by G. A. Henty
“I war not with women. Being myself from Northumbria, I have no enmity with your people. Therefore I let them proceed on their way—a breach of duty for which, doubtless, I should have suffered, had it been known. Happily, none but my follower here, who was then but a man-at-arms, and I a squire, knew of it; and to this moment I have spoken of it to no one. As they left us, one of the ladies gave me this chain, saying that some day it might be of use to me, should I ever fall into the hands of their people. I have carried it on my wrist, ever since; and when your follower came up, and I saw the necessity had arisen, I showed it to him.”
“I have heard the story from my daughters,” Glendower said warmly, holding out his hand. “They told me how courteously you had treated them, and that you had refused to accept the jewels they offered you. They said that you had also declined to tell them your name, as it might do you injury, should it become known; and I have often regretted that I did not know the name of the gentleman who had behaved so nobly to them, and had saved them from an English prison. Had they been captured, it would have been a sore blow to me, not only in my affections but to my cause; for, had he held them in his power, Henry could have put a heavy pressure upon me. May I ask, now, what is your name, Sir Knight?”
“Sir Oswald Forster. I was, at that time, a squire of Sir Henry Percy’s.”
“Of Hotspur!” Glendower said, in surprise. “I did not know that we had levies from the north fighting against us.”
“You have not, sir. I had simply been sent, with twenty men-at-arms, by Sir Henry to Sir Edmund Mortimer—who is, as you are doubtless aware, of kin to Sir Henry, who had married his sister—and was sent by Sir Edmund to join the Earl of Talbot and Lord Grey, when they made that foray upon your house. After that I returned to the north; but was, some months since, again sent to Ludlow, to keep Sir Henry informed of the doings on this border.”
“But I had heard that Mortimer had sent no troops to Henry’s army.”
“That is so, sir. I am here by an accident. A despatch came from London to Ludlow for the king, and as there was no other way of forwarding it, I volunteered to carry it here, and succeeded in doing so: for which service the king conferred knighthood upon me, upon my arrival, ten days since.”
“Ah, then, it was you that I heard of! I was told that two great men had been seen in the woods, some distance south of the camp; and that they had succeeded in making their escape, after slaying five of my followers; and that, though none knew for certain, it was supposed they had reached Henry’s camp.”
“You are right, sir. The two men were my companion, here, and myself.”
“It was a notable feat. I think not that any other messenger has got through my scouts, since the king left Welshpool. You must be swift of foot, as well as brave and courteous; for I heard that you had outrun the greatest part of those who followed you.”
“We in the north have to be swift of foot,” Oswald said, with a smile, “for the Scots keep us in practice; either in escaping them, when they come in too great a force to be resisted; or in following them, when it is our turn to pursue.
“I trust, sir, that you will put myself and my squire to ransom, and will take my word for the payment; for, until I go north, I have no means of satisfying it.”
“That will I not,” Glendower said. “Or rather, I will take a ransom; since, were I to release you without one, it might cause surprise and inquiry; and it were well that your noble conduct to my daughters should not be known, for Henry would not be likely to regard it favourably. Therefore we will put you to ransom at the sum of a crown for yourself, and a penny for your squire.”
“I thank you, indeed, sir, and shall ever feel beholden to you; and I will, moreover, give you my knightly word that, whatever service I may have to perform, I will never again war with the Welsh.
“May I ask if any of our party succeeded in reaching Llanidloes?”
“Yes, some sixty or seventy of them got in. They fought very well; and indeed, in close combat my Welshmen cannot, at present, hold their own against your armour-clad men. Still, though it would have pleased me better had we annihilated the force, our success has been sufficient to give Henry another lesson that, though he may march through Wales, he holds only the ground on which he has encamped.
“Now, Sir Oswald, I pray you to enter my abode. ’Tis a poor place, indeed, after my house in the Vale of the Bards; but it suffices for my needs.”
Before entering, he gave orders that Roger should be carried to an upper room, and despatched a messenger to order his own leech, as soon as he had done with the wounded, to come up and attend to him. Then he led the way into a room, where a meal was prepared. In a few words in Welsh he explained to his chiefs, who had been much surprised at the manner in which he had received Oswald, that the young knight had, at one time, rendered a great service to his daughters, Jane and Margaret; but without mentioning its precise nature. His experience had taught him that even those most attached to his cause might yet turn against him; and were they to relate the story, it might do serious injury to Oswald.
“You must, on your way back,” he said presently to the young knight, “call and see my daughters; who are at present staying with their sister, who is married to Adda ap Iorwerth Ddu. They would be aggrieved, indeed, if they heard that you had been here, and that I had not given them the opportunity of thanking you, in person.”
Oswald remained for a fortnight with Glendower, while Roger’s wound was healing. At the end of that time he learned that Henry, having marched into Cardigan and ravaged the country there, was already retiring; his army having suffered terribly from the effects of the weather, the impossibility of obtaining supplies, and the constant and harassing attacks by the Welsh.
