_AN EVENTFUL RAMBLE._
“Cuthbert, my son,” said Sir Walter, “thou hast brought letters from
the town.”
“Here they are, father,” said Cuthbert, producing a packet which bore
the traces of a long journey, “letters from across the sea.”
The good knight, or father, whichever we may call him, perused
them eagerly, and Cuthbert sat patiently gazing at a black letter
martyrology to wile away the time.
“My news concerns thee, dear son,” said his adopted father. “Cuthbert,
thou hast now attained years of discretion, and thy education has
not been neglected; thou art a fair master of English, French, and
Latin, with some knowledge of German; thy mathematics are tolerable
as things go; meanwhile thou hast not neglected the divinest of
studies--theology.”
“Nor, father, have I forgotten that in this world we must learn to
fence, wrestle, shoot, and if need be, fight.”
“Nor hunting and hawking, alack-a-day; ‘vanitas vanitatum,’ all is
vanity; but, my son, we must seriously consider now what thy future
life shall be. Here I have letters from two quarters, amongst others,
which concern thee; my good brother, the Abbot of Monte Casino, in far
off Italy, would gladly receive thee as a neophyte, and fit thee to
make thy profession in that holiest and most learned of houses, where
as yet the wild boar rooteth not, neither doth the beast of the field
devour.”
The old man looked eagerly on the youth, but no answering response met
his gaze.
“And again,” continued he, “my friend the Baron de Courcy, descendant
of an old and famous Norman house, distinguished even in the days of
the Conquest,[29] offers to receive thee as an esquire and candidate
for the future honour of knighthood, in the service of France, now
happily at peace with England.”
Cuthbert’s face brightened now--this was the lot which he desired.
“Ah, my son, I see the world hath hold of thee; would thou could’st
feel the noble ambition to die for the Church, like thy once revered
preceptor.”
“Father, dear father, believe me no ingrate; for the Church I would
willingly die; but let it be as a warrior, sword in hand, fighting for
her rights, she needs such,--the warrior’s death if need be, but not
the stake or quartering block, unless God call me to it,--and then thy
child may not disobey.”
“I have ever foreboded this decision, yet it ruins my fondest
hopes--but if God has not given the vocation man can do nought--and
therefore I have sought the double opening for thee; thou choosest,
then, the soldier’s life, under my old friend of Courcy, whom I know to
be as valiant and devout a warrior as one could find, yet withal one
who will not spare correction, and who can be stern at need.”
“I do choose it, since you leave it to me, yet I grieve to cross thy
will.”
“Take till to-morrow to consider of it; a ship, under a captain whom
I know, will leave Dartmouth shortly for France, and thou mayest go
under his care. But first there is a duty to discharge; we must both
go to Glastonbury, where the lapse of time will have obliterated thy
remembrance from the towns folk, and destroy those papers; there is no
longer any occasion for their existence.”
“When shall we travel?”
“I have engagements which detain me here for another week, then we
shall set out; and now, my son, commend thyself to God, and seek His
grace to guide thee at this solemn turning-point in thy life. Benedicat
te Deus, et custodiat te semper, noctem quietam concedat Dominus.”
It was not till the midnight hour had passed that Cuthbert could sleep;
he realised that he had come to a point in the road of life, where two
ways branched off to right and left, either of which, fraught with
diverse issues, he might follow, but which?
And the same figure continually haunted him in his dreams, even the two
roads; sometimes the strife of battle and death in the forlorn hope, or
in the deadly breach, seemed the goal of the one, and then the other
appeared to lead to a desert of racks, stakes, and other appliances,
too familiar to the proselytizing zeal of that era.
There were other visions, but visions of peace--of a home of rest
beyond some fearful toil, some deadly peril which had preceded it in
the dream.
Wakeful, but not refreshed, Cuthbert rose with the sun; the words of
Sir Walter, “Take a day to consider,” rang in his mind; it should be a
day of solitude.
