The G.A. Henty

by G. A. Henty

  Presently, Oswald Forster saw one of the party wave his hand; and at his order four or five of the horsemen rode out, and began to drive the scattered cattle and horses towards the house. Oswald at once ran down.

  “Father is all right, Mother. He has just given orders to the men, and they are driving all the animals in, so I suppose that the Bairds must be in pursuit. I had better tell the men to get on their armour.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he told six men, who were eating their breakfast at the farther end of the room, to make an end of their meal, and get on their steel caps and breast and back pieces, and take their places in the turret over the gate into the yard. In a few minutes the animals began to pour in, first those of the homestead, then the captured herd, weary and exhausted with their long and hurried journey; then came the master, with his followers.

  Mary Forster and her son stood at the top of the steps, ready to greet him. The gate into the yard was on the opposite side to that of the doorway of the fortalice, in order that assailants who had carried it should have to pass round under the fire of the archers in the turrets, before they could attack the building itself.

  She gave a little cry as her husband came up. His left arm was in a sling, his helmet was cleft through, and a bandage showed beneath it.

  “Do not be afraid, wife,” he said cheerily. “We have had hotter work than we expected; but, so far as I am concerned, there is no great harm done. I am sorry to say that we have lost Long Hal, and Rob Finch, and Smedley. Two or three others are sorely wounded, and I fancy few have got off altogether scatheless.

  “All went well, until we stopped to wait for daybreak, three miles from Allan Baird’s place. Some shepherd must have got sight of us as we halted, for we found him and his men up and ready. They had not had time, however, to drive in the cattle; and seeing that we should like enough have the Bairds swarming down upon us, before we could take Allan’s place, we contented ourselves with gathering the cattle and driving them off. There were about two hundred of them.

  “We went fast, but in two hours we saw the Bairds coming in pursuit; and as it was clear that they would overtake us, hampered as we were with the cattle, we stood and made defence. There was not much difference in numbers, for the Bairds had not had time to gather in all their strength. The fight was a stiff one. On our side Percy Hope was killed, and John Liddel so sorely wounded that there is no hope of his life. We had sixteen men killed outright, and few of us but are more or less scarred. On their side Allan Baird was killed; and John was smitten down, but how sorely wounded I cannot say for certain, for they put him on a horse, and took him away at once. They left twenty behind them on the ground dead; and the rest, finding that we were better men than they, rode off again.

  “William Baird himself had not come up. His hold was too far for the news to have reached him, as we knew well enough; but doubtless he came up, with his following, a few hours after we had beaten his kinsmen. But we have ridden too fast for him to overtake us. We struck off north as soon as we crossed the border, travelled all night by paths by which they will find it difficult to follow or track us, especially as we broke up into four parties, and each chose their own way.

  “I have driven all our cattle in, in case they should make straight here, after losing our track. Of course, there were many who fought against us who know us all well; but even were it other than the Bairds we had despoiled, they would hardly follow us so far across the border to fetch their cattle.

  “As for the Bairds, the most notorious of the Scottish raiders, for them to claim the right of following would be beyond all bearing. Why, I don’t believe there was a head of cattle among the whole herd that had not been born, and bred, on this side of the border. It is we who have been fetching back stolen goods.”

  By this time, he and his men had entered the house, and those who had gone through the fray scatheless were, assisted by the women, removing the armour from their wounded comrades. Those who had been forced to relinquish their spears were first attended to.

  There was no thought of sending for a leech. Every man and woman within fifty miles of the border was accustomed to the treatment of wounds, and in every hold was a store of bandages, styptics, and unguents ready for instant use. Most of the men were very sorely wounded; and had they been of less hardy frame, and less inured to hardships, could not have supported the long ride. John Forster, before taking off his own armour, saw that their wounds were first attended to by his wife and her women.

  “I think they will all do,” he said, “and that they will live to strike another blow at the Bairds, yet.

