Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER III.

  The animal called the sluggard has greatly increased in modern days. Informer times the specimens were few and far between. The rising of thesun was generally the signal for knight and yeoman to quit their beds,and if some of the old or the soft cumbered their pillows for an houror so later, the sleeping time rarely if ever extended beyond seven inthe morning.

  The sky was still grey when the stout yeoman, whom we have mentionedunder the title of the lord's man, but whose real name was ThomasBlawket, sprang lightly out of his bed, and made that sort of rapid,but not unwholesome toilet, which a hardy Englishman, in his rank oflife, was then accustomed to use. It consisted merely in one or twolarge buckets of clean cold water poured over his round curly head andnaked shoulders, and then, with but some small ceremony of drying, hisclothes were cast on, and bound round him with his belt. The wholeoperation occupied, perhaps, ten minutes, and a considerable portionof that space of time was taken up in rubbing dry his thick, close,short-cut beard, which curled up under the process into little knots,like the coat of a French water dog.

  "Give thee good day, host, give thee good day," he said, as he issuedforth. "I will be back anon;" and, sauntering forward leisurely on thegreen, he stood for a moment or two looking round him, to prevent theappearance of taking any preconcerted direction, and then walked slowlytowards the church, which stood behind the row of trees we havementioned. After gazing up at the building, which was then in its firstnewness, he made a circuit round it, and passing the priest's house, hereached what was called the Church Stile, where two broad stones, putedgeways, with one flat one between them for a step, excluded allanimals without wings--except man, and his domestic companion, thedog--from what was then called the Priest's Meadow.

  On the other side of this stile, with his arms leaning upon the topstone, was Hardy the Hunchback, whistling a lively tune, and watchingthe lord's man as he came forward, without moving from his positiontill the other was close upon him. Their salutation was then soon made,and crossing the stile, the good yeoman walked on by the side of hiscompanion, sauntering easily along through the green fields, andtalking of all the little emptinesses which occupy free hearts in theearly morning.

  The first hour of the day, the bright first hour of a spring day Imean, appears always to me as if care and thought had nought to do withit. It seems made for those light and whirling visions--not unmingledwith thanks and praise--which drive past the dreamy imagination likemotes in the sunshine, partaking still, in a degree, of sleep, andhaving all its soft indistinctness, without losing the brightness ofwaking perception: thoughts, hopes, and fancies, that glitter as theygo, succeeded each minute by clearer and more brilliant things, tillthe whole, at length, form themselves into the sterner realities ofnoonday life.

  The two men wandered on in that dreamy hour. They listened to the sweetbirds singing in the trees; and it was a time of year when the wholeworld was tuneful; they stopped by the side of the babbling brook, andgazed into its dancing waters; they watched the swift fish dartingalong the stream, and hallooed to a heron which had just caught one ofthe finny tribe in its bill.

  "Now had we a hawk," said the peasant, "we would very soon have MasterGreycoat there, as surely as foul Richard de Ashby will catch prettyKate Greenly before he has done."

  "Think you so?" said the lord's man, certainly not speaking of catchingthe heron. "Will she be so easily deceived, think you?"

  "Ay, will she," answered the peasant. "Not that the girl wants sense orlearning either, for the good priest took mighty pains with her, andshe can read and write as well as any clerk in the land. Nor has she abad heart either, though it is somewhat fierce and quick withal--likeher mother's, who one day broke Tim Clough's head with a tankard, whenhe was somewhat boisterous to her, and then well-nigh died with griefwhen she found she had really cracked his skull. But this girl is asvain as a titmouse, and though I do believe she loves young Harland,the franklin's son, at the bottom, yet I have often told him that it isas great a chance she never marries him as that the river will befrozen next winter; and now I see this fellow come down again andhanging about her as he did before, I say her vanity will take her bythe ears, and lead her to any market he chooses to carry her to."

  "Alack and a-well-a-day!" said the lord's man, "that a gentleman likethat cannot let a far off place such as this be in peace, with itsquiet sunshine and good country-folks. He may find a light-o'-loveeasily enough in the great cities, without coming down to break afather's heart, and make a good youth miserable, and turn a gay-heartedcountry girl into a sorrowful harlot! I hope he may get his head brokefor his pains!"

  "He is like to get his neck broke for something else," replied thepeasant, "If I judge rightly. But we will talk more of that anon. Letus get on."

  Forward accordingly they walked, passed another field, and another, andthen took their way down a narrow, sandy lane, which in the end openedout from between its high banks upon a long strip of ground coveredwith short grass, and old hawthorn trees, with many a bank and dinglebreaking the turf, and Showing the yellow soil beneath.

  "Why, you seem to live on the edge of the forest, ploughman," said theserving-man; "it must be poor ground here, I wot?"

  "It's good for my sort of farming," replied the other, shooting ashrewd glance at him, along the side of his very peculiar nose; "youhave a mile to go yet, Master Yeoman, and we may as well go through abit of the woodland."