Glendower was often absent, but when at the house he conversed freely with Oswald, who was no longer surprised at the influence that he had obtained over his countrymen. His manners were courteous in the extreme, and his authority over his followers absolute. They not only reverenced him as their prince, the representative of their ancient kings, and their leader in war, but as one endowed with supernatural power.
The bards had fanned this feeling to the utmost, by their songs of marvels and portents at his birth, and by attributing to him a control even over the elements. This belief was not only of great importance to him, as binding his adherents closer to him; but it undoubtedly contributed to his success, from the fact of its being fully shared in by the English soldiery; who assigned it as the cause of the exceptionally bad weather that had been experienced, in each of the three expeditions into the country, and of the failure to accomplish anything of importance against him.
This side of the character of Glendower puzzled Oswald. Several times, when talking to him, he distinctly claimed supernatural powers; and from the tone in which he spoke, and the strange expression his face at this time assumed, Oswald was convinced that he sincerely believed that he did possess these powers. Whether he originally did so; or whether it had arisen from the adulation of the bards, the general belief in it, and the successes he had gained; Oswald could not determine. Later, when Glendower sullied his fair fame by the most atrocious massacres, similar to that which had already taken place at the storming of New Radnor—atrocities that seemed not only purposeless, but at utter variance with the courtesy and gentleness of his bearing—Oswald came to believe that his brain had, to some extent, become unhinged by excitement, flattery, and superstition.
At the end of the fortnight Roger’s wound, although not completely healed, was in such a state that it permitted his sitting on horseback, and Oswald became anxious to be off. Glendower, who was about to set out to harass the rear of the army, as it retired from Cardiganshire, at once offered to send a strong escort with him; as it would have been dangerous, in the extreme, to have attempted to traverse the country without such a protection. Two excellent horses, that had been captured in the engagement with the English, were handed over to him, for his own use and that of Roger. Os
wald’s own armour was returned to him, and he was pleased to find that it had been carefully attended to, and was as brightly burnished as when it came into his possession.
When Glendower bid them adieu, he presented each of them with rings, similar to those he himself wore.
“You have promised that you will not fight against me again; but it may be that, on some errand or other, you may ride into Wales; or that you may be staying, as you did before, at some castle or town near the border, when we attack it. You have but to show these rings to any Welshman you may come across, and you may be sure of being well treated, as one of my friends.
“I trust that, when we meet again, the war will be over; and that my title to the kingdom of Wales may be recognized, by your king and people, as it is on this side of the border.”
“Well, Sir Oswald,” Roger said, as they rode away, accompanied by twenty of Glendower’s followers, under the orders of an officer; “we have got out of that scrape better than could have been expected. When you and I were alone, in the midst of that crowd of Welshmen, I thought that it was all over with us.”
“So did I, Roger. You see, that matter of our getting Glendower’s daughters away, uninjured, has borne good fruit.”
“It has indeed,” Roger agreed. “I thought it much more likely, too, that it would have gone the other way.”
“Be sure you keep a silent tongue as to that, Roger; and remember that our story is, that I have been put at knightly ransom, and on the condition that I will never serve in Wales again. When we once get across the border we will ride straight for Northumberland, without going near Ludlow. I observed that the king much doubted the Mortimers, and were we to return there, and the news came to his ears, he might take it as a proof that there was an understanding between Glendower and Mortimer; and that it was to this that leniency, such as had been shown to no other prisoners, was due; whereas, if we go straight to Percy, ’tis not likely that the matter will ever come to his hearing, and at any rate, if it did so, he would scarce connect Mortimer with our escape.”
“I understand, Sir Oswald; and will, you may be sure, keep silent as to aught beyond what you have bade me say.”
Two days’ journey brought them to the house of Glendower’s married daughter. On the officer stating that the knight with him had been sent, under his escort, by Glendower himself, she requested that he should be shown in. Her husband was away.
“What is the knight’s name?” she asked.
“Sir Oswald Forster, Lady.”
“I have never, so far as I know, heard it before. Methought that he might be one whom I may have met, in the houses of my two sisters married to Englishmen, in Hereford; but I have no memory of the name. Show him in, sir.”
Roger had removed Oswald’s helmet, while the officer was away.
“Come with me, Roger,” he said, “since we were both concerned in this affair.”
He bowed deeply to the Lady Isabel; who, as she returned his salute, saw with surprise that his face was quite strange to her.
“It seems, Sir Oswald,” she said, “from the tenor of the message given me by the officer, that you have come to me as a visitor; and that ’tis as an escort, only, that he has been sent with you?”
“That is so, Lady; but ’tis as a visitor rather to your sisters, the Ladies Jane and Margaret, that I am here. I had, once, the pleasure of meeting them.”
Glendower’s daughter at once told a maid, who was working with her when the officer had entered, to request her sisters to come to her; and these entered the room a minute later.
Isabel, seeing that they did not appear to recognize the young knight, said:
“Our father has sent this gentleman, Sir Oswald Forster, whom you know, to visit you.”
The two girls looked with surprise at Oswald.
“Do you not know this gentleman?” their sister asked, in equal surprise.
“He is not known to us,” Jane replied. “I have never seen him before—at least, that I can remember.”
