand a pinch for
expedition’s sake, or shall we turn by Holywood and sup with Mother
Church? The case being somewhat doubtful, I will drive no man; yet if ye
would suffer me to lead you, ye would choose the first.”
The men answered, almost with one voice, that they would follow Sir
Richard where he would.
And Dick, setting spur to his horse, began once more to go forward.
The snow in the trail had been trodden very hard, and the pursuers had
thus a great advantage over the pursued. They pushed on, indeed, at a
round trot, two hundred hoofs beating alternately on the dull pavement
of the snow, and the jingle of weapons and the snorting of horses
raising a warlike noise along the arches of the silent wood.
Presently, the wide slot of the pursued came out upon the highroad from
Holywood; it was there, for a moment, indistinguishable; and, where it
once more plunged into the unbeaten snow upon the farther side, Dick was
surprised to see it narrower and lighter trod. Plainly, profiting by the
road, Sir Daniel had begun already to scatter his command.
At all hazards, one chance being equal to another, Dick continued to
pursue the straight trail; and that, after an hour’s riding, in which it
led into the very depths of the forest, suddenly split, like a bursting
shell, into two dozen others, leading to every point of the compass.
Dick drew bridle in despair. The short winter’s day was near an end; the
sun, a dull red orange, shorn of rays, swam low among the leafless
thickets; the shadows were a mile long upon the snow; the frost bit
cruelly at the finger-nails; and the breath and steam of the horses
mounted in a cloud.
“Well, we are outwitted,” Dick confessed. “Strike we for Holywood, after
all. It is still nearer us than Tunstall--or should be by the station of
the sun.”
So they wheeled to their left, turning their backs on the red shield of
sun, and made across country for the abbey. But now times were changed
with them; they could no longer spank forth briskly on a path beaten
firm by the passage of their foes, and for a goal to which that path
itself conducted them. Now they must plough at a dull pace through the
encumbering snow, continually pausing to decide their course,
continually floundering in drifts. The sun soon left them; the glow of
the west decayed; and presently they were wandering in a shadow of
blackness, under frosty stars.
Presently, indeed, the moon would clear the hill-tops, and they might
resume their march. But till then, every random step might carry them
wider of their march. There was nothing for it but to camp and wait.
Sentries were posted; a spot of ground was cleared of snow, and, after
some failures, a good fire blazed in the midst. The men-at-arms sat
close about this forest hearth, sharing such provisions as they had, and
passing about the flask; and Dick, having collected the most delicate of
the rough and scanty fare, brought it to Lord Risingham’s niece, where
she sat apart from the soldiery against a tree.
She sat upon one horse-cloth, wrapped in another, and stared straight
before her at the firelit scene. At the offer of food she started, like
one wakened from a dream, and then silently refused.
“Madam,” said Dick, “let me beseech you, punish me not so cruelly.
Wherein I have offended you, I know not; I have, indeed, carried you
away, but with a friendly violence; I have, indeed, exposed you to the
inclemency of night, but the hurry that lies upon me hath for its end
the preservation of another, who is no less frail and no less unfriended
than yourself. At least, madam, punish not yourself; and eat, if not for
hunger, then for strength.”
“I will eat nothing at the hands that slew my kinsman,” she replied.
“Dear madam,” Dick cried, “I swear to you upon the rood I touched him
not.”
“Swear to me that he still lives,” she returned.
“I will not palter with you,” answered Dick. “Pity bids me to wound you.
In my heart I do believe him dead.”
“And ye ask me to eat!” she cried. “Ay, and they call you ‘sir’! Y’ have
won your spurs by my good kinsman’s murder. And had I not been fool and
traitor both, and saved you in your enemy’s house, ye should have died
the death, and he--he that was worth twelve of you--were living.”
“I did but my man’s best, even as your kinsman did upon the other
party,” answered Dick. “Were he still living--as I vow to Heaven I wish
it!--he would praise, not blame me.”
“Sir Daniel hath told me,” she replied. “He marked you at the barricade.
Upon you, he saith, their party foundered; it was you that won the
battle. Well, then, it was you that killed my good Lord Risingham, as
sure as though ye had strangled him. And ye would have me eat with
you--and your hands not washed from killing? But Sir Daniel hath sworn
your downfall. He ’tis that will avenge me!”
The unfortunate Dick was plunged in gloom. Old Arblaster returned upon
his mind, and he groaned aloud.
“Do ye hold me so guilty?” he said; “you that defended me--you that are
Joanna’s friend?”
“What made ye in the battle?” she retorted. “Y’are of no party; y’are
but a lad--but legs and body, without government of wit or counsel!
Wherefore did ye fight? For the love of hurt, pardy!”
“Nay,” cried Dick, “I know not. But as the realm of England goes, if
that a poor gentleman fight not upon the one side, perforce he must
fight upon the other. He may not stand alone; ’tis not in nature.”
“They that have no judgment should not draw the sword,” replied the
young lady. “Ye that fight but for a hazard, what are ye but a butcher?
War is but noble by the cause, and y’ have disgraced it.”
