A HERO’S FALL
“These four came all afront and mainly made at me. I made no more ado,
but took their seven points on my target—thus—”
Shakespeare.
The journey to Alton was eventless. It was slow, for the day was a
broiling one, and the young foresters missed their oaks and beeches, as
they toiled over the chalk downs that rose and sank in endless
succession; though they would hardly have slackened their pace if it
had not been for poor old Spring, who was sorely distressed by the heat
and the want of water on the downs. Every now and then he lay down,
panting distressfully, with his tongue hanging out, and his young
masters always waited for him, often themselves not sorry to rest in
the fragment of shade from a solitary thorn or juniper.
The track was plain enough, and there were hamlets at long intervals.
Flocks of sheep fed on the short grass, but there was no approaching
the shepherds, as they and their dogs regarded Spring as an enemy, to
be received with clamour, stones, and teeth, in spite of the dejected
looks which might have acquitted him of evil intentions.
The travellers reached Alton in the cool of the evening, and were
kindly received by a monk, who had charge of a grange just outside the
little town, near one of the springs of the River Wey.
The next day’s journey was a pleasanter one, for there was more of wood
and heather, and they had to skirt round the marshy borders of various
bogs. Spring was happier, being able to stop and lap whenever he would,
and the whole scene was less unfriendly to them. But they scarcely made
speed enough, for they were still among tall whins and stiff scrub of
heather when the sun began to get low, gorgeously lighting the tall
plumes of golden broom, and they had their doubts whether they might
not be off the track; but in such weather, there was nothing alarming
in spending a night out of doors, if only they had something for
supper. Stephen took a bolt from the purse at his girdle, and bent his
crossbow, so as to be ready in case a rabbit sprang out, or a duck flew
up from the marshes.
A small thicket of trees was in sight, and they were making for it,
when sounds of angry voices were heard, and Spring, bristling up the
mane on his neck, and giving a few premonitory fierce growls like
thunder, bounded forward as though he had been seven years younger.
Stephen darted after him, Ambrose rushed after Stephen, and breaking
through the trees, they beheld the dog at the throat of one of three
men. As they came on the scene, the dog was torn down and hurled aside,
giving a howl of agony, which infuriated his master. Letting fly his
crossbow bolt full at the fellow’s face, he dashed on, reckless of
odds, waving his knotted stick, and shouting with rage. Ambrose, though
more aware of the madness of such an assault, still hurried to his
support, and was amazed as well as relieved to find the charge
effectual. Without waiting to return a blow, the miscreants took to
their heels, and Stephen, seeing nothing but his dog, dropped on his
knees beside the quivering creature, from whose neck blood was fast
pouring. One glance of the faithful wistful eyes, one feeble movement
of the expressive tail, and Spring had made his last farewell! That was
all Stephen was conscious of; but Ambrose could hear the cry, “Good
sirs, good lads, set me free!” and was aware of a portly form bound to
a tree. As he cut the rope with his knife, the rescued traveller
hurried out thanks and demands—“Where are the rest of you?” and on the
reply that there were no more, proceeded, “Then we must on, on at once,
or the villains will return! They must have thought you had a band of
hunters behind you. Two furlongs hence, and we shall be safe in the
hostel at Dogmersfield. Come on, my boy,” to Stephen, “the brave hound
is quite dead, more’s the pity. Thou canst do no more for him, and we
shall soon be in his case if we dally here.”
“I cannot, cannot leave him thus,” sobbed Stephen, who had the loving
old head on his knees. “Ambrose! stay, we must bring him. There, his
tail wagged! If the blood were staunched—”
“Stephen! Indeed he is stone dead! Were he our brother we could not do
otherwise,” reasoned Ambrose, forcibly dragging his brother to his
feet. “Go on we must. Wouldst have us all slaughtered for his sake?
Come! The rogues will be upon us anon. Spring saved this good man’s
life. Undo not his work. See! Is yonder your horse, sir? This way,
Stevie!”
The instinct of catching the horse roused Stephen, and it was soon
accomplished, for the steed was a plump, docile, city-bred palfrey,
with dapple-grey flanks like well-stuffed satin pincushions, by no
means resembling the shaggy Forest ponies of the boys’ experience, but
quite astray in the heath, and ready to come at the master’s whistle,
and call of “Soh! Soh!—now Poppet!” Stephen caught the bridle, and
Ambrose helped the burgess into the saddle. “Now, good boys,” he said,
“each of you lay a hand on my pommel. We can make good speed ere the
rascals find out our scant numbers.”
“You would make better speed without us, sir,” said Stephen, hankering
to remain beside poor Spring.
“D’ye think Giles Headley the man to leave two children, that have
maybe saved my life as well as my purse, to bear the malice of the
robbers?” demanded the burgess angrily. “That were like those fellows
of mine who have shown their heels and left their master strapped to a
tree! Thou! thou! what’s thy name, that hast the most wit, bring thy
brother, unless thou wouldst have him laid by the side of his dog.”
Stephen was forced to comply, and run by Poppet’s side, though his eyes
were so full of tears that he could not see his way, even when the pace
slackened, and in the twilight they found themselves among houses and
gardens, and thus in safety, the lights of an inn shining not far off.
