CHAPTER VI.
I cannot help grieving that amongst all the changes which have takenplace,--amongst all the worlds, if I may so call them, which have comeand gone in the lapse of time, the forest world should have altogetherdeparted, leaving scarcely greater or more numerous vestiges of itsexistence than those that remain of the earth before the Flood. Thegreen and bowery glades of the old forest, their pleasant places ofsport and exercise, the haunts of the wild deer, the wolf, and theboar, the fairy-like dingles and dells, the woodcraft that theywitnessed, the sciences, and the characters that were peculiar tothemselves, have now, alas! passed away from most of the countries ofEurope, and have left scarcely a glen where the wild stag can findshelter, or where the contemplative man can pause under the shade ofold primeval trees, to reflect upon the past or speculate upon thefuture. The antlered monarch of the wood is now reduced to a domesticbeast, in a walled park; and the man of thought, however much he maylove nature's unadorned face, however much he may feel himself cribbedand confined amongst the works of human hands, must shut his prisonerfancies within the bounds of his own solitary chamber, unless he isfond to indulge them by the side of the grand but monotonous ocean. Theinfinite variety of the forest is no longer his: it belongs to anotherage, and to another class of beings.
In the times I write of, it was not so, and the greater part of everycountry in Europe was covered with rich and ancient wood; but, perhaps,no forest contained more to interest or to excite than that of merrySherwood--comprising within itself, as the reader knows, a vast extentof very varied country, sweeping round villages, and even cities, andcontaining, in its involutions, many a hamlet, the inhabitants of whichderived their sustenance from the produce of the forest ground.
The aspect of the wood itself was as different in different places asit is possible to conceive. In some spots the trees were far apart,with a wide expanse of open ground, covered by low brushwood, or theshall shrub bearing the bilberry; in others, you came to a wide extent,covered with nothing but high fern and old scrubbed hawthorn trees; butthroughout a great part of the forest the sun seldom if everpenetrated, during the summer months, to the paths beneath, so thickwas the canopy of green leaves above, while those paths themselves weregenerally so narrow that in many of them two men could not walkabreast.
There were other and wider ways, indeed, through the wood, some of themcart roads, for the accommodation of woodmen and carriers, some of themhighways from one neighbouring town to another: but the latter were notvery numerous or very much frequented--many a tale being told oftravellers lightened of their baggage, in passing through Sherwood;and, to speak the truth, no one could very well say, at that time, whoand what were the dwellers in the forest, or their profession; so thatthose who loved not strange company, kept to the more open country ifthey could.
Nevertheless, it was a beautiful ride across almost any part of thewoodland, offering magnificent changes of scene at every step, and thepeople of those times were not so incapable of enjoying it as has beengenerally supposed; but still, with all the tales of outlaws androbbers which were then afloat, it required a stout determination, or acase of great necessity, to impel any of the citizens of theneighbouring towns to make a trip across the forest in the spring orautumn of the year. Those who did so, usually came back with some storyto tell, and some, indeed, brought home stripes upon their shouldersand empty bags. The latter, however, were almost always of particularclasses. Rich monks and jovial friars occasionally fared ill; the pettytyrants of the neighbouring shire ran a great risk, if they trustedthemselves far under the green leaf; the wealthy and ostentatiousmerchant might sometimes return rather lighter than he went; but thepeasant, the honest franklin, the village curate, the young, and womenof all degrees, had generally very little to relate, except that theyhad seen a forester here, or a forester there, who gave them a civilword, and bade God speed them, or who aided them, in any case of need,with skilful hands and a right good will.
Thus there was evidently a strong degree of favouritism shown in thedealings of the habitual dwellers in the greenwood with the variousclasses of travellers who passed through on business or on pleasure.But, nevertheless, it was the few who complained, and the many wholauded, so that the reputation of the merry men of Sherwood was highamongst all the inferior orders of society at the time when this talebegins.
So much was necessary to be said, to give the reader any idea of thescene into the midst of which we must now plunge, leaving Barnsdalebehind us, and quitting Yorkshire for Nottingham.
It was about two o'clock, on the second of May, then, that a party ofhorsemen reached a spot in the midst of Sherwood, where the road--afterhaving passed for nearly two miles through a dense part of the wood,which the eye could not penetrate above fifteen or twenty yards oneither side--ran down a slight sandy descent, and entered upon a moreopen scene, where the trees had been cleared away not many yearsbefore, and where some two hundred acres of ground appeared coveredwith scattered brushwood and bilberry bushes, sloping down the side ofa wide hill, at the bottom of which the thick wood began again,extending in undulating lines for many a mile beneath the eye of thetraveller.
