Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times

by G. P. R. James

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  Richard de Ashby smoothed his brow, and calmed his look, as he crossedfrom a tavern, where he had been making some inquiries, to a house onthe opposite side of the street, not very far from the gates of thecastle. It was a large stone building--close to an old church whichthen stood on that part of the hill--and as it contained severalhabitations, the entrance of the common staircase was, as usual in suchcircumstances, left open.

  Ascending cautiously, guided by a rope, which passing through ironrings followed the tortuous course of the staircase, Richard de Ashbyreached the first floor, and knocked at a small door on his right hand.Nobody appeared, and after waiting for several minutes; he knockedagain.

  This time he was more successful, the door was opened by a smallstrange-looking being, dressed in the garb of an old woman, with abrown and wrinkled face, and little, bright, grey eyes. She held a lampin her hand, and gazing upon the countenance of the visitor with a keenand not very placable look, she asked--"What do you want?"

  "I want Father Mark," replied Richard de Ashby.

  "He is out visiting the sick," said the old dame.--"Nay, now," shecontinued, in a petulant tone, "I will answer all your questions atonce, before you can put them. They all run in the same round. FatherMark is out--I don't know where he is gone--I don't know when he'llcome home.--If you want to see him here, you must come again--If youwant him to come to any sick man, you must leave word where.--Now youhave it all."

  Richard de Ashby had some acquaintance with the world, and fancied thathe knew perfectly the character of the person before him. Drawing out,therefore, a small French piece of gold, called an aignel, he slippedit into the old woman's hand, who instantly held it to the lamp,crying, "What's this--what's this?--Gold, as I live! Mary mother! youare a civil gentleman, my son. What is it that you want?"

  "Simply an answer to a question," said Richard de Ashby: "Is there ayoung lady staying here--a pretty young lady--called Kate Greenly? Youknow her, methinks,--do you not?"

  "Know her? to be sure I do," replied the old woman. "A blessing uponher pretty heart, she's been up here many a time, and I've carried amessage for her before now; and she gave me some silver pieces, and abodkin--I've got it somewhere about me now," and she began to feel inher bodice for poor Kate Greenly's gift.

  "Then is she not here now?" said Richard de Ashby.

  "No, no," answered the old woman, "she was here an hour before sunset,but she went away again. Oh, I know how it is!" she cried, as if asudden thought had struck her--"you are the gentleman whom good FatherMark has been preaching to her to run away from, because you are livingin a state of naughtiness. These friars are so hard upon young folks;and now you'd give another gold piece, like this, I'd swear, to knowwhere she is, and get her to come back again."

  "Ay, would I," replied Richard de Ashby, "two."

  "Well, well," continued the old woman, "I know something, if I chooseto say. She is not in Nottingham, but not far off."

  "Can you show me where she is?" demanded Richard de Ashby.

  "Not to-night--not to-night!" cried the old woman. "Sancta Maria! Iwould not go out to-night all that way--not for a purse full of gold.Why it is up, after you get out of the gates, through Back Lane, anddown the Thorny Walk till you come to the edge of Thorny Wood, and thenyou turn to the right by old Gaffer Brown's cottage, and, round underthe chapel, and along by the bank where the fountain is, and then up bythe new planting, just between it and the fern hill; and then if you gostraight on, and take the first to the left, and the fourth to theright, it brings you to old Sweeting's hut, where she has gone to livewith him, and his good dame."

  Richard de Ashby saw no possible means of discovering the way from theold lady's description, and he was about to propose some other means ofarranging the affair, when, with a shrewd wink of the eye, shesaid--"I am going out to her in the grey of the morning myself, and ifyou have any message to send her, I can take it; or, if a gentlemanchooses to wait at the gate, and walk into the country after an oldwoman, who can help it?--I mustn't go with you through the town, youknow, for that would make a scandal."

  "I understand--I understand!" said Richard; "and if by your means I gether back again, you shall have two gold pieces such as that."

  "Oh, an open hand gets all it wants," replied the priest's maid--"aclose fist keeps what it has got; an open hand gets all it wants. 'Tisa true proverb, Sir Knight--'tis a true proverb. At the north gate, youknow, in the grey of the morning. Wait till you see me come out with mybasket, and then don't say a word, but come after."

  "You are going to her, then?" asked Richard de Ashby.

  "Yes, yes," said the old woman, impatiently; "I am going to carry hernews, from the good father, of all that happens at the Castle to-night.But go along, now--go along! I am afraid of his coming back and findingyou here: then he might think something, you know. At the north gate inthe grey of the morning."

  "I will not fail," replied Richard de Ashby, and turning away, heslowly descended the stairs.

  The old woman paused not to look after him, but closed the door,muttering and talking to herself.