“We have met before, nevertheless, Lady,” Oswald said, with a smile; “though it may well be that you do not remember my face, or that of my squire there; seeing that we were together but a few minutes, and that in the moonlight.”
The girls looked up at him puzzled, and then their eyes fell upon Roger.
“Now I know!” Margaret exclaimed. “Look at the squire’s height. Surely, Jane, these are the two soldiers who allowed us to pass them, that night when we fled from Sycharth.”
“That is so,” Oswald said. “I thought that you were more likely to recognize my squire than myself, seeing that I have grown several inches since then, and have but lately assumed this knightly armour in which you see me.”
“Oh, sir,” Jane said, going swiftly up to him and holding out her hand, which he raised to his lips; as he did that of Margaret, as she followed her sister; “we have thought of you so often, and have prayed that you should both be rewarded for your kindness to us! How glad I am to see you again, and have an opportunity of thanking you!
“You have heard, Isabel, of our adventure, and how we escaped, by the kindness of two Englishmen on guard near the edge of the forest, from being carried as prisoners to London; where, but for them, we should now be lodged in some dungeon of the usurper; but till now, I have never known the name of our preserver.
“Thanks also to you, good squire,” she said, turning to Roger.
“I but carried out the orders of my master,” Roger said, colouring like a boy, as she held out her hand to him. “There is no credit due to me.”
“But how came you here?” Lady Isabel asked Oswald.
“Your sisters have, although they know it not, more than repaid their obligations to me; for while they may perhaps owe their liberty to me, I owe my life to them.
“See, ladies,” and he turned to Jane, “there is the chain you gave me. I have worn it, always, on my wrist. I and my squire were beaten down by, your father’s followers; my squire grievously wounded and insensible, while I had been left for dead, though but stunned from a blow. I luckily recovered my senses, just as those employed in despatching the wounded came up; and, happily remembering your bracelet, I took it off and held it up, calling out your father’s name.
“Struck, I suppose, by the action and words, an officer examined the bracelet closely; and, making out the inscription on the clasp, had my squire and myself taken to the house where your father lodged, so that the manner of my being possessed of the trinket might be explained. On your father’s return he recognized it; and, having heard from you the circumstances of our meeting, treated us with the greatest kindness and hospitality; and freed us without ransom, save a nominal one in order that, on my return, I could say that I had been put to ransom. On the recovery of my squire from his wounds, he restored our armour to us, presented us with horses, and sent us here under escort, deeming that you might be glad to see us.”
“There he was indeed right,” Jane said. “We have oft regretted that you would not accept a more valuable jewel than that little chain, which was given to me by my father, when I was but a child. But ’tis well, indeed, that you so withstood us; for had it been any other of our jewels but this, it would not have been recognized.”
“That is so, Lady and, since my capture, I often thought that it was strange it so happened.”
After staying a day there, Oswald continued his journey; to the regret of the ladies, who were glad to hear that he would never again fight against the Welsh. His escort accompanied him, as near the border as it was safe for them to go. The next day they rode into Chester, and then, by easy stages, up to Alnwick.
Oswald went to Hotspur’s apartments, as soon as he entered the castle.
“I congratulate you heartily,” Hotspur said, as he entered. “I see that you have won your spurs. I said to myself, when I received your letter, saying that you were starting to carry a letter to the king, that your enterprise would bring you either death or a pair of gold spurs. I am glad,
indeed, to see that it was the latter.
“I hear that the king’s army is falling back. A messenger brought me news from my kinsman. He said that it was but a rumour that had reached him; but that it seemed likely enough, for it was said that they had suffered terribly, both from the weather and the attacks of the Welsh.”
“That rumour is true, Sir Henry, and also that the army is retiring.”
“And they have done no more than they did before?”
“No more, indeed, Sir Henry. They have burnt many villages, and slain many Welshmen; but they have done nothing, whatever, towards subduing Glendower.”
BOTH SIDES THE BORDER (Part 4)
CHAPTER 19
The Battle Of Homildon Hill
“But how have you made your way back, ahead of the army?” Hotspur asked, after Oswald had given him full information as to the military operations.
“Roger and I were left for dead, in that fight I have told you of, near Llanidloes; and we fell into the hands of the Welsh, and were taken before Glendower, who treated us well, and put me to ransom, with the engagement that I was not again to bear arms, in Wales.”
“That was a strange leniency, on his part,” Hotspur exclaimed; “for I hear he puts to the sword all who fall into his hands, without any regard for the rules of civilized war.”
“He is a strange man, Sir Henry, and subject, I fancy, to changeable moods. When I was brought before him he was in a happy one, over the success he had gained; and it may be that he took a liking for me. At any rate, he fixed my ransom at a very small sum.”
“Which I will, of course, pay,” Hotspur said, “since you were my squire, and were at Ludlow on my service.”
“I thank you much, Sir Henry, but ’tis so small a sum that I myself discharged it, without difficulty.”
“’Tis strange, most strange, that you should have gone into the lion’s den, and have come out unscathed. Strange, indeed, that Glendower, who, as we know, is greatly in want of money, should have fixed your ransom at a low sum. How much was it, Sir Oswald?”
