Under the Hawthorn Tree
It was high summer at Haversleigh. The trees, now in full leaf, cast
rich shadows over the landscape, the wild roses were in bloom on the
hedgerows, and tall foxgloves stood like crimson sentinels at the
margins of the woods. The fields were white with moon-daisies, growing
among the long, lush grass; and all the roadsides were a tangle of
vetches, campion, bugle, trefoil and speedwells. The wind was fragrant
with the scent of newly turned hay; everywhere the mowers were busy, and
the daisies were falling fast beneath the swinging scythe or the blades
of the reaping-machine. In the Manor garden the roses had reached
perfection, and the flower-beds were a mass of colour. The girls spent
every available moment out-of-doors, making the most of the bright days,
and enjoying their country visit to the full.
One blazing half-holiday afternoon Lindsay and Cicely, allowed for once
in the select company of a few of the elder girls, were lounging
blissfully under the shade of a big hawthorn tree. The air seemed
dancing for very heat; the grasshoppers were chirping away at the edge
of the lawn, a lizard lay basking on the stones of the terrace wall, and
the sparrows for once were silent.
"It's far too hot to play tennis," said Irene Spencer. "One just wants
to sit somewhere where it's green and cool."
"I'm glad we're here, then, instead of at Winterburn Lodge," said Mary
Parkinson.
"So am I; and yet Winterburn Lodge is nicer than many other schools,"
remarked Mildred Roper.
"It's not half bad," assented Mary. "I like it better, at any rate, than
the French school I was at in Brussels."
"I didn't know you'd ever been in France," said Lindsay, idly picking a
dandelion clock and blowing it to find out the time.
"No more I have, goosey."
"Then why did you say you'd been at a French school? You're telling
fibs."
"No, I'm not, because Brussels doesn't happen to be in France--it's in
Belgium."
"I thought you were supposed to learn geography in the third class,"
laughed Irene Spencer.
"She said a French school, not a Belgian one," objected Lindsay.
"Well, everybody speaks French in Brussels."
"Don't they speak Flemish?"
"Only the poor people, and even they can generally talk French as well."
"How long were you there, Mary?" put in Mildred Roper.
"Only one term. I got ill, and had to come home."
"Was it nice?"
"Oh, just tolerable!"
"Had you to talk French all the time?"
"I had to try, because none of the girls knew anything else. They used
to laugh at me if I spoke English."
"How nasty! I shouldn't have cared to be you," said Cicely.
"Yes, it was horrid, when I was sure they were saying things about me
and I couldn't understand them. I used to get quite cross, and that made
my head ache."
"Was the school in the country?" asked Lindsay.
"No, I've told you already it was in Brussels, and that's a big city. It
was a large building, with a great high wall all round it, with spikes
on the top, as if it were a prison. Inside there was a courtyard where
we used to play games. It had orange trees and oleanders in big green
tubs, but no grass nor flowers. You couldn't possibly have called it a
garden. We hardly ever went out for proper walks. Sometimes we were
taken to the park, but even there we had to go very primly, two and two,
with the teachers looking after us most sharply."
"Were the teachers nice?"
"Yes, pretty well. I liked them better than the girls, at any rate.
There were two sisters in my class, called Marie and Sophie Beauvais,
who were always making fun of me because I was English. I had a horrid
time until a German girl came to the school, and then they teased her
instead of me. The best thing of all was the coffee. It was perfectly
delicious--nicer than any I've ever tasted in England."
"Why didn't you stay in Brussels?"
"I was ill, and my mother had to come and fetch me. She declared she
would never let me go so far away from home again; so she sent me to
Winterburn Lodge instead. Miss Russell is very kind if one's not well,
and Mother said she would rather have me properly looked after, even if
I didn't learn French."
"Yes, Miss Russell does take care of us," said Irene. "I used to be at
another school, and the teachers never noticed if we had headaches, or
couldn't eat our meals. We had to work most fearfully hard for exams,
too. The headmistress made a point of getting a certain number of passes
each year, and one was obliged to prepare and go in whether one was
clever or not. Give me good old Winterburn Lodge!--especially when one's
at the Manor instead. By the by, there's Monica. She's surely not come
to play tennis? It's too hot."
"Fifteen degrees too hot," agreed Monica, throwing herself down on the
grass beside the others and fanning herself with her hat. "Out on the
road the heat's at simmering-point. I came to bring a message to Miss
Russell, and I hear she's gone to Linforth and won't be back until
half-past four. I think I shall wait for her."
"Oh, do!" cried the others. "We'll have a 'palaver' here under the
trees."
"What's a 'palaver', please? I hope it's something cool and fizzy to
drink."
"No, it's nothing of the sort. It's a kind of meeting, where everybody
has to tell a story in turn."