The number of the journeyers was five; and they pulled in the rein tolet their horses drink at a clear stream which crossed the road, andbubbling onward, was soon lost amongst the bushes beyond. Four of themwere dressed as yeomen attached to some noble house; for althoughliveries, according to the modern acceptation of the word, were thenunknown, and the term itself applied to quite a different thing, yetthe habit was already coming in, of fixing a particular badge orcognizance upon all the followers or retainers of great noblemen, aswell as of kings, whereby they might know each other in any of thefrequent affrays which took place in those times. Sometimes it wasfixed upon the breast, sometimes upon the back, sometimes upon the arm,where it appeared in the present instance. Each of the yeomen had asword and buckler, a dagger on the right side, and a bow and a sheaf ofarrows on the shoulders; and all were strong men and tall, with theAnglo-Saxon blood shining out in the complexion.
The fourth personage was no other than Ralph Harland, the stout youngfranklin, of whom we have already spoken. He, too, was well armed withsword and buckler, though he bore no bow. Besides the usual dagger,however, he wore, hanging by a green cord from his neck, a long,crooked, sharp-pointed knife, called in those days an anelace, whichwas, I believe, peculiar to the commons of England and Flanders, andwhich was often fatally employed in the field of battle in stabbing theheavy horses of the knights and men-at-arms.
The horses of this party were evidently tired with a long, hot ride,and the horsemen stopped, as I have said, to let their beasts drink inthe stream before they proceeded onward. As they pulled up, a fat doestarted from the brushwood about thirty yards distant, and bounded awaytowards the thicker parts of the forest, and at the same moment a loud,clear, mellow voice, exclaimed--"So, ho, madam! nobody will hurt you inthe month of May! Give you good day, sirs!--whither are ye going?"
The eyes of all but young Harland had been following the deer, and hishad been bent, with a look of sad and stern abstraction, upon thestream, but every one turned immediately as the words were uttered; andthere before them on the road, stood the speaker. How he came there,however, no one could tell, for the moment before, the highway wasclear for a quarter of a mile, and there seemed no bush or tree in theimmediate neighbourhood sufficiently large to conceal a full grown man.
The personage who accosted them was certainly full-grown, and very wellgrown, too. He was in height about five feet eleven, but not what couldbe called large in the bone; at least, the proportion of the full andswelling muscle that clothed his limbs made the bone seem small. Hisfoot, too, was less than might have been expected from his height; andthough his hand was strong and sinewy, the shape was good, and thefingers were long. His breadth over the chest was very great; but hewas thin in the flank, and small in the waist; and when his arm hungloosely by his side, the tip of his middle
finger reached nearly to hisknee. His countenance was a very fine one; the forehead high and broad,but with the brow somewhat prominent above the eyes, giving a keen andeagle-like look to a face in every other respect frank and gentle. Hiswell rounded chin, covered with a short curling beard, of a light brownhue, was rather prominent than otherwise, but all the features weresmall and in good proportion; and the clear blue eye, with itsdark-black eyelashes, and the arching turn of the lip and mouth, gave amerry expression to the whole, rather reckless, perhaps, but open andfree, and pleasant to the beholder.
In dress he was very much like the foresters whom we have beforedescribed; he wore upon his head a little velvet cap, with a goldbutton in the front, and a bunch of woodcock's feathers therein. He hadalso an image, either in gold or silver gilt, of St. Hubert onhorseback, on the front of the cross-belt in which his sword was hung.The close-fitting coat of Lincoln green, the tight hose of the same,the boots of untanned leather, disfigured by no long points, the sheafof arrows, the bow, the sword, and bracer, were all there; and,moreover, by his side hung a pouch of crimson cloth called thegipciere, and, resting upon it, a hunting horn, tipped with silver. Asthe fashion of those days went, his apparel was certainly not rich, butstill it was becoming, and had an air of distinction which would havemarked him out amongst men more splendidly habited than himself.
Such was the person who stood before the travellers when they lookedround, but taken by surprise, none of the party spoke in answer to hisquestion.
"What!" he said, again, with a smile, "as silent as if I had caught youloosing your bow against the king's deer in the month of May? I beseechyou, fair gentlemen, tell me who you are that ride merry Sherwood atnoon, for I cannot suffer you to go on till I know."