  The life of Richard de Ashby had arrived at one of those moments sofearful, so terrible, in the career of wickedness, when one offencefollowing another has accumulated scheme upon scheme, each implying newcrimes, and new dangers, and each, though intended to guard the other,offering, like the weakened frontier of an over extended empire, butnew points of peril, but fresh necessity of defence.

  "'Tis unfortunate," he thought, as he turned from the door--"'tisunfortunate that I have not found her; but she is absent from the city,and that is one point gained."

  The moment, however, that his mind had thus cast off the thought ofKate Greenly, and the secret she possessed, it turned with maddeningrapidity to all the other points of his situation.

  "What shall I do with the body?" he asked himself. "I cannot let it lieand rot there.--I wonder how fares my cousin Alured? He has surelydrank the wine. Oh, yes; I know him, he has drank it, and more too.--Ifthat man Ellerby were not hovering round about, all might be securestill."

  The word _still_ showed better than any other the state of his mind,though he hid it from himself. He knew, in short, that he was anythingbut secure. Over his head hung the awful cloud of coming detection andpunishment. He saw it with his eyes, he felt it in his heart, that thetempest was about to descend; and, as those who, in a thunderstorm,gallop away from the flashing lightning, are said to draw it moresurely on their own heads, so his desperate efforts to save himself,only called down more surely the approaching retribution.

  The next minute his mind reverted to the corpse again. "This carrionof Dighton," he thought; "it were well, perhaps, to dare the thingopenly--to give him a simple but a public funeral--to call the prieststo aid, and pay them well. With them, one is always sure to get a goodword for one's money.--'Tis but to say he was brought to my house in myabsence, and died there while I was away. What have I to do with hisdeath? 'Tis no affair of mine.--I will hie up to the castle, and spywhat is going on. Oh, that I could prove that Alured has drank wine orbroken bread in the room of Hugh de Monthermer!--That were a strokeindeed! But, at all events, he has been with him. Who can tell how aman may be poisoned? 'Tis at all events suspicious, that he should bewith him just before his death.--I will not go into the court; I willjust look through the gates, and speak with the warder for a moment ortwo. The gates are not closed till nine." And thus saying, he retrod hissteps to the castle gate.

  When he reached it there was nobody there; but as he looked through thearchway into the court, he saw the figures of the warder and severalsoldiers standing with their backs turned towards him, gazing towardsthe other side of the building. There was a bright light coming fromthat point; and taking a step farther forward, under the archway, heperceived a procession of priests and boys of the chapel, with torchesand crucifixes borne before them, while a tall old man was seencarrying reverently the consecrated bread. />
  The solemn train took its way direct towards the lodging of Alured deAshby; and turning back with feelings in which were mingled, in astrange and indescribable manner, anguish and satisfaction, horror andrelief, Richard de Ashby murmured--"It is done!--It is done!" and spedhis way homeward with the quick but irregular footstep of crime andterror.

  It were painful to watch him through the progress of that night. Sleepwas banished from his eyelids--sleep, that will visit the couch ofutter despair, came not near the troubled brain of doubt, andapprehension, and anxiety. He walked to and fro in his chamber--he laidnot down his head upon his bed--he sat gloomily gazing on the paleuntrimmed lamp--he rested his eyes upon his folded arms, while dizzyimages of sorrow and distress, and dying men, and shame, and agony, andscorn, and anguish here, and punishment hereafter, whirled before hismental vision, from which no effort could shut them out.

  Thus passed he the hours, till a faint blue light began to mingle withthe glare of the expiring lamp; and then, starting up, he hastily threwon a hood and cloak, and, leaving his servants sleeping in the house,proceeded towards the north gate of the town.

  It had been an angry and a stormy night, and the rain, which wasrunning off the rocky streets of Nottingham, still hung upon the greenblades of grass and the boughs of the trees, which in that day camealmost up to the walls of the city. The clouds were clearing off,however, and blue patches were seen mingling with the mottled white andgrey overhead, while to the right of the town a yellow gleam appearedin the sky, showing the rapid coming of the sun.

  Such was the scene as Richard de Ashby looked through the gate ofNottingham, which was thronged with peasantry, bringing in their waresto the market even at that early hour. It was a sight refreshing andbright to the eye, and might have soothed any other mind than his; butthe fire that burnt internally, that throbbed in his heart and thrilledthrough his veins, made the cool air of the autumnal morning feel likethe chill of fever where shivering cold spreads over the outer frame,while the intense heat remains unquelled within.

  One of the first objects that his eye lighted upon was the form of theold woman, standing without the gate, and looking back towards it; andhurrying on, he was at her side in a minute.