"But I'm rigidly truthful!" objected Monica, with a twinkle in her eye.
"You naughty girl! You know we don't mean telling falsehoods. It's
telling tales," said Irene.
"I'm no tell-tale either!"
"Don't be too funny. Your story will have to be longer than anyone
else's to make up for this. Mildred, you explain, as I don't seem able
to express myself properly."
"It can either be a story you have read, or one of something that has
happened to yourself," said Mildred. "We prefer people's own adventures
if we can get them."
"So few people have any adventures in real life!" said Monica.
"Then you can tell something out of a book."
"Suppose I can't remember anything?"
"You must. It needn't be grand; we're not a critical audience."
"I'm very stupid at telling things," said Monica; "might I read you
something instead?"
"If you've got it here."
"As it happens, I have," replied Monica, opening a bound volume of a
magazine which she held in her hand. "I brought this book to lend to
Miss Russell, as I knew it would interest her. It has a story about the
old Manor in the times of the Wars of the Roses, and how Sir Roger
Courtenay came to win it for his own. I dare say you might like to hear
it."
"If it's about the Manor I'm sure we shall," said Irene. "Who wrote the
tale?"
"A gentleman who stayed in the village a year or two ago. He was very
enthusiastic about Haversleigh. I suppose he made it up from the short
account in the guide-book. All the facts are quite true, though he must
have used his imagination for the details. The worst of it is that it's
a fairly long story, and if I read it I'm afraid there won't be any time
left for you to tell yours."
"Oh, we don't mind that!"
"So much the better!"
"Fire away!"
"Do go on!"
Thus encouraged, Monica found her place and, the girls having clustered
round her in a close circle so as to hear the better, she began her
tale:
SIR MERVYN'S WARD
The middle of the fifteenth century was one of the most stormy periods
that the pages of English history have ever recorded. The rival claims
of the houses of York and Lancaster had led to those disastrous Wars of
the Roses that wiped away the flower of chivalry and made the fair land
one bloody battlefield. In the autumn of 1470 Edward IV had been driven
from his throne by the powerful Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker,
and Henry VI had been once more restored to power, though for how long a
period none could venture to guess. They were hard times to live
through, especially for those lesser gentry and yeomen who had not
placed themselves definitely under the protection of any of the greater
barons, and still strove to keep their estates in peace and quiet. The
turmoil of the great struggle had not spared even the obscure village of
Haversleigh. The inhabitants went about their tasks with an air of
unrest. It seemed scarcely worth while to plough the fields, and sow
corn which might be trampled underfoot by the soldiery before there was
a chance to reap it. There were loud and deep murmurs among the
villagers at the many exactions and tyrannies of Sir Mervyn Stamford,
the then occupant of the Manor, the estates of which he administered on
behalf of his ward, Catharine Mowbray. Catharine's father, Sir John
Mowbray, had fallen in battle on the side of the Yorkists, but with the
return of Henry VI to power, Sir Mervyn, a stanch Lancastrian, had
bought the rights of her guardianship from the half-imbecile king, and
had not only assumed control of her property, but had announced his
intention of wedding the maiden, either with or without her consent.
This was a state of affairs which, however satisfactory to Sir Mervyn
himself, was by no means pleasing either to Catharine or to her lover,
Roger de Courtenay, a young gentleman of high lineage though broken
fortunes. Sir Mervyn was indeed a man whom any girl might have dreaded.
Dark, stern, and forbidding, his face seamed with scars, he was a harsh
master, a relentless foe, and a cruel tyrant to any who dared not resist
his authority. He was cordially hated in Haversleigh, the inhabitants of
which were Yorkists to a man, but he had garrisoned himself so strongly
in the Manor, with so formidable a band of retainers, that the wretched
villagers could do no more than groan under his oppressions, and bewail
the advent of the day when, by his marriage with the unwilling
Catharine, he would become their legal lord.
Matters were at this crisis one April morning in the year 1471 when
Diccon of the Moat Farm came slowly down a path through the forest from
Torton. He led a horse laden with a sack of flour, which he had taken to
be ground at the mill of the convent of St. Agatha, to avoid the heavy
dues imposed by Sir Mervyn on every sack ground within the jurisdiction
of the Manor. In consequence he looked warily about him, since, should
he chance to meet any of Sir Mervyn's retainers, not only would his
flour be confiscated, but his own back would receive such a cudgelling
as would lay him up for a month or more. For this reason he had avoided
the main road, and chosen a little-used bridle path; and he glanced
cautiously up and down each green alley, and listened for every sound
that might give a hint of approaching footsteps. It was with a sense of
swift alarm, therefore, that he saw a figure suddenly step out from
behind the shelter of an oak in front, and heard himself challenged by
name. The newcomer was a young man, tall and of fine build, and his
commanding presence belied the shabbiness of his poor and travel-stained
attire.