  “Now, Oswald, unbuckle my harness. Your mother will bandage up my arm and head, and Elspeth shall bring up a full tankard from below, for each of us. A draught of beer will do as much good as all the salves and medicaments.

  “Do you take the first drink, Jock Samlen, and then go up to the watchtower. I see the men have been posted in the wall turrets. One of them shall relieve you, shortly.”

  As soon as the wounds were dressed, bowls of porridge were served round; then one of the men who had remained at home was posted at the lookout; and, after the cattle had been seen to, all who had been on the road stretched themselves on some rushes at one end of the room, and were, in a few minutes, sound asleep.

  “I wonder whether we shall ever have peace in the land, Oswald,” his mother said with a sigh; as, having seen that the women had all in readiness for the preparation of the midday meal, she sat down on a low stool, by his side.

  “I don’t see how we ever can have, Mother, until either we conquer Scotland, or the Scotch shall be our masters. It is not our fault. They are ever raiding and plundering, and heed not the orders of Douglas, or the other Lords of the Marches.”

  “We are almost as bad as they are, Oswald.”

  “Nay, Mother, we do but try to take back our own; as father well said, the cattle that were brought in are all English, that have been taken from us by the Bairds; and we do but pay them back in their own coin. It makes but little difference whether we are at war or peace. These reiving caterans are ever on the move. It was but last week that Adam Gordon and his bands wasted Tynedale, as far as Bellingham; and carried off, they say, two thousand head of cattle, and slew many of the people. If we did not cross the border sometimes, and give them a lesson, they would become so bold that there would be no limit to their raids.”

  “That is all true enough, Oswald, but it is hard that we should always require to be on the watch, and that no one within forty miles of the border can, at any time, go to sleep with the surety that he will not, ere morning, hear the raiders knocking at his gate.”

  “Methinks that it would be dull, were there nought to do but to look after the cattle,” Oswald replied.

  It seemed to him, bred up as he had been amid constant forays and excitements, that the state of things was a normal one; and that it was natural that a man should need to have his spear ever ready at hand, and to give or take hard blows.

  “Besides,” he went on, “though we carry off each others’ cattle, and fetch them home again, we are not bad friends while the truces hold, save in the case of those who have blood feuds. It was but last week that Allan Armstrong and his two sisters were staying here with us; and I promised that, ere long, I would ride across the border and spend a week with them.”

  “Yes, but that makes it all the worse. Adam Armstrong married my sister Elizabeth, whom he first met at Goddington fair; and, indeed, there are few families, on either side of the border, who have not both English and Scotch blood in their veins. It is natural we should be friends, seeing how often we have held Berwick, Roxburgh, and Dumfries; and how often, in times of peace, Scotchmen come across the border to trade at the fairs. Why should it not be so, when we speak the same tongue and, save for the border line, are one people? Though, indeed, it is different in Kirkcudbright and Wigtown, where they are Galwegians, and their tongue is scarce understood by the border Scots. ’Tis strange that tho
se on one side of the border, and those on the other, cannot keep the peace towards each other.”

  “But save when the kingdoms are at war, Mother, we do keep the peace, except in the matter of cattle lifting; and bear no enmity towards each other, save when blood is shed. In wartime each must, of course, fight for his nation and as his lord orders him. We have wasted Scotland again and again, from end to end; and they have swept the Northern Counties well nigh as often.

  “I have heard father say that, eight times in the last hundred years, this hold has been levelled to the ground. It only escaped, last time, because he built it so strongly of stone that they could not fire it; and it would have taken them almost as long, to pick it to pieces, as it took him to build it.”

  “Yes, that was when you were an infant, Oswald. When we heard the Scotch army was marching this way, we took refuge with all the cattle and horses among the Pikes; having first carried out and burnt all the forage and stores, and leaving nothing that they could set fire to. Your father has often laughed at the thought of how angry they must have been, when they found that there was no mischief that they could do; for, short of a long stay, which they never make, there was no way in which they could damage it. Ours was the only house that escaped scot free, for thirty miles round.

