The Young Adult Award-Winners Megapack

by Emily Cheney Neville

  Gradually the pendulum of order swung back and the events progressed. The prince and his party came down from the dais and moved on to the banquet in the Guild Hall. The townsfolk talked of the happening until the minstrels began to compose songs, and then the townsfolk had to listen to their own stupidity being sung from laughing lips.

  After, the great fair had run its course, each day the buying and merrymaking increasing until the great climax was reached in the big tournament on the eighth and last day. After it was all over and the last gay party had clattered over the bridge, with laden mule train ambling on behind, Boston, like a jaded peacock, closed up its fine tail and settled back to being an ordinary bird again. Then it was discovered that Marflete and Skilton in the midst of the goings and comings had picked up their household and departed, never again to be seen or heard of in Boston, leaving behind them the unsolved mystery of their connection with the greater mystery of the keys of the town coffer.

  Dame Pinchbeck did not hesitate now to tell everything she knew, but even what she could tell did not do much to clear the muddled heads. Not even Sir Frederick was entirely clear, for he was not able to understand the part the prince had played; but Tod of the Fens had got the farce in its entirety, and through him Prince Henry was able to see that for once his hand had stirred up a froth that was a long time settling.

  Gilbert chaffed Johanna saying, “Did I not tell thee the money was in the coffer? And thou didst only laugh!”

  “Ay,” answered Johanna, “but thou dost not understand how it came to be, nor how the coffer was opened. There is much thou dost not understand.”

  “Ay,” answered Gilbert thoughtfully, “I do truly think that only Tod of the Fens knows, and he will not tell.”

  “He is no longer Tod of the Fens but Tod of the ‘White Swan of Boston.’ But what didst thou think of Prince Henry?”

  “I did like him mightily,” responded Gilbert.

  “I did also. He had a merry way with him, and my! How he did laugh. He is indeed a prince whom all men may love.”

  Simon Gough thought this also as he stood by his gate when the prince rode out, and looking into a laughing face with blue eyes deep-set under heavy eyebrows, he received from his hand a gold noble.

  Before the end of June the “White Swan of Boston” started on her first voyage. Well laden was she with English-made wares, and the townsfolk turned out, and St. Botolph’s bell rang, as the wind filled her sail on which the griffins of the Tilney arms stood out emblazoned in blue and gold. Sir Frederick, Lady Mathilda, Johanna, and Gilbert stood and watched her sail out of sight.

  “And thou wilt see her again before we do,” said Johanna to Gilbert.

  “Ay,” answered Gilbert, “I shall follow fast upon her heels in my father’s ship. All the ships are to gather at Lynn and sail together in a fleet.”

  “’Twill be like a flock of great white swans,” mused Johanna.

  The voyage of the “White Swan” was successful. Tod of the Fens proved an able master, and his men a gallant crew. After a few years Johanna and Gilbert were happily married, and Sir Frederick Tilney took his place as one of that fine company of early Merchant Adventurers which strove unceasingly, and opened the way for England during the following centuries to expand to the west, and to found the New England of the New World. As for Prince Henry, he became King Henry V, and his people marveled that a madcap prince could make such a well-balanced king. Perhaps it was the very breadth of his experience that taught him most.

  THE BALLAD OF THE MORINGER1

  The noble Moringer, a powerful baron, is about to set out on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas. Upon the eve of his departure he calls his vassals together and offers his castle, dominions, and lady to the one who will pledge himself to watch over them until the seven years of his pilgrimage are ended. His chamberlain declines, saying that seven days instead of seven years would be the longest time to which he would pledge himself, but the squire of the noble Moringer takes upon himself the trust, and the baron departs upon his pilgrimage. Seven years except for a day and a night pass, and the noble pilgrim is still far from home.

  “It was the noble Moringer within an orchard slept,

  When on the Baron’s slumbering sense a boding vision crept,

  And whispered in his ear a voice, “Tis time, Sir Knight, to wake,

  Thy lady and thy heritage another master take.