A figure came out in the road to meet them, crying, “Master! master! is
it you? and without scathe? Oh, the saints be praised!”
“Ay, Tibble, ’tis I and no other, thanks to the saints and to these
brave lads! What, man, I blame thee not, I know thou canst not strike;
but where be the rest?”
“In the inn, sir. I strove to call up the hue and cry to come to the
rescue, but the cowardly hinds were afraid of the thieves, and not one
would come forth.”
“I wish they may not be in league with them,” said Master Headley.
“See! I was delivered—ay, and in time to save my purse, by these twain
and their good dog. Are ye from these parts, my fair lads?”
“We be journeying from the New Forest to London,” said Ambrose. “The
poor dog heard the tumult, and leapt to your aid, sir, and we made
after him.”
“’Twas the saints sent him!” was the fervent answer. “And” (with a
lifting of the cap) “I hereby vow to St. Julian a hound of solid bronze
a foot in length, with a collar of silver, to his shrine in St.
Faith’s, in token of my deliverance in body and goods! To London are ye
bound? Then will we journey on together!”
They were by this time near the porch of a large country hostel, from
the doors and large bay window of which light streamed out. And as the
casement was open, those without could both see and hear all that was
passing within.
The table was laid for supper, and in the place of honour sat a youth
of some seventeen or eighteen years, gaily dressed, with a little
feather curling over his crimson cap, and thus discoursing:—
“Yea, my good host, two of the rogues bear my tokens, besides him whom
I felled to the earth. He came on at me with his sword, but I had my
point ready for him; and down he went before me like an ox. Then came
on another, but him I dealt with by the back stroke as used in the
tilt-yard at Clarendon.”
“I trow we shall know him again, sir. Holy saints! to think such
rascals should haunt so nigh us,” the hostess was exclaiming. “Pity for
the poor goodman, Master Headley. A portly burgher was he, friendly of
tongue and free of purse. I well remember him when he went forth on his
way to Salisbury, little thinking, poor soul, what was before him. And
is he truly sped?”
“I tell thee, good woman, I saw him go down before three of their
pikes. What more could I do but drive my horse over the nearest rogue
who was rifling him?”
“If he were still alive—which Our Lady grant!—the knaves will hold him
to ransom,” quoth the host, as he placed a tankard on the table.
“I am afraid he is past ransom,” said the youth, shaking his head. “But
an if he be still in the rogues’ hands and living, I will get me on to
his house in Cheapside, and arrange with his mother to find the needful
sum, as befits me, I being his heir and about to wed his daughter.
However, I shall do all that in me lies to get the poor old seignior
out of the hands of the rogues. Saints defend me!”
“The poor old seignior is much beholden to thee,” said Master Headley,
advancing amid a clamour of exclamations from three or four serving-men
or grooms, one protesting that he thought his master was with him,
another that his horse ran away with him, one showing an arm which was
actually being bound up, and the youth declaring that he rode off to
bring help.
“Well wast thou bringing it,” Master Headley answered. “I might be
still standing bound like an eagle displayed, against yonder tree, for
aught you fellows recked.”
“Nay, sir, the odds—” began the youth.
“Odds! such odds as were put to rout—by what, deem you? These two
striplings and one poor hound. Had but one of you had the heart of a
sparrow, ye had not furnished a tale to be the laugh of the Barbican
and Cheapside. Look well at them. How old be you, my brave lads?”
“I shall be sixteen come Lammas day, and Stephen fifteen at Martinmas
day, sir,” said Ambrose; “but verily we did nought. We could have done
nought had not the thieves thought more were behind us.”
“There are odds between going forward and backward,” said Master
Headley, dryly. “Ha! Art hurt? Thou bleedst,” he exclaimed, laying his
hand on Stephen’s shoulder, and drawing him to the light.
“’Tis no blood of mine,” said Stephen, as Ambrose likewise came to join
in the examination. “It is my poor Spring’s. He took the coward’s blow.
His was all the honour, and we have left him there on the heath!” And
he covered his face with his hands.
“Come, come, my good child,” said Master Headley; “we will back to the
place by times to-morrow when rogues hide and honest men walk abroad.
Thou shalt bury thine hound, as befits a good warrior, on the
battle-field. I would fain mark his points for the effigy we will
frame, honest Tibble, for St. Julian. And mark ye, fellows, thou godson
Giles, above all, who ’tis that boast of their valour, and who ’tis
that be modest of speech. Yea, thanks, mine host. Let us to a chamber,
and give us water to wash away soil of travel and of fray, and then to
supper. Young masters, ye are my guests. Shame were it that Giles
Headley let go farther them that have, under Heaven and St. Julian,
saved him in life, limb, and purse.”
The inn was large, being the resort of many travellers from the south,
often of nobles and knights riding to Parliament, and thus the brothers
found themselves accommodated with a chamber, where they could prepare
for the meal, while Ambrose tried to console his brother by
representing that, after all, poor Spring had died gallantly, and with
far less pain than if he had suffered a wasting old age, besides being
honoured for ever by his effigy in St. Faith’s, wherever that might be,
the idea which chiefly contributed to console his master.