  “But indeed, ’tis generally but parties of pillagers who trouble this part of the country, even when they invade England. There is richer booty, by far, to be gathered in Cumberland and Durham; for here we have nought but our cattle and horses, and of these they have as many on their side of the border. It is the plunder of the towns that chiefly attracts them, and while they go past here empty handed, they always carry great trains of booty on their backward way.”

  “Still, it would be dull work if there were no fighting, Mother.”

  “There is no fighting in Southern England, Oswald, save for those who go across the sea to fight the French; and yet, I suppose they find life less dull than we do. They have more to do. Here there is little tillage, the country is poor; and who would care to break up the land and to raise crops, when any night your ricks might be in flames, and your granaries plundered? Thus there is nought for us to do but to keep cattle, which need but little care and attention, and which can be driven off to the fells when the Scots make a great raid. But in the south, as I have heard, there is always much for farmers to attend to; and those who find life dull can always enter the service of some warlike lord, and follow him across the sea.”

  Oswald shook his head. The quiet pursuits of a farmer seemed to him to be but a poor substitute for the excitement of border war.

  “It may be as you say, Mother; but for my part, I would rather enter the service of the Percys, and gain honour under their banner, than remain here day after day, merely giving aid in driving the cattle in and out, and wondering when the Bairds are coming this way, again.”

  His mother shook her head. Her father and two brothers had both been slain, the last time a Scottish army had crossed the border; and although she naturally did not regard constant troubles in the same light in which a southern woman would have viewed them, she still longed for peace and quiet; and was in constant fear that sooner or later the feud with the Bairds, who were a powerful family, would cost her husband his life.

  Against open force she had little fear. The hold could resist an attack for days, and long ere it yielded, help would arrive; but although the watch was vigilant, and every precaution taken, it might be captured by a sudden night attack. William Baird had, she knew, sworn a great oath that Yardhope Hold should one day be destroyed; and the Forsters wiped out, root and branch. And the death of his cousin Allan, in the last raid, would surely fan the fire of his hatred against them.

  “One never can say what may happen,” she said, after a pause; “but if at any time evil should befall us, and you escape, remember that your uncle Alwyn is in Percy’s service; and you cannot do better than go to him, and place yourself under his protection, and act as he may advise you. I like not the thought that you should become a man-at-arms; and yet methinks that it is no more dangerous than that of a householder on the fells. At least, in a strong castle a man can sleep without fear; whereas none can say as much, here.”

  “If aught should happen to my father and you, Mother, you may be sure that I should share in it. The Bairds would spare no one, if they captured the hold. And although Father will not, as yet, take me with him on his forays, I should do my share of fighting, if the hold were attacked.”

  “I am sure that you would, Oswald; and were it captured I have no doubt that, as you say, you would share our fate. I speak not with any thought that it is likely things will turn out as I say; but they may do so, and therefore I give you my advice, to seek out your uncle. As to a capture of our hold, of that I have generally but little fear; but the fact that your father has been wounded, and three of his men killed, and that another Baird has fallen, has brought the possibility that it may happen more closely to my mind, this morning, than usual.

  “Now, my boy, you had best spend an hour in cleaning up your father’s armour and arms. The steel cap must go to the armourer at Alwinton, for repair; but you can get some of the dints out of his breast and back pieces, and can give them a fresh coat of black paint;” for the borderers usually darkened their armour so that, in their raids, their presence should not be betrayed by the glint of sun or moon upon them.

  Oswald at once took up the armour, and went down the steps into the courtyard, so that the sound of his hammer should not disturb the sleepers. As, with slight but often repeated blows, he got out the dents that had been made in the fray, he thought over what his mother had been saying. To him also the death of three of the men, who had for years been his companions, came as a shock. It was seldom, indeed, that the forays for cattle lifting had such serious consequences. As a rule they were altogether bloodless; and it was only because of the long feud with the Bairds, and the fact that some warning of the coming of the party had, in spite of their precaution, reached Allan Baird; that on the present occasion such serious results had ensued.