  “Thy tower another banner knows, thy steeds another rein,

  And stoop them to another’s will thy gallant vassal train;

  And she, the lady of thy love, so faithful once and fair,

  This night within thy father’s hall, she weds Marstetten’s heir.’”

  The Moringer starts up, and prays to St. Thomas to help him in the great trouble that is about to befall him, whereupon St. Thomas performs a miracle for his devoted worshipper. The Moringer sleeps again and when he awakens, he is in a well-known spot on his own domain, on his right the castle of his forefathers, and on his left the mill.

  “He leaned upon his pilgrim staff, and to the mill he drew,

  So altered was his goodly form, that none their master knew,

  The baron to the miller said, ‘Good friend, for charity

  Tell a poor pilgrim, in your land, what tidings there may be?’

  “The miller answered him again—‘He knew of little news

  Save that the lady of the land did a new bridegroom choose;

  Her husband died in distant land, such is the constant word,

  His death sits heavy on our souls, he was a worthy lord.

  “‘Of him I held the little mill, which wins me living free—

  God rest the baron in his grave, he aye was kind to me!

  And when St. Martin’s tide comes round, and millers take their toll,

  The priest that prays for Moringer shall have both cope and stole.’”

  The baron proceeds to the castle, the gate of which is closed, while inside preparations are being made for the marriage feast. The pilgrim begs for admission in the name of the late Moringer, and the warder grants it to him.

  “Then up the hall paced Moringer, his step was sad and slow;

  It sat full heavy on his heart, none seemed their lord to know.

  He sat him on a lowly bench, oppressed with woe and wrong;

  Short while he sat, but ne’er to him seemed little space so long.

  “Now spent was day, and feasting o’er, and come was evening hour,

  The time was nigh, when new made brides retire to nuptial bower,

  ‘Our castle’s wont,’ a bride’s man said, ‘hath been both firm and long—

  No guest to harbour in our halls till he shall chant a song.’”

  When thus called upon the disguised baron sang:

  “‘Chill flows the lay of frozen age,’ ’twas thus the pilgrim sang,

  ‘Nor golden meed, nor garment gay, unlocks his heavy tongue.

  Once did I sit, thou bridegroom gay, at board as rich as thine,

  And by my side as fair a bride, with all her charms, was mine.

  “‘But time traced furrows on my face, and I grew silver haired,

  For locks of brown, and cheeks of youth, she left this brow and beard.

  Once rich, but now a palmer poor, I tread life’s latest stage,

  And mingle with thy bridal mirth the lay of frozen age.’”

  The lady, moved by this melancholy ditty, sent to the palmer a cup of wine. The palmer drank the wine, and slipping into the goblet his nuptial ring, he returned it to the lady requesting that she pledge her venerable guest.

  “The ring hath caught the lady’s eye, she views it close and near,

  Then might you hear her shriek aloud, ‘The Moringer is here!’

  Then might you see her start from seat, while tears in torrents fell,

  But if she wept from joy or woe the ladies best can tell.

  “‘Yes, here I claim the praise,’ she said, ‘to constant matrons due,
<
br />   Who keep the troth that they have plight, so steadfastly and true;

  For count the term whate’er you will, so that you count aright,

  Seven twelvemonths and a day are out when bells toll twelve tonight.’

  “It was the Marstetten then rose up, his falchion there he drew,

  He kneeled before the Moringer, and down his weapon threw;

  ‘My oath and knightly faith are broke,’ these were the words he said.

  ‘Then take, my liege, thy vassal’s sword, and take thy vassal’s head.’

  “The noble Moringer he smiled, and then aloud did say,

  ‘He gathers wisdom that hath roamed this seven twelvemonths and a day.

  My daughter now hath fifteen years, fame speaks her sweet and fair;

  I give her for the bride you lose, and name her for my heir.

  “‘The young bridegroom hath youthful bride, the old bridegroom the old,

  Whose faith was kept till term and tide so punctually were told.