"Cannot suffer us to go on?" cried Blawket. "You are a bold man to sayso to five."
"I am a bold man," replied the forester, "as bold as Robin Rood; and Itell you again, good yeomen, that I must know."
What might have been Blawket's reply, who shall say? for--as we havebefore told the reader--he had some idea of his own consequence, and noslight reliance on his own vigour; but Ralph Harland interposed,exclaiming, "Stay, stay, Blawket, this must be the man we look for togive us aid. I have seen his face before, I am well-nigh sure. Let mespeak with him."
"Ay, ay, they show themselves in all sorts of forms," answered hiscompanion, while Harland dismounted and approached the stranger. "Oneof them took me in as a ploughman, and now we have them in anothershape."
In the meanwhile, Harland had approached the forester, and had put intohis hand a small strip of parchment, in shape and appearance very muchlike the ticket of a trunk in modern days. It was covered on one sidewith writing in a large, good hand, but yet it would have puzzled thewit of the best decipherer of those or of our own times to make outwhat it meant, without a key. It ran as follows:--
"Scathelock, number one, five, seven, to the man of Sherwood." Thencame the figure of an arrow, and then the words, "A friend, as by wordof mouth. Help, help, help!"
This was all, but it seemed perfectly satisfactory to the eye thatrested upon it, for he instantly crushed the parchment in his hand,saying, "I thought so!--Go on for half a mile," he continued; "followthe man that you will find at the corner of the first path. Say nothingto him, but stop where he stops, and take the bits out of your horses'mouths, for they must feed ere they go on. Away!" he added; "away! andlose no time."
Ralph Harland sprang upon his horse's back again, and rode on with therest, while the forester took a narrow path across the brushwood, whichled to the thicker wood above. They soon lost sight of him, however, asthey themselves rode on; but when they had gone nearly half a mile,they heard the sound of a horn in the direction which he had taken.
A moment or two after, they came to a path leading to the right, andlooking down it, saw a personage, dressed in the habit of a miller'sman, leaning upon a stout staff in the midst of the narrow road. Theinstant he beheld them he turned away, and walked slowly onward,without turning to see whether they noticed or not. Harland led the wayafter him, however, for the path would not admit two abreast, and therest followed at a walk.
They thus proceeded for somewhat more than a mile, taking severalturns, and passing the end of more than one path, each so like theother, that the eye must have been well practised in woodcraft whichcould retrace the way back to the high road again. At length they cameto a little square cut in the wood, about the eighth part of an acre inextent, at the further corner of which was a hut built in the simplestmanner, with posts driven into the ground, and thatched over, while theinterstices were filled with flat layers of earth, a square hole beingleft open for a window, and one somewhat longer appearing for the door.
Here their guide paused, and turning round, looked them over from headto foot without saying a word.
"Ha! miller, is this your mill?" said Blawket, as they rode up.
"Yes," answered the stranger, in a rough tone, shaking his staff at theyeoman; "and this is my mill-wheel, which shall grind the bran out ofany one who asks me saucy questions."
"On my life, I should like to try!" cried Blawket, jumping down fromhis horse.
"Hush--hush!" cried Harland; "you know we were told not to speak tohim."
"And a good warning, too," said the other. "You will soon have somebodyto speak to, and then pray speak to the purpose."
"Ah! Madge she was a merry maid, A merry maid, with a round black eye; And everything Jobson to her said, The saucy jade she ask'd him, 'Why?'
"'I'll deck thee out in kirtles fine, If you'll be mine,' he said, one day; 'I'll give you gold, if you'll be mine.' But 'Why?' was all the maid would say.
"'I love you well, indeed I do,' The youth he answered, with a sigh; 'To you I ever will be true.' The saucy girl still ask'd him, 'Why!'
"But one day, near the church, he said, 'The ring is here--the priest is nigh, Come, let us in, Madge, and be wed;' But then she no more ask'd him, 'Why?'"
So sung the miller, with an easy, careless, saucy air, leaning his backagainst the turf wall of the hut, and twirling his staff round betweenhis finger and thumb, as if prepared to tell the clock upon the head ofany one who approached too near.
There was no time for any farther questions, however: for he hadscarcely finished the last stave, when the forester whom they had firstmet appeared from behind the hut, with a brow that looked not quite sofree and gay as when the travellers had last seen him. "Come--come,master miller," he said, "you should have to do with corn. Get someoats for these good men's horses, for they must speed back again asfast as they came."