  Had it not been for this, the cattle would have been driven off without resistance, for Allan Baird’s own household would not have ventured to attack so strong a party. No attempt would have been made to assault his hold; for he had often heard his father say that, even in the case of a blood feud, he held that houses should not be attacked, and their occupants slain. If both parties met under arms the matter was different; but that, in spite of the slaying of his own father by them, he would not kill even a Baird on his hearthstone.

  Still, a Baird had been killed, and assuredly William Baird would not be deterred by any similar scruples. His pitiless ferocity was notorious, and even his own countrymen cried out against some of his deeds, and the Earl of Douglas had several times threatened to hand him over to the English authorities; but the Bairds were powerful, and could, with their allies, place four or five hundred men in the field; and, in the difficult country in which they lived, could have given a great deal of trouble, even to Douglas. Therefore nothing had come of his threats, and the Bairds had continued to be the terror of that part of the English border that was the most convenient for their operations.

  Oswald was now past sixteen, and promised to be as big a man as his father, who was a fine specimen of the hardy Northumbrian race—tall, strong, and sinewy. He had felt hurt when his father had refused to allow him to take part in the foray.

  “Time enough, lad, time enough,” he had said, when the lad had made his petition to do so. “You are not strong enough, yet, to hold your own against one of the Bairds’ moss troopers, should it come to fighting. In another couple of years it will be time enough to think of your going on such an excursion as this. You are clever with your arms, I will freely admit; as you ought to be, seeing that you practise for two hours a day with the men. But strength counts as well as skill, and you want both when you ride against the Bairds; besides, at present you have still much to learn about the
paths through the fells, and across the morasses. If you are ever to become a leader, you must know them well enough to traverse them on the darkest night, or through the thickest mist.”

  “I think that I do know most of them, Father.”

  “Yes, I think you do, on this side of the border; but you must learn those on the other side, as well. They are, indeed, of even greater importance in case of pursuit, or for crossing the border unobserved. Hitherto, I have forbidden you to cross the line, but in future Mat Wilson shall go with you. He knows the Scotch passes and defiles, better than any in the band; and so that you don’t go near the Bairds’ country, you can traverse them safely, so long as the truce lasts.”

  For years, indeed, Oswald, on one of the hardy little horses, had ridden over the country in company with one or other of the men; and had become familiar with every morass, moor, fell, and pass, down to the old Roman wall to the south, and as far north as Wooler, being frequently absent for three or four days at a time. He had several times ridden into Scotland, to visit the Armstrongs and other friends of the family; but he had always travelled by the roads, and knew nothing of the hill paths on that side. His life had, in fact, been far from dull, for they had many friends and connections in the villages at the foot of the Cheviots, and he was frequently away from home.

  His journeys were generally performed on horseback, but his father encouraged him to take long tramps on foot, in order that he might strengthen his muscles; and would, not infrequently, give him leave to pay visits on condition that he travelled on foot, instead of in the saddle.

  Constant exercise in climbing, riding, and with his weapons; and at wrestling and other sports, including the bow, had hardened every muscle of his frame, and he was capable of standing any fatigues; and although his father said that he could not hold his own against men, he knew that the lad could do so against any but exceptionally powerful ones; and believed that, when the time came, he would, like himself, be frequently chosen as leader in border forays. He could already draw the strongest bow to the arrowhead, and send a shaft with a strength that would suffice to pierce the light armour worn by the Scotch borderers. It was by the bow that the English gained the majority of their victories over their northern neighbours; who did not take to the weapon, and were unable to stand for a moment against the English archers, who not only loved it as a sport, but were compelled by many ordinances to practise with it from their childhood.