He took a slight breakfast, and then ascended the hill above the
house, crowned with the Druidical idol of a long vanished day; through
furze and crag he scrambled to the summit; before him lay a land
of desolation; moor after moor, swelling into hills, subsiding into
valleys, tinged with light or shade as the shadows of the clouds drove
over the wastes before the wind; like the restless ocean, it had a
strange charm in its very boundlessness; its vastness seemed to calm
one, as if an image of the illimitable eternity.
And above rose the mis-shapen token of a faith and worship long
extinct; a few huge blocks of granite composed the figure, so arranged,
whether by nature or art, that they looked human in outline; and
before, on that flat slab of stone, many victims must have bled--human
victims perhaps, in honour of the Baal-God.
That distant ridge of serrated teeth-like mountains, perpetuates the
name Bel Tor; perchance Phœnicians of old, brought over the worship
dear to Jezebel, and in these latter days, the name still speaks of
that dread idolatry.
So man passes away like the shadows of the clouds over the moor, and
yet these bare hills and rocky tors remain the same, as when the smoke
from the idol sacrifice ascended.
Then Cuthbert descended; he reached the valley, climbed the opposite
ridge--that strange pile so like a ruined castle which men call Hound
Tor; onward again up a deep valley, then a scramble amidst rocks and
heather, and the huge granite blocks which form the summit of Hey Tor,
are gained.
Oh, what a variegated view of land and sea--the wild hills over the
Dart, nay, over the Tavy; the huge bulk of Cawsand in the north; the
estuaries of the Dart and Teign; nay, across the sea, a cloud-like
vision of Portland Isle, full sixty miles away.
But our young mountaineer has seen enough, and his thoughts are ever
busy; he descends the hill and enters the forests which then fringed
their bases. Has he an object in view? Yes, there is one he would
fain see near Ashburton, pure and fair Isabel Grey, daughter of a
neighbouring squire, whose beauty had revealed to him the secrets of
his own heart, and steeled him against entering the ranks of a celibate
priesthood.
This is not a love story, and we shall not follow him to listen to
his vows, to hear him implore his charmer to tarry till he can return
crowned (he doubts not) with glory gained in the wars, and offer her
the heart of a would-be bridegroom.
He returns at length by the lower road, strikes the pass he ascended,
last night, at about the same hour, but the long ramble has fatigued
him; he rests for one moment at the summit of the ridge.
It wants an hour to sunset, he will go to the point of Hound Tor
Coombe; it is but a few steps, and is a projecting spur of the range
which separates the two wooded, rock-strewn valleys, Lustleigh and
Becky, just before they unite in one beautiful vale, above Bovey Tracey.
There he lies listening to the streams which babble on each side far
below, and anon--shall we tell it to his shame--falls asleep.
He is awoke by the murmur of voices.
“I tell thee the old fellow is worth a mint of money, and Jack
Cantfull, who is the ostler at the ‘Rose and Crown,’ says he rides all
alone to Moreton, and goes through this pass, but why he takes this
road instead of the other I know not, only Jack is to be his guide.”
“He will pay for knocking on the head!”
“Jack will expect his share when the deed is done.”
“Nay,” said another voice, “no throat cutting or head splitting, if it
can be done without.”
“Thou hast become scrupulous, Tony; hast thou forgotten the colour of
blood?”
“Nay, as I am a true Gubbing,[30] I mind it no more than ale, when
called upon to shed it, but we need not make the country too hot to
hold us.”
“Dead men tell no tales.”
“Well, we must be moving, he was to start at six.” And soon Cuthbert
heard them climb down the slope from a cave (well known to him, but
which happily he had not entered) below the summit on which he had been
reposing.
They had gone to beset the pass higher up.
So soon as the sound of their footsteps had ceased, Cuthbert descended
or rather _slid_ down the hill into the road beneath, behind the men,
and in spite of his fatigue, walked rapidly back towards Bovey.