"They will find oats enough in the hut, Robin," replied the other; "butI will do your bidding however, though I be a refractory cur."
Almost at the same moment that the above reply was made, the youngfranklin was speaking likewise.
"Go back again faster than we came?" he said. "I shall not feeldisposed to do that, unless----"
"Unless I show you good cause," interrupted the forester. "But I am notgoing to do that. You shall stay with me for a while: these men may goback again, for we do not want them. Let them return by Mansfield; thatis their only chance of finding those they seek. The Southwell and theWinborn side I will answer for. You know me, Harland, I think; and ifyou do, you know that my word is not in vain."
"I believe I do know you," replied Ralph Harland; "and I will trustyou, at all events. But why should I stay, and not go with them, ifthere is a chance of finding the people that we want on the Mansfieldroad?"
"Because the chance is but a small one," replied the forester, "andbecause there is something for you to do here, which, I fear me,is better for you now than anything that can be done for youelsewhere.--Quick! slit open the bag with your knife, careless miller,and let the horses feed out of it on the ground. I want the men to getback quick. Hark ye, yeoman! Is your name Blawket?"
"The same, Master Forester," replied the yeoman. "What of me?"
/> "Why, this," answered the other. "I have heard of you from Scathelock,and know you are a faithful fellow. You must return to my good lord,your master, for me. Tell him that I will meet him between Bloodworthand Nurstead, the day after to-morrow, by three in the afternoon. Lethim bring his whole company with him, for I have tidings to give whichit imports them much to hear."
"Find some other messenger, good forester," replied the yeoman. "Mylord sent me to seek for Richard Keen and Kate Greenly, and bade me notcome back without having found them."
"Pshaw!" said the forester, "did I not tell you you would find them onthe road to Mansfield, if at all? If they be not there, they have givenyou the slip, and are in Nottingham by this time. Away with you, MasterBlawket, without more words! Give the man a cup of wine, miller; hisstomach is sour with long fasting."
"I know not," murmured Blawket, hesitating still, but feeling anauthority in the forester's speech, under which his own self-confidencequailed. "But who shall I say to my lord sent me back with thismessage? I must give him some name, good forester."
"Well, tell him," replied the person he addressed, with a smile uponhis countenance, "that it is Robert of the Lees by Ely, sent you."
"Tell him Robin Hood!" cried the miller, with a loud laugh.
"Do as I bid you," rejoined the forester. "Say Robert of the Lees: bythat name will he know me, from passages in other days; and hark!" hecontinued--"be sure the Earl of Ashby comes with him, and utter notone word of what that foolish miller just now said."
"I understand--I understand!" cried Blawket, with a much alteredmanner--"I will do your bidding, Master Robin of the Lees; but thishorse eats so wondrous slow."
"He will soon be done," said the forester. "Give him the wine, miller.We have no cups here; take it from the stoup good Blawket, and hand itto your comrades."
A large tankard of wine which had been brought from the hut went round,and then a minute or two passed in silence while the horses finishedtheir corn. When it was done, the four yeomen mounted, and at a wordfrom the forester, the miller led the way before them at a quickerpace, leaving his leader behind with the young franklin.
When they were gone, the forester took a turn backwards and forwardsbefore the hut, without speaking; then pausing, he grasped Harland's.hand, saying, in a tone of stern feeling--"Come, Harland, be a man!"
"You have bad tidings?" asked the young franklin, gazing with painfulearnestness in his face. "Tell me, quickly!--the worst blow is past.They are not on the road to Mansfield?"
"There is scarcely a chance!" said Robert of the Lees; "I believe theypassed some two hours since, and----"
"And what?" demanded Ralph, in a low, but eager tone. "And Richard ofAshby is at Nottingham, waiting for them."
Ralph Harland cast himself down upon the ground, and hid his eyes uponhis hands; while the stout forester stood by, gazing upon him with alook of deep sadness and commiseration, and repeating three times thewords, "Poor fellow!"
"Oh, you cannot tell--you cannot tell!" cried Ralph Harland, startingup, and wringing his hand hard; "you cannot tell what it is to haveloved as I have loved--to have trusted as I have trusted, and to findthat she in whom my whole hopes rested, she whom I believed to be aspure as the first fallen snow, is but a wanton harlot after all. Toquit her father's house, voluntarily--to fly with a base stranger--thepromised bride of an honest man--to make herself the leman of a knavelike that! Oh, it is bitter--bitter--bitter! Worse than the blackestmisfortune with which fate can plague me that I can never think of heragain but as the paramour of Richard de Ashby! Would I had diedfirst--died, believing that she was good and true!"