"I am an honest man minding mine own business, and sith ye are the same,
seek not to hinder me," replied the owner of the Moat Farm.
"Nay, Diccon! Hast thou forgot thine old friend? Come hither, I pray
thee, for in good sooth I have tidings of great import."
So saying, the stranger dropped the cloak with which he had so far
partly concealed his face, and showed his features more fully.
"Master Roger!" gasped Diccon. "This is indeed a rash venture. An Sir
Mervyn find you within a five mile of the Manor there will be an arrow
through you ere nightfall."
"I am more like to send an arrow through him," replied Roger fiercely.
"He hath done me ill enough already, and now to crown it all he purposes
to wed my betrothed. Catharine is mine, not only by her choice, but by
the law of the land. She was affianced to me by King Edward himself.
Have her I will, or leave my body for the crows!"
"Brave words, Master Roger, brave words!" said Diccon, shaking his head.
"'Twill need more than a single sword to cross Sir Mervyn in the
matter."
"Where a sword can naught avail, craft and guile must find a way,"
returned Roger. "List you, I have brought tidings. Edward has come to
his own again. But two days since did his arms meet those of Lancaster
at Barnet. The Red Rose is trampled under foot, and Warwick and Montague
lie dead upon the field."
"In sooth if this be true it were news of great import."
"I met one who carried a letter from my lord of Gloucester. He rode to
gather the supporters of York in the West. Margaret the Queen hath
landed at Weymouth, and is calling the men of Devon and Cornwall to the
standard of the red rose. I hied me in all haste to my lord of Norfolk,
and he hath given me a band of stout fellows that are even now hid under
the brushwood yonder. An I can surprise Sir Mervyn ere he hears that the
emblem of Lancaster is raised in the west it will strike a blow for York
in Somerset, and moreover I shall win me my bride. I must myself to the
Manor. I would see how it is garrisoned, and convey a message to
Catharine alone."
"You are a dead man first!" exclaimed Diccon. "This were folly, Master
Roger. A lion's den were safer than the Manor."
"None shall pierce my disguise if you, good Diccon, will but aid to
trick me out for the part I fain would play. I wot I could count on your
faith!"
"To the last drop of my blood. Yet it is a rash venture, and one that
ill pleases me," replied the old man sadly.
Late that same afternoon the golden shafts of the warm spring sunshine
were finding their way through the narrow windows of an upper room in
the Manor. The house in those days was but a quarter of its present
size; it was strongly fortified, and bore more resemblance to a medieval
keep than to the Tudor mansion of later times. Strength and defence had
been considered before beauty and elegance, and there was little even of
comfort to be found inside the stern, forbidding walls. In the apartment
in question some rude attempt had been made to render things more
habitable than in the rest of the grim establishment. A few pieces of
tapestry covered the rough masonry, and the floor was strewn with fresh
rushes. On a carved wooden bench by the window sat a fair and beautiful
girl of seventeen, who was occupying herself with a piece of needlework,
and talking earnestly meanwhile to her attendant, a maiden of her own
age, busy also with her tambour frame.
"I tell thee, Anne, I will not wed him--not if he drag me by force to
the altar! Verily, it is a pretty case. Here be I a prisoner in mine own
manor, my estates squandered, my tenants oppressed and robbed, my
retainers dismissed, save only thee, my poor faithful Anne; and in
return I am to wed him to boot! Nay! Rather will I take the veil and
give all my goods to the convent of St. Agatha at Torton; though thou
knowest I have scant mind to be a nun."
"It wants but five morns now to the bridal day," sighed Anne. "If I
mistake not, lady, Sir Mervyn will wed you even against your will and
despite the convent."
"Then I will die first! Oh, Roger, Roger!" she added softly to herself,
"only a year agone, and I was thy betrothed! It is six months since I
had tidings of thee, and whether thou art alive or dead I know not."
"Nay, weep not, sweet lady--weeping cures no ills," said Anne; then,
wishful to divert her mistress's sad thoughts, she directed her
attention to a commotion which was going on in the courtyard below.
"Some stranger hath arrived. If I mistake not, 'tis a huckster come to
spread out his wares. An it be your pleasure, I will hie me down and
bring you tidings of what he hath."
Receiving a half-hearted consent, she hurried to the great courtyard,
where many of the servants and retainers were already gathered to look
at the contents of the pedlar's pack. At that period the arrival of a
travelling merchant was an event at a remote country house, and even Sir
Mervyn himself did not disdain to examine the cloths and buy an ell or
two of velvet for a doublet. The pedlar, a white-haired man, much bent,
and with a strange hood of foreign fashion drawn over his face, was
proclaiming the virtues of his goods in a lusty voice.