“Madam,” said the miserable Dick, “I do partly see mine error. I have
made too much haste; I have been busy before my time. Already I stole a
ship--thinking, I do swear it, to do well--and thereby brought about the
death of many innocent, and the grief and ruin of a poor old man whose
face this very day hath stabbed me like a dagger. And for this morning,
I did but design to do myself credit, and get fame to marry with, and,
behold! I have brought about the death of your dear kinsman that was
good to me. And what besides, I know not. For, alas! I may have set York
upon the throne, and that may be the worser cause, and may do hurt to
England. O, madam, I do see my sin. I am unfit for life. I will, for
penance’ sake and to avoid worse evil, once I have finished this
adventure, get me to a cloister. I will forswear Joanna and the trade of
arms. I will be a friar, and pray for your good kinsman’s spirit all my
days.”
It appeared to Dick, in this extremity of his humiliation and
repentance, that the young lady had laughed.
Raising his countenance, he found her looking down upon him, in the
firelight, with a somewhat peculiar but not unkind expression.
“Madam,” he cried, thinking the laughter to have been an illusion of his
hearing, but still, from her changed looks, hoping to have touched her
heart, “madam, will not this content you? I give up all to undo what I
have done amiss; I make heaven certain for Lord Risingham. And all this
upon the very day that I have won my spurs, and thought myself the
happiest young gentleman on ground.”
“O boy,” she said--“good boy!”
And then, to the extreme surprise of Dick, she first very tenderly wiped
the tears away from his cheeks, and then, as if yielding to a sudden
impulse, threw both her arms about his neck, drew up his face, and
kissed him. A pitiful bewilderment came over simple-minded Dick.
“But come,” she said, with great cheerfulness, “you that are a captain,
ye must eat. Why sup ye not?”
“Dear Mistress Risingham,” replied Dick, “I did but wait first upon my
prisoner; but, to say truth, penitence will no longer suffer me to
endure the sight of food. I were better to fast, dear lady, and to
pray.”
“Call me Alicia,” she said; “are we not old friends? And now, come, I
will eat with you, bit for bit and sup for sup; so if ye eat not,
neither will I; but if ye eat hearty, I will dine like a ploughman.”
So there and then she fell to; and Dick, who had an excellent stomach,
proceeded to bear her company, at first with great reluctance, but
gradually, as he entered into the spirit, with more and more vigour and
devotion: until, at last, he forgot even to watch his model, and most
heartily repaired the expenses of his day of labour and excitement.
“Lion-driver,” she said, at length, “ye do not admire a maid in a man’s
jerkin?”
The moon was now up; and they were only waiting to repose the wearied
horses. By the moon’s light, the still penitent but now well-fed Richard
beheld her looking somewhat coquettishly down upon him.
“Madam--” he stammered, surprised at this new turn in her manners.
“Nay,” she interrupted, “it skills not to deny; Joanna hath told me, but
come, sir lion-driver, look at me--am I so homely--come!”
And she made bright eyes at him.
“Ye are something smallish, indeed--” began Dick.
And here again she interrupted him, this time with a ringing peal of
laughter that completed his confusion and surprise.
“Smallish!” she cried. “Nay, now, be honest as ye are bold; I am a
dwarf, or little better; but for all that--come, tell me!--for all that,
passably fair to look upon; is’t not so?”
“Nay, madam, exceedingly fair,” said the distressed knight, pitifully
trying to seem easy.
“And a man would be right glad to wed me?” she pursued.
“O, madam, right glad!” agreed Dick.
“Call me Alicia,” said she.
“Alicia,” quoth Sir Richard.
“Well, then, lion-driver,” she continued, “sith that ye slew my kinsman,
and left me without stay, ye owe me, in honour, every reparation; do ye
not?”
“I do, madam,” said Dick. “Although, upon my heart, I do hold me but
partially guilty of that brave knight’s blood.”
“Would ye evade me?” she cried.
“Madam, not so. I have told you; at your bidding, I will even turn me a
monk,” said Richard.
“Then, in honour, ye belong to me?” she concluded.
“In honour, madam, I suppose--” began the young man.
“Go to!” she interrupted; “ye are too full of catches. In honour do ye
belong to me, till ye have paid the evil?”
“In honour, I do,” said Dick.
“Hear, then,” she continued. “Ye would make but a sad friar, methinks;
and since I am to dispose of you at pleasure, I will even take you for
my husband. Nay, now, no words!” cried she. “They will avail you
nothing. For see how just it is, that you who deprived me of one home,
should supply me with another. And as for Joanna, she will be the first,
believe me, to commend the change; for, after all, as we be dear
friends, what matters it with which of us ye wed? Not one whit!”
“Madam,” said Dick, “I will go into a cloister, an ye please to bid me;
but to wed with any one in this big world besides Joanna Sedley is what
I will consent to neither for man’s force nor yet for lady’s pleasure.
Pardon me if I speak my plain thoughts plainly; but where a maid is very
bold, a poor man must even be the bolder.”
“Dick,” she said, “ye sweet boy, ye must come and kiss me for that word.
Nay, fear not, ye shall kiss me for Joanna; and when we meet, I shall
give it back to her, and say I stole it. And as for what ye owe me, why,
dear simpleton, methinks ye were not alone in that great battle; and
even if York be on the throne, it was not you that set him there. But
for a good, sweet, honest heart, Dick, y’are all that; and if I could
find it in my soul to envy your Joanna anything, I would even envy her
your love.”