CHAPTER I.
In this King Arthur's reign, A lusty knight was pricking o'er the plain.--Dryden.
On the morning of the 24th day of March, 1520, a traveller was seenriding in the small, rugged cross-road which, traversing the easternpart of Kent, formed the immediate communication between Wye[1] andCanterbury. Far be it from me to insinuate that this road pursuedanything like a direct course from the one place to the other: on thecontrary, it seemed, like a serpent, to get on only by twisting; andyet truly, as its track now lies pictured on the old county map beforeme, I can discover no possible reason for its various contortions,inasmuch as they avoid neither ascents nor descents, but proceed alikeover rough and smooth, hill and dale, appearing only to wind about forthe sake of variety. I can conceive the engineer who planned itlaughing in his sleeve at the consummate meanderings which hecompelled his travellers to undergo. However, as at the time I speakof this was the only road through that part of the country, everytraveller was obliged to content himself with it, such as it was,notwithstanding both its circumvolutions and its ruggedness.
Indeed, the horseman and his beast, who on the afore-mentioned morningjourneyed on together towards Canterbury, were apparently wellcalculated to encounter what the profane vulgar call the ups and downsof life; for never a stouter cavalier mounted horse, and never astouter horse was mounted by cavalier; and there was something in thestrong, quadrate form of each, in the bold, free movement of everylimb, and in the firm, martial regularity of their pace, which spoke ahabitual consciousness of tried and unfailing power.
The rider was a man of about five or six-and-twenty, perhaps not soold; but the hardy exposed life which had dyed his florid cheek with atinge of deep brown, had given also to his figure that look of set,mature strength which is not usually concomitant with youth. Butstrength with him had nothing of ungracefulness, for the very vigourof his limbs gave them ease of motion. Yet there was something more inhis aspect and in his carriage than can rightly be attributed to thegrace induced by habits of martial exercise, or to the dignity derivedfrom consciousness of skill or valour: there was that sort of innatenobility of look which we are often weakly inclined to combine in ourminds with nobility of station, and that peculiar sort of grace whichis a gift, not an acquirement.
To paint him to the mind's eye were very difficult, though to describehim were very easy; for though I were to say that he was a tall, fairman, with the old Saxon blood shining out in his deep blue eye, and inhis full, short upper lip, from which the light brown moustache turnedoff in a sweep, exposing its fine arching line; though I were to speakof the manly beauty of his features, rendered scarcely less by a deepscar upon his forehead; or were I to detail, with the accuracy of asculptor, the elegant proportion of every limb, I might, indeed,communicate to the mind of the reader the idea of a much more handsomeman than he really was; but I should fail to invest the image withthat spirit of gracefulness which, however combined with outward form,seems to radiate from within, which must live to be perfect, and mustbe seen to be understood.
His apparel was not such as his bearing seemed to warrant: thoughgood, it was not costly, and though not faded, it certainly was notnew. Nor was the fashion of it entirely English: the gray clothdoublet slashed with black, as well as the falling ruff round hisneck, were decidedly Flemish; and his hose of dark stuff mightprobably have been pronounced foreign by the connoisseurs of the day,although the variety of modes then used amongst our change-lovingnation justified a man in choosing the fashion of his breeches fromany extreme, whether from the fathomless profundity of a Dutchman'sninth pair, or from the close-fitting garment of the Italian sworder.The traveller's hose approached more towards the latter fashion, andserved to show off the fair proportions of his limbs withoutstraitening him by too great tightness, while his wide boots ofuntanned leather, pushed down to the ankle, evinced that he did notconsider his journey likely to prove long, or, at least, veryfatiguing.
In those days, when, as old Holinshed assures us, it was not safe toride unarmed, even upon the most frequented road, a small bridle path,such as that which the traveller pursued, was not likely to affordmuch greater security. However, he did not appear to have furnishedhimself with more than the complement of offensive arms usually wornby every one above the rank of a simple yeoman; namely, the long,straight, double-edged sword, which, thrust through a broad buff belt,hung perpendicularly down his thigh, with the hilt shaped in form of across, without any farther guard for the hand; while in the girdleappeared a small dagger, which served also as a knife: added to thesewas a dag or pistol, which, though small, considering the dimensionsof the arms then used, would have caused any horse-pistol of thepresent day to blush at its own insignificance.