  "Have with you, have with you!" replied the yeoman. "I love the forestground as well as any man, and often, when the season comes on, I turnwoodman for the occasion, and, with my lord's good leave, help hisforesters to kill the deer."

  "Dangerous tastes in these days, Master Yeoman," said the peasant, andthere the conversation dropped again, each falling back into that trainof thought which had been awakened in their minds by the reference toKate Greenly, and her probable fate; for, although we are accustomed toconsider those as ruder times--and certainly, in the arts of life, manwas not so far advanced as in the present day--yet the naturalaffections of the heart, the sound judgment of right and wrong, and thehigh emotions of the immortal spirit within us, do not depend uponcivilization, at least as the term is generally applied, but existindependent of a knowledge of sciences, or skill in any of man'smanifold devices for increasing his pleasures and his comforts. Theyare rather, indeed, antagonist principles, in many respects, to verygreat refinement; and the advance of society in the arts of luxury isbut too often accompanied by the cultivation of that exclusiveselfishness which extinguishes all the finer emotions, and leaves manbut as one of the machines he makes.

  The mind of the stout yeoman, following the track on which it had begunto run, represented to himself what would be the feelings of the rusticlover, to find himself abandoned for a comparative stranger, and notonly to know that the girl he loved was lost to him for ever, butdegraded and debased--a harlot, sported with for the time, to be castaway when her freshness was gone. He had no difficulty in sympathisingfrom his honest heart with the sensations which young Harland wouldexperience--with the bitter disappointment--with the anger mingled withtenderness towards her who in her folly blighted her own and hishappiness for ever--with the pure and unmitigated indignation againsthim who, in his heartless vanity, came down to blast the peace ofothers for the gratification of an hour. He thought of the father, too;but there, indeed, his sympathies were not so much excited, for itneeded but to see good John Greenly once or twice to perceive thatthere was no great refinement in his virtue--that self was his firstobject--and, after meditating over that part of the subject for two orthree hundred yards, as they walked on through the hawthorns, he saidaloud, with a half laugh, "I shouldn't wonder if he would rather haveher a lord's leman than a countryman's wife!"

  "Not at first," answered Hardy, understanding at once what he meant;"he will take it to heart at first, but will soon get reconciled toit." And again they fell into thought, walking on over the smooth turf,upon which it was a
pleasure to tread, it was so soft, so dry, and soelastic.

  As they proceeded, the hawthorns became mingled with other trees; largebeeches, with their long waving limbs not yet fully covered with theirleaves, stood out upon the banks, here and there an oak, too, was seen,with the young leaves still brown and yellow; while patches of fernbroke the surface of the grass, and large cushions of moss covered theold roots that forced their way to the surface of the ground.

  The trees, however, were still scattered at many yards' distance fromeach other, and cast long shadows upon the velvet green of the grass,as the sun, not many degrees above the horizon, poured its bright raysbetween them. But when the yeoman looked through the bolls, to thenorthward and westward, he could see a dim mass of darker greenspreading out beyond, and showing how the forest thickened, not faroff; while, every now and then, some cart-way, or woody path, gave hima long vista into the very heart of the woodland, with lines of light,where the beams of day broke through the arcade of boughs, marking thedistances upon the road.

  That they were getting into the domain of the beasts of chase was soonvery evident. More than one hare started away before their footsteps,and limped off with no very hurried pace. Every two or three yards, asquirrel was seen running from tree to tree, and swarming up the boll;and, once or twice, at a greater distance, the practised eye of thegood yeoman caught the form of a dun deer, bounding away up some of thepaths, to seek shelter in the thicker wood.

  The way did not seem long, however, and all the thousand objects whicha woodland scene affords to please and interest the eye and ear, andcarry home the moral of nature's beautiful works to the heart of man,occupied the attention of the stout Englishman, as they walked onward,till the distance between the trees becoming less and less, thebranches formed a canopy through which the rays of the morning sun onlyfound their way occasionally.

  "Why, Master Ploughman," said the lord's man, at length, "you seemplunging into the thick of the wood. Does your dwelling lie in thisdirection?"

  "In good sooth does it!" answered the ploughman;--"it will be more openpresently."

  "Much need," rejoined the yeoman, "or I shall take thee for a forester,and not one of the King's either."

  The peasant laughed, but made no reply, and in a minute or two after,the yeoman continued, saying--"Thou art a marvellous man, assuredly,for thou art ten years younger this morning than thou wert last night.Good faith, if I had fancied thee as strong and active as thou art, andas young withal, I think I should have left thee to fight it out withthose two fellows by thyself."

  "Would that I had them for but half an hour, under the green hawthorntrees we have just passed," said the peasant, laughing--"I would needno second hand to give them such a basting as they have rarely had inlife--though I doubt me they have not had a few."

  "Doubtless, doubtless!" answered the yeoman--"But word, my good friend,before we go farther: as you are not what you seemed, it is as well Ishould know where I am going?"