"It is a hard case," said the forester, "and I grieve for you deeply;but there is a harder case still than it,--that of her father, I mean.To you, she can be nothing more--she has severed the tie that bound youtogether; but she is still his daughter, and nothing can cut that bondasunder, though fallen and dishonoured.--It were well if we couldseparate her from her seducer, Ralph, and give her back to her father'scare. This is all, I fear, that now remains for us to do.--Had I knownthis two hours earlier," he continued, "the nose and ears of Richard deAshby would by this time have been nailed to the post where the fourroads meet; but the runner Scathelock sent me last night, fell lame onthe other side of the abbey, and I did not get the news till about anhour before you came. The scoundrel, in the meanwhile, skirted theforest by Southwell at ten o'clock this morning, so that it is all toolate. The time of punishment for his crimes, however, will come: weneed not doubt that; but the time for preventing this one, I fear, ispast."
"But how--but how can we punish him?" cried Ralph Harland, eagerly; "ifhe be in Nottingham town, how can we reach him there? How can we evenmake him give up the wretched girl, and send her back to her father!"
"We cannot do it ourselves," replied the forester, "but we can makeothers do it. Did you not hear the message I sent to the good old Lordof Monthermer?"
Ralph Harland bent down his eyes with a look of bitter disappointment."If that be your only hope, it is all in vain," he said; "theMonthermer is linked to the Earl of Ashby by a common cause; and in thegreat movements of people such as these, the feelings, and even therights of us lesser men are never heeded. The old Earl, good as he is,will not quarrel with Richard de Ashby for John Greenly's daughter,lest it breed a feud between him and the other Lord. There is but coldhope to be found there."
His companion heard him to an end, but with a faint smile upon hiscountenance. "I asked the Earl of Ashby, too," he said; "perhaps we maydo something more with him."
Ralph Harland shook his head. "Not till you have got his neck underyour baldrick," he said.
"Perhaps I may have by that time," replied the forester; "I mean," hecontinued, in a serious tone, "that I may by that time have a hold uponhim which will make him use his power to send back this light-o'-lovegirl to her father's house. I know old John Greenly well, and grievefor him. Once I found shelter with him when I was under the ban of atyrant, and no one else would give me refuge.--I never forget suchthings. He is somewhat worldly, it is true; but what host is not? It isa part of their trade; they draw their ale and affection for everyguest that comes, the one as readily as another, so that he pay hisscore. But still the man has not a bad heart, and it will be well-nighbroken by his daughter's shame."
"She has broken mine," said Ralph Harland.
"Nay--nay!" replied his companion; "you must think better of all this.You loved her--she has proved false. Forget her--seek another. You willfind many as fair."
"Ay," replied Harland, "I shall find many as fair, perhaps fairer; butI shall find none that had my first love--none with whom all thethoughts of my early years were in common--none with whom I havewandered about the fields in boyhood, and gathered spring flowers forour May-day games--none with whom I have listened to the singing of thebirds when my own heart was as light and tuneful as theirs--none forwhom I have felt all those things which I cannot describe, which arelike the dawning of love's morning, and which I am sure can never befelt twice over. No--no! those times are past; and I must think of suchthings no more!"
"It is all true," said Robert of the Lees, "but the same, good youth,is the case with every earthly joy; each day has its pleasure, eachyear of our life has things of its own. As the spring brings the fruit,and the autumn brings the corn, so every period of man's existence hasits apportioned good and evil. I have ever found it so, from infancytill this day, now eight-and-thirty years, and you will find itlikewise. You will love another--differently, but as well; with lesstenderness, but more trust; with less passion, but with more esteem;and you will be happier with her than you would have been with thisidle one; for passion dies soon, killing itself with its own food;esteem lives, and strengthens by its own power. Shake not thy head,Ralph. I know it is vain to talk to thee as yet, for sorrow anddisappointment blind a man's eyes to the future, and he will look atnothing but the past."
"But of the Earl of Ashby," said young Harland, little cheered, to saythe t
ruth, by his companion's reasoning; "how can you get such a holdof him as will make him constrain his own kinsman to give up hisparamour?--Alas! that I should call her so!"
"Take your bridle over your arm," replied the forester; "come with me,and I will tell you more. You want rest, and food, and reflection; butnothing can be done before to-morrow, so we shall have plenty of timeto discuss the means, and to arrange the plan."