"What do ye lack? What do ye lack?" he cried. "I have here hosen, shoon,
caps, gloves, girdles, such as ye never might see out of London town.
Here be beside cloth of silk and damask fit for the Queen. Is there no
worshipful lady of this noble lord before whom I might spread forth my
choicer wares?"
"My mistress would gladly have silk for a kirtle, an I may summon her to
the courtyard," Anne ventured to whisper to Sir Mervyn.
Receiving a grudging permission, she hurried panting up the stairs with
her tidings. Catharine at first would hardly be persuaded to descend
from her chamber into the hated presence of Sir Mervyn, and it was
finally more to please her maid than herself that she assented.
"Fair apparel is of scant use to one who hath a mind to wed the Church,"
she said, "but thou shalt have a riband for thyself, Anne, and a silk
girdle withal."
No one remarked the swift, eager glance that the pedlar bestowed upon
Catharine as she appeared in the doorway, nor how his hand shook as he
untied his second pack. With apparent lack of intention he managed
skilfully to draw her a few steps away from the rest, under pretence of
exhibiting his silks in the best light; then, whispering: "Keep secret!
Betray not that you receive this!" he rapidly thrust a small piece of
parchment into her hand. Full of surprise, Catharine yet had the
presence of mind to utter no exclamation, and to conceal the parchment
in the folds of her gown. Hastily completing her purchases, she retired
again to her chamber, where, dismissing Anne, she was able to examine
the letter in private. It contained but a few lines:
"Right dear and well beloved,
"The White Rose musters again in the west, and I have hope of your
release. Ope the west postern ere sunrise. Till then God keep ye.
"Written in great haste this eve of St. Withold by the hand of him
who would remain ever yours,
"ROGER COURTENAY."
Catharine's wild excitement on the perusal of this missive can be more
readily imagined than described.
"He is alive! He comes to my rescue!" she exclaimed. "Perchance it was
even Roger himself disguised as the pedlar. He was ever one to venture a
bold deed. Alack! that I should have been so near, and not have known
him!"
She did not dare to confide her secret even to her faithful maid, Anne,
but retiring as usual at nightfall she lay awake, waiting in burning
anxiety for the earliest peep of dawn. When the first faint glimmer of
light stole into her room she rose and crept softly down the stairs. She
was obliged to make her way through the great hall, where the
men-at-arms lay sleeping on the rushes. A dog sprang up and growled, but
she managed to quiet it with a caress, and passed on without disturbing
the sleepers. The little west postern door was heavily barred, and it
took all the strength of her white hands to pull back the bolts.
Cautiously she peered out into the half-darkness. At the same moment a
tall figure stepped from the shadow and clasped her in his arms.
"Sweet, you must fly! This is no place for ye now," whispered Roger.
"Diccon waits with a trusty steed to conduct ye to Covebury. Take
sanctuary at the convent of the Franciscans till I come to claim ye. I
have stern work to do here."
Wrapping her hastily in a cloak, and helping her to mount, Roger waited
till he judged the fugitives to be at a safe distance; then, giving the
word of command to his followers, he commenced his attack on the Manor.
Sir Mervyn and his retainers, surprised in their sleep, nevertheless
offered a determined resistance. A fierce combat was waged in the great
hall and in the courtyard, till, pressed from one point of vantage to
another, the defenders made a desperate sally, and rushing
helter-skelter down the village sought refuge inside the ancient church.
It was of no avail; the villagers, hastily armed with swords and pikes,
had joined in the fray. Determined to avenge themselves upon Sir Mervyn
for his many acts of tyranny and injustice, they set upon him without
mercy, and without respect even for the sacredness of the edifice.
Chased from the choir to the Lady Chapel, and from the Lady Chapel to
the tower, he fled up the narrow steps to the belfry, where he turned at
bay, and held the staircase with the courage of despair. Driven from
this last standpoint, he climbed yet higher to the rafters where hung
the bell, and slew six men in succession before he fell, at length,
shouting curses upon his foes.
Roger Courtenay had scant time to enjoy his triumph. The Yorkist army
was mustering for a great struggle; so, having left a small garrison in
charge of the Manor, he rode away immediately with the rest of his
followers to join the adherents of the White Rose. The result of the
battle of Tewkesbury is a matter of history. The unfortunate remnant of
Lancaster took to flight, and York gained a final and triumphant
victory. Roger, whose bravery was conspicuous throughout the day,
worthily won his spurs, and was knighted on the field by Richard of
Gloucester. His forfeited estate was restored to him, and King Edward
himself forwarded his union with Catharine Mowbray, so that before the
summer was over the ancient parish church of Haversleigh, which but
lately had rung to the clash of arms, now echoed instead to the merry
peal of wedding bells.