  But blessings on the warder kind that oped my castle gate,

  For had I come at morrow tide, I came a day too late.’”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  The author wishes to acknowledge that the following books were of especial service in the writing of this story. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century; Langland, Vision of Piers Plowman; Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages; Strutt, Sports and Pastimes of the People of England; Salzmann, Medieval English Industries; Van Waters, Economic History of England; Calthrop, English Costume; Zimmern, Hansa Towns; Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; Thompson, History and Antiquities of Lincolnshire; Davis, Mediæval England; Hartley & Eliott, Life and Work of the People of England, Fifteenth Century; Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life; Quennell, History of Everyday Things in England; Pollard, English Miracle Plays. Various other books have been consulted, and a real effort has been made to have the details of the story accurate as far as the period setting is concerned. The plot of the story is entirely fictitious.

  1 This ballad was found in the introduction to Sir Walter Scott’s “The Betrothed” and is attributed by him to the fifteenth century. This ballad was found in the introduction to Sir Walter Scott’s “The Betrothed” and is attributed by him to the fifteenth century.

  THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE, by Marian Hurd McNeely

  A Newbery Honor Book, 1930.

  DEDICATION

  To the two who were there with me.

  CHAPTER I

  WHERE THE WEST BEGINS

  Down on their knees, a boy and girl were taking up the kitchen linoleum. It was a queer time to be at that work—half-past eight in the evening—and there was an air of strangeness about the house; an unusual silence, a hollowness and a fragrance of crushed flowers in the air. The lighted candle, which had been set on the floor to piece out the electric light, shone on the towsled, red head of the boy and on the firm lips of his sister, who was working on the opposite side of the room.

  The Linville kitchen was usually the noisiest room in the house, but tonight it was so still that the “plack” of the tacks, and an occasional grunt over a stubborn fastening, were the only sounds. It was not often that fifteen and seventeen worked together so silently or so soberly. As they approached each other along the sides of the room there was a cough and a step on the back porch, and someone tried the door. Both young people sat up, looking as though caught in the act.

  “Aunt Jule!” whispered Becky.

  “You bet it’s Aunt Jule,” said Dick. “Come back to see if we’ve read the will.”

  “I know she expected to be asked to stay to supper this afternoon,” commented his sister. “But I did hope we’d be alone tonight. I suppose we’ve got to let her in.”

  “You haven’t told her we were going?”

  There was an insistent knock on the door.

  Becky shook her head. “No, I knew she’d make a fuss about it and I didn’t want Uncle Jim bothered when he was so sick. But she might as well know now. Unlock the door, Dick.”

  “I’d rather let in measles,” growled the boy.

  The visitor stepped over the threshold with a word of commendation, which was an unusual entrance for her. “You children are wise to keep the door locked,” she said. “You can’t be too careful, now that you’re all alone. I never pick up a paper that I don’t read of a house being robbed somewhere.”

  Aunt Jule was fifty-nine and unyielding. The stiff clothes of 1910 were made for her type. Her black hair was drawn tightly over a stiff pompadour roll; her shirt waist was starchy; and in temperament she was like both hair and waist.

  “This is a fine to-do,” she said, from the doorway. “I come up here to talk over the services and cheer you up and I find you tearing the house down, in those filthy overalls. What if company drops in? What you doing in those clothes the day of a funeral, anyway? I don’t think you’re paying much respect to your dead uncle.”

  “Oh, yes, we are,” answered Dick. “He told us to get the linoleum up as soon as he was gone. ‘That’s one job I’ll skip,’ he said. ‘I always despised taking out tacks.’” He smiled at the speech that brought Uncle Jim so near, but his eyes were ready to overflow. “We can’t pull tacks in Sunday clothes.”

  “Better not let anyone else see you grinning that way,” advised his aunt, taking a chair. “Of course Jim would make jokes on his death bed, but the day of a funeral is no time to repeat them. Why on earth are you children upsetting the house, this way?”

  “We’re turning the linoleum,” said Dick, sourly.

  Becky gave her brother a reproving look. “We’re getting ready to pack, Aunt Julia.”