The two boys appeared in the room of the inn looking so unlike the
dusty, blood-stained pair who had entered, that Master Headley took a
second glance to convince himself that they were the same, before
beckoning them to seats on either side of him, saying that he must know
more of them, and bidding the host load their trenchers well from the
grand fabric of beef-pasty which had been set at the end of the board.
The runaways, four or five in number, herded together lower down, with
a few travellers of lower degree, all except the youth who had been
boasting before their arrival, and who retained his seat at the board,
thumping it with the handle of his knife to show his impatience for the
commencement of supper; and not far off sat Tibble, the same who had
hailed their arrival, a thin, slight, one-sided looking person, with a
terrible red withered scar on one cheek, drawing the corner of his
mouth awry. He, like Master Headley himself, and the rest of his party
were clad in red, guarded with white, and wore the cross of St. George
on the white border of their flat crimson caps, being no doubt in the
livery of their Company. The citizen himself, having in the meantime
drawn his conclusions from the air and gestures of the brothers, and
their mode of dealing with their food, asked the usual question in an
affirmative tone, “Ye be of gentle blood, young sirs?”
To which they replied by giving their names, and explaining that they
were journeying from the New Forest to find their uncle in the train of
the Archbishop of York.
“Birkenholt,” said Tibble, meditatively. “He beareth vert, a buck’s
head proper, on a chief argent, two arrows in saltire. Crest, a buck
courant, pierced in the gorge by an arrow, all proper.”
To which the brothers returned by displaying the handles of their
knives, both of which bore the pierced and courant buck.
“Ay, ay,” said the man. “’Twill be found in our books, sir. We painted
the shield and new-crested the morion the first year of my
prenticeship, when the Earl of Richmond, the late King Harry of blessed
memory, had newly landed at Milford Haven.”
“Verily,” said Ambrose, “our uncle Richard Birkenholt fought at
Bosworth under Sir Richard Pole’s banner.”
“A tall and stalwart esquire, methinks,” said Master Headley. “Is he
the kinsman you seek?”
“Not so, sir. We visited him at Winchester, and found him sorely old
and with failing wits. We be on our way to our mother’s brother, Master
Harry Randall.”
“Is he clerk or layman? My Lord of York entertaineth enow of both,”
said Master Headley.
“Lay assuredly, sir,” returned Stephen; “I trust to him to find me some
preferment as page or the like.”
“Know’st thou the man, Tibble?” inquired the master.
“Not among the men-at-arms, sir,” was the answer; “but there be a many
of them whose right names we never hear. However, he will be easily
found if my Lord of York be returned from Windsor with his train.”
“Then will we go forward together, my young Masters Birkenholt. I am
not going to part with my doughty champions!”—patting Stephen’s
shoulder. “Ye’d not think that these light-heeled knaves belonged to
the brave craft of armourers?”
“Certainly not,” thought the lads, whose notion of armourers was
derived from the brawny blacksmith of Lyndhurst, who sharpened their
boar spears and shod their horses. They made some kind of assent, and
Master Headley went on. “These be the times! This is what peace hath
brought us to! I am called down to Salisbury to take charge of the
goods, chattels, and estate of my kinsman, Robert Headley—Saints rest
his soul!—and to bring home yonder spark, my godson, whose indentures
have been made over to me. And I may not ride a mile after sunset
without being set upon by a sort of robbers, who must have guessed
over-well what a pack of cowards they had to deal with.”
“Sir,” cried the younger Giles, “I swear to you that I struck right and
left. I did all that man could do, but these rogues of serving-men,
they fled, and dragged me along with them, and I deemed you were of our
company till we dismounted.”
“Did you so? Methought anon you saw me go down with three pikes in my
breast. Come, come, godson Giles, speech will not mend it! Thou art but
a green, town-bred lad, a mother’s darling, and mayst be a brave man
yet, only don’t dread to tell the honest truth that you were afeard, as
many a better man might be.”
The host chimed in with tales of the thieves and outlaws who then, and
indeed for many later generations, infested Bagshot heath, and the wild
moorland tracks around. He seemed to think that the travellers had had
a hair’s-breadth escape, and that a few seconds’ more delay might have
revealed the weakness of the rescuers and have been fatal to them.
However there was no danger so near the village in the morning, and,
somewhat to Stephen’s annoyance, the whole place turned out to inspect
the spot, and behold the burial of poor Spring, who was found stretched
on the heather, just as he had been left the night before. He was
interred under the stunted oak where Master Headley had been tied.
While the grave was dug with a spade borrowed at the inn, Ambrose
undertook to cut out the dog’s name on the bark, but he had hardly made
the first incision when Tibble, the singed foreman, offered to do it
for him, and made a much more sightly inscription than he could have
done. Master Headley’s sword was found honourably broken under the
tree, and was reserved to form a base for his intended _ex voto_. He
uttered the vow in due form like a funeral oration, when Stephen, with
a swelling heart, had laid the companion of his life in the little
grave, which was speedily covered in.