Soon he came to the junction of two roads--the one, the upper way,
leading through the pass and so to Chagford, and by a circuitous route
to Moreton; the other a branch road which led more directly to the
latter town, which the traveller had abandoned: to take, for his own
reasons, a more circuitous and difficult route under a treacherous
guide.
At the point where the ways met Cuthbert waited, and shortly heard the
sound of horses; he then beheld the riders--the one a tall dark looking
man, evidently of rank and importance, the other a sort of stable
helper from the inn at Bovey.
“Stand,” cried Cuthbert, “I would fain speak with you, sir.”
“Who is this, who cries ‘stand’ upon the King’s highway?”
“A friend, one who would save you, Sir John, if you be Sir John; danger
lurks ahead; three cut-throats, ‘Gubbings,’ they call them about here,
a half-gipsy brood, lie in wait at the pass, and lurk for your life.”
“How sayest thou, my lad? Look, sirrah, what sayest thou to this?”
But the treacherous groom had heard all, and rode on at full gallop,
barely escaping a pistol-shot his indignant employer sent after him.
“He will bring them back in no time: take the lower road.”
“And thou, my poor lad, they will avenge themselves on thee.”
“Nay, I know every turn in the woods; I can run home.”
“Sore uneasy should I be for thee. Ah, see, the rogues appear, they
heard the shot.”
About half-a-mile along the road, moving forms rapidly running towards
them might be obscurely discerned as they turned a crest of the hill.
“Jump behind, thou canst ride ‘pillion.’”
Cuthbert complied, and Sir John spurred his horse and galloped along
the lower road; even then, by cutting across a shoulder of the hill,
the Gubbings, as Cuthbert called them, gained upon them and shot two or
three useless arrows, and then they could do no more, for the road lay
straight forward, and they had no further advantage.
After a little while Sir John said--
“I think we may now take our ease; thou hast saved my life, lad, and I
shall not forget it. What is thy name?”
“Cuthbert Trevannion; and thine, sir?”
The rider started perceptibly as he heard the name, and Cuthbert
noticed it. After a moment he said, with emphasis--
“Sir John Redfyrne, a poor knight of his sacred majesty’s household.”
Cuthbert remembered the name too well, and his earnest desire was to
get away without any further revelations.
“I have lately come from Glastonbury,” said Sir John; “dost thou know
the place?”
Cuthbert could not lie. “I have been there,” he said.
“There was some talk of a lad of thy name when I first knew the town,
who was educated at the Abbey.”
“It may be, sir; but see, that road will take me home, and there is no
danger now; may I dismount?”
“Not just yet; here is a roadside inn, thou must at least grace me with
thy presence over a cup of sack.”
“But my father will be uneasy.”
“I will answer for him.”
Not to increase Sir John’s suspicions, Cuthbert dismounted at the inn,
and allowed himself to be led into a private chamber. Sir John waited
for a moment, and descended the stairs.
“Dost thou know that youth?” he asked of the landlord.
“The son of Sir Walter Trevannion.”
“He lives near here?”
“Yes, at Trevannion Hall.”
He returned to Cuthbert.
“My lad,” he said, “I owe thee many thanks, and grieve that I may not
stay longer to repay them than suffices to discuss this sack; my road
now lies to Moreton, and I shall soon have quitted these parts; perhaps
I may call some future day upon thy father, who, I hear, lives near, to
thank thee in his presence.”
“I may go then, sir?”
“With my best thanks; nay, wear this chain as a memento of the giver
and the Gubbings; fare thee well.”
And Cuthbert hastened home.
But Sir John remained yet a little while, seated in the saddle, as he
made several innocent enquiries of the landlord.
And they were all about Trevannion Hall.
FOOTNOTES
[29] Read “The Andredsweald,” by the same Author. (Parker’s Oxford.)
[30] See Note J. The Gubbings.