  "Ha, ha!" she said, in her usual broken and tremulous voice, "you are alie-a-bed--I thought you were not coming. Well, let us speed on." Andforward she walked, certainly not at the most rapid pace, while Richardde Ashby asked her many a question about old Gaffer Sweeting and hisgood dame--what was his age? whether he had any sons, and whether therewere many cottages thereabout?

  The old woman answered querulously, but none the less satisfactorily.He was an old man of seventy-three, she said, and he had had two sons;but one had died in consequence of a fall from a tree, and another hadbeen killed at Lewes.

  "Houses!" she exclaimed. "Few houses, I trow. Why; that's the veryreason that good Father Mark sent the girl there. Wherever there arehouses or young men, there is temptation for us, poor women. But thisplace is quite a desert, like that where the Eremites lived that hetalks of. If you don't tempt her, I don't know who will, there."

  Thus talking, she tottered on, leading the way through sundry lanes andhamlets; and explaining to her companion, at each new house they cameto, that this was such a place which she had mentioned the nightbefore, and that was another. Very soon, however, the cottages grewless and less in number, for towns had not at that time such extensiveundefended suburbs as they have acquired in more peaceful days and atlength they came to the chapel which she had named, the bell of whichwas going as they approached. The good dame would needs turn in to saya prayer or two, and it was in vain that Richard de. Ashby urged her togo forward, for she seemed one of those who harden themselves in theirown determinations, as soon as they see themselves in the slightestdegree opposed.

  "No, no," she said, "you would not have me pass the chapel, and thebell going, would you? It's very well for you men, who have no religionat all--so, go on, go on, if you will, I will not be a minute. I havefive aves, and a pater-nosier, and a credo to repeat, and that wonttake me a minute. You can't miss the way. Go on, I will soon overtakeyou."

  Richard de Ashby did not think that the usual rate of the old lady'sprogression would produce that result; but, as the idea of prayer, andall connected with it, was unpleasant to his mind, he strode gloomilyon, for some hundred yards, from the chapel, revolving still the samepainful images which had tormented him during the livelong night.

  In a shorter time than he had expected, however, the old woman came outof the chapel; and he again proceeded on the path, walking on beforeher, and losing all sight of human habitation, but following a smallbye-way, along the sandy ground of which might be traced sundryfootsteps, and the marks of a horse's hoofs. Though his step was slow,the old woman did not overtake him for near three quarters of a mile,still keeping in sight and talking to herself as she came after.

  The trees soon grew thicker on the left hand, the country more wild andbroken on the right; and, at length, about a hundred and fifty yards infront, appeared a small, low cottage, or rather hut, resting on theedge of the wood. The path now spread out into an open green space, asort of rugged lane some forty yards broad, extending from the spotwhere Richard de Ashby first saw the cottage, to the low and shattereddoor; and the place looked so poor and miserable that he said tohimself, "If this be the abode the priest has assigned to her, 'twillnot be difficult to persuade her to come back to softer things. I willtell her I am going to take her with me to London, and to the gaythings of the capital.--Is this the cottage, good dame?" he continued,turning his head over his shoulder, and speaking aloud to the oldwoman, who was now not more than a couple of yards behind.

  "To be sure," replied she; "did I not tell you it was here?"

  Richard de Ashby took two or three steps more in advance, straining hiseyes upon the hut; but then, he thought he saw first one figure andafter that another dart from the wood, and disappear behind thecottage, with a rapidity of movement not like that of old age. A suddenfear came over him, and stopping short, he exclaimed, "What is this,old hag?--There are men there?"

  Dropping the basket from her hand in an instant, with a bound like thatof a wild beast, and a loud scream, unlike any tone of a human voice,the old woman sprang upon the shoulders of Richard de Ashby, andwrithed her long thin arms through his, with tightening folds, likethose of a large serpent.

  "Ha, ha, ha!" she shouted. "Come forth, my merry men!--come forth!Tangel has got him!--Tangel has got him! We'll eat his heart!--we'lleat his heart!--and roast him over a slow fire!"

  In vain Richard de Ashby writhed--in vain he struggled to cast off thegrasp of the strange being who held him. With a suppleness and strengthalmost superhuman, Tangel clung to him like the fatal garment ofAlcides, not to be torn away. His fingers seemed made of iron--his armswere as ropes; and Richard de Ashby, casting himself down, rolled overhim upon the ground, struggled, and turned, and strove to break loose,without unclasping in the slightest degree the folds in which he heldhim.

  At the same time, the steps of men running fast reached his ear; hiseye caught the figures of several persons hurrying from the cottage;and, when Tangel at length relaxed his grasp, Richard de Ashby foundhimself a prisoner, bound hand and foot.