In point of defensive armour, he carried none, except a steel cap,which hung at his saddle-bow, while its place on his head was suppliedby a Genoa bonnet of black velvet, round which his rich chesnut haircurled in thick profusion.
Here have I bestowed more than a page and a half upon the descriptionof a man's dress and demeanour, which, under most circumstances, Ishould consider a scandalous and illegitimate waste of time, paper,and attention; but, in truth, I would fain, in the present instance,that my reader should see my traveller before his mind's eye, exactlyas his picture represents him, pricking along the road on his strongblack horse, with his chest borne forward, his heel depressed, hisperson erect, and his whole figure expressing corporeal ease andpower.
Very different, however, were his mental sensations, if one mightbelieve the knitted look of thought that sat upon his full, broadbrow, and the lines that early care seemed to have busily traced uponthe cheek of youth. Deep meditation, at all events, was the companionof his way; for, confident in the surefootedness of his steed, he tookno care to hold his bridle in hand, but suffered himself to be borneforward almost unconsciously, fixing his gaze upon the line of lightthat hung above the edge of the hill before him, as if there he spiedsome object of deep interest, yet, at the same time, with that fixedintensity which told that, whilst the eye thus occupied itself, themind was far otherwise employed.
It was a shrewd March morning, and the part of the road at which thetraveller had now arrived opened out upon a wide wild common, whereonthe keen north-west blast had full room to exercise itselfunrestrained. On the one side the country sloped rapidly down from theroad, exposing an extensive view of some fine level plains,distributed into fields, and scattered with a multitude of hamlets andvillages; the early smoke rising from the chimneys of which, caught bythe wind, mingled with the vapour from a sluggish river in the bottom,and, drifting over the scene, gave a thousand different aspects to thelandscape as it passed. On the other hand, the common rose against thesky in a wide sloping upland, naked, desolate, and unbroken, exceptwhere a clump of stunted oaks raised their bare heads out of an oldgravel-pit by the road-side, or where a group of dark pines broke thedistant line of the ground. The road which the traveller had hithertopursued proceeded still along the side of the hill, but, branching offto the left, was seen another rugged, gravelly path winding over thecommon.
At the spot where these two divaricated, the horseman stopped, as ifuncertain of his farther route, and looking for some one to direct himon his way. But he looked in vain; no trace of human habitation was tobe seen, nor any indication of man's proximity, except such as couldbe gathered from the presence of a solitary duck, which seemed to bepassing its anchoritish hours in fishing for the tadpoles thatinhabited a little pond by the road-side.
The traveller paused, undetermined on which of the two roads to turnhis horse, when suddenly a loud scream met his ear, and, instantlysetting spurs to his horse, he galloped towards the quarter fromwhence the sound seemed to proceed. Without waiting to pursue thewindings of the little path, in a moment he had cleared the upland,towards the spot where he had beheld the pines, and, instead offinding that the country beyond, as one might have imagined from theview below, fell into another deep valley on that side, he perceivedthat
the common continued to extend for some way over an uninterruptedflat, terminated by some wide plantations at a great distance.
In advance, sheltered by a high bank and the group of pines abovementioned, appeared a solitary cottage formed of wood and mud. It maybe well supposed that its architecture was not very perfect, nor itsconstruction of the most refined taste; but yet there seemed someattempt at decoration in the rude trellis that surrounded the doorway,and in the neat cutting of the thatch which covered it from the andweather. As the traveller rode towards it the scream was reiterated,now, guided by his ear, he proceeded direct towards a littlegarden, which had been borrowed from the common, and enclosed with amud wall. The door of this enclosure stood open, and at once admittedthe stranger into the interior, where he beheld--what shall bedetailed in the following chapter.
Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold Page 2