  "I am not what I seemed, and not what I seem either, even now," saidthe peasant, with a frank and cheerful smile, "but there is no harm inthat either, Master Yeoman. Here, help me off with my burden; I am notthe first man who has made himself look more than he is. There, putyour hand under my frock, and untie the knot you will find, while Iunfasten this one in front."

  So saying, he loosened a little cord and tassel that was round hisneck, and with the aid of his companion, let slip from his shoulders alarge pad, containing seemingly various articles, some hard, and somesoft, but which altogether had been so disposed as to give him theappearance of a deformity that nature certainly had not inflicted uponhim. As soon as it was gone, he stood before the honest yeoman, astout, hearty, thick-set man, with high shoulders indeed, but withoutthe slightest approach to a hump upon either of them; and regarding,with a merry glance, the astonishment of his companion--for those weredays of society's babyhood, when men were easily deceived--he said, "Somuch for the hunch, Master Yeoman. Had those good gentlemen seen menow, they might not have been quite so ready with their hands; and hadthey seen this," he added, showing the hilt of a good stout daggerunder his coat, "they might not have been quite so ready with theirswords. And now let us come on without loss of time, for there arethose waiting who would fain speak with you for a short time, and giveyou a message for your lord."

  The yeoman hesitated for an instant, but then replied--"Well, itmatters not! I will not suspect you, though this is an odd affair. Ihave helped you once at a pinch--at least, I intended it as help--andyou will not do me wrong now, I dare say."

  "Doubt it not, doubt it not," said the peasant--"you are a friend, notan enemy. But now to add a word or two to anything else you may hearto-day, let me warn you as we go, that one of those two men you sawstruggling with me last night is a traitor and a spy. Ay! and though Imust not say so much, I suppose, of a lord's kinsman, I rather thinkthat he who brought him is little better himself."

  "Hard words, hard words, Master Ploughman, or whatever you may be,"said the lord's man, with a serious air--"I trust it is not a brokenhead, or an alehouse quarrel that makes you find out treason in theman. Besides, if he be a spy, he can only be a spy upon his ownmaster."

  "And who is his own master?" demanded Hardy. "Come, put your wit to,and tell me that."

  "Why, Sir Richard de Ashby, to be sure," replied the man; "Truly!"answered Hardy. "Methought the cognizance of the house of Ashby was atree growing out of a brasier?"

  "And so it is," said the man, "and he has it on his coat."

  "And what has he on his breast?" demanded Hardy. "Three pards, whatthey call passant?"

  The man started. "Why that is the King's!" he cried.

  "Or the Prince Edward's," added Hardy. "So now when you return, tellyour lord to look well to the Earl of Ashby's kinsman--if not to theEarl himself. We had tidings of something of this kind, and I remainedto see--for you must not think me such a fool as to give a serving-manhard words for nothing, and bring blows upon my head without anobject."

  "Did you see the leopards, then?" demanded Blawket. "Did you see themwith your own eyes?"

  "I grappled with him when he sprang upon me," answered his companion,"and with my two thumbs tore open his coat, while he thought that wewere merely rolling on the floor like a terrier and a cat. Under hiscoat he had a gipon of sendull fit for a king, with three pardsbroidered in gold upon the breast. When I had seen that, I wassatisfied; but that mad girl Kate thought I was brawling in earnest, Isuppose, and dashed a pail of water over us, which made us all pant andlose our hold, and as for the rest, you know what happened after. He isno servant of Richard de Ashby; the poor knave keeps but one, and, onmy life, I believe, that having long ago sold his soul to the devil forluxury and wastel bread, he has now sold the only thing he had left tosell, his friends, to some earthly devil, for gold to win away prettyKate Greenly."

  The yeoman cast down his eyes on the ground, and walked on for a stepor two in grave deliberation.

  "Marry," he said, at length, "if this tale be true,--that is to say, Ido not doubt what you say, good comrade,--but if I can prove it to mylord's content, I shall be a made man in his opinion for discoveringsuch a trick, and get the henchman's place, which I have long beenseeking.--I never loved that Richard de Ashby; though he is as soft andsweet as his cousin Alured is rash and haughty."

  "It will be easily proved," replied his companion. "Charge Sir Richardboldly, when your good lord and his friends have met, with bringingdown a servant of the King, disguised as his own, to be a spy upontheir counsels."

  "Nay, nay--not so," replied the serving-man. "I am more experienced indealing with lords than thou art. That will cause my master to take upthe matter, and may make mischief between the two earls. Nay, I willpick a quarrel with him in the inn kitchen, will make him take off hiscoat to bide a stroke or two with me; and then, when we all see theleopards, we will drag him at once before his betters."

  "First tell your lord the whole," said Hardy, somewhat sternly. "It maybeho
ve him to know immediately who he is dealing with."

  "I will--I will!" replied the man; "and I will let him know my plan forproving the treachery. But what have we here?--Your cottage, Isuppose?--Why, you have a goodly sight of sons, if these be all yourchildren. Shooting at the butts, too, as I live! Ay, I see now how itis!"