  “To pack?” exclaimed Aunt Jule. “For what?”

  “For Dakota.”

  “Dakota! You aren’t planning to go out to the Jumping-off Place to visit that homestead?”

  “No,” said Dick. “Not to visit it, but to live on it.”

  Aunt Jule gasped. “I thought that idea died when your Uncle Jim did. Or rather, when he was first taken sick. He must have known, after the first week of his stroke, that he never could farm again.”

  Becky’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes, he knew it. He told us so just after his speech came back to him.”

  “Well,” said Aunt Jule, triumphantly, “That put an end to it.”

  “It put an end to it for him, but not for us. He wanted us to go on without him.” Becky’s lips trembled, but her voice was resolute.

  “He must have been delirious.”

  “Oh, no, he wasn’t. He called Dick and me into his room as soon as he could speak, and talked it over with us. He told us he knew that he was never going to be well again and that it was up to us to ‘run the engine alone.’ He asked us if we thought that we could hold down the claim for fourteen months for the sake of a good farm, some day. And we told him we could. Even Phil and Joan promised him that they’d help.”

  “The man was certainly out of his head.”

  Becky’s eyes flashed. “He never was saner in his life, Aunt Jule. He told us all about his plans, just what we’d have to pay for the land now, and what he thought it would be worth in ten years. He told us that if we were willing to put in fourteen months of hard work the claim would give each one of us a good schooling. He planned the whole trip for us. He had me bring him pencil and a note-book, and he kept them by the side of his bed all the time he was sick. And as he thought of things he’d either write them himself, or else have me jot them down: just how we were to go, what we would need to take, how we were to get started, how much land we were to have broken, what we were to plant, what clothes we would want—there wasn’t a thing that he didn’t plan for.”

  “And his idea was for you children to go out alone, and live alone until you proved up?”

  “Yes, it was.” Becky went resolutely back to her linoleum.

  “I can’t believe he was himself. People often get those queer notions when they’re sick.”

  “Well, I can prove to you that he was hi
mself,” said Dick hotly. “After he had most everything planned he said to us: ‘There’s only one thing that worries me. I’m not afraid that you can’t settle the land—you kids; but who’s going to settle your fights?’ Now, does that sound as if Uncle Jim were sane or not?”

  Tears sprang to Becky’s eyes at the dear, familiar phrasing. Aunt Jule nodded grimly. “Well, I admit it does,” she said, “But I can’t see what he was thinking about. You children, being orphans, have picked up some things about helping yourselves, but you’ve never tried running a house alone in your lives, even in a civilized community where there are churches and grocery stores. And to go out in that God-forsaken place, among dirty Indians and coyotes, with nothing growing but sage brush, would be new business for you. Jim himself told me that the nearest neighbor lived a quarter of a mile away. What would you do if you were sick? There’s always chills and fever in new country.”

  “Take quinine,” suggested Dick. “That’s all we could do if our neighbors lived next door.”

  “Why, there’s no house out there,” said Aunt Jule. “I’d like to know where you’re going to live. I s’pose you’ll argue that you don’t need a house. Or are Dick and Phil intending to put up a bungalow for you?”

  Dick bristled, but Becky pretended not to notice the sarcasm. Phil, at ten, could not be of much assistance at bungalow building.

  “Uncle Jim said that we could live in the new barn. That’s a good-sized building, and it’s partitioned off into three rooms. At first he only intended to have us live there while the house was being built, but after he was sick he said we’d better not plan for the house at all. There wouldn’t be enough left to build it, after we paid the bills for his sickness, and besides, we might not want to stay out there after our homesteading was over. He said the best Child in the world started out in a barn and it wouldn’t hurt us to live there fourteen months.”

  “And where will you keep the stock if you use their stalls for your parlor?” asked her aunt disagreeably.

  “We’re only going to have a cow and two horses. Uncle Jim had already bought the team or we wouldn’t need two. We may sell one when we get through hauling. He said that we could keep them in the shack that he had intended for a tool shed.”