Part 14 (1/2)
Then my father found voice. 'Twas a low, weak tone-one scarce to be heard indeed:
”This is a judgment on me for my hardness. Cedric was right indeed. I see it clearly now that 'tis our own old Marvin whose rights were trampled on by those who called him churl and varlet. And what a battle the lad did make! And how he fell-like a prince of the blood beset by ruffians! Oh! Did he live to speak any words of farewell-to leave any message with Marvin or any other?”
”I know not, my lord,” replied the old serving man, ”when I left Morton Hall this morning, 'twas said that he still breathed, but that he could scarcely last the day.”
My father started up and gave a furious pull to the bell cord. The clangor thus provoked sent the chief of our serving men hurrying in.
”Tell the grooms to saddle Caesar,” shouted Lord Mountjoy, ”and call Broderick and say that he and six armed and mounted men are to attend me. I ride at once to Morton.”
”And I also,” I cried, ”Galvin, tell the grooms to make ready the black mare that I rode yesterday.”
”And my horse also,” shrilled my mother, the instant I was done. ”I, too, will ride to Morton.”
'Twas fifteen leagues to Morton Hall; and much of the road was rough and wild, with many a stony hill to climb and many a stream to ford. The half of the journey we made by the light of the great round harvest moon that sent its silvered rays near level through the forest. Hard we rode, indeed, and with little mercy on our mounts; and 'twas scarce four hours after we left Mountjoy when, piloted by the old Morton serving man, we dismounted before the door of Gilbert's cottage.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _HARD WE RODE, INDEED, AND WITH LITTLE MERCY ON OUR MOUNTS_]
Praise be to the saints! We were not too late, for Cedric lay within, still breathing, though with closed eyes and with face of deathly paleness. Old Marvin lay on another couch hard by; and a leech and a nursing woman from Morton Hall were with them.
Marvin greeted us gladly, and seemed not surprised at our coming. His voice roused Cedric; and he looked upon us with knowing eyes and weakly uttered words of welcome. Lord Mountjoy knelt on the ground at his side, and clasped his hand.
”Cedric,” he whispered, painfully, ”canst thou forgive me my words of harshness and my driving thee forth from thy home?”
Then a smile of great content o'erspread my comrade's face; his eyes grew brighter, and a faintly ruddy color came to his cheeks.
”Lord Mountjoy,” he said, and his voice was far stronger than before, ”I freely forgive you for any trifling slights you have offered. I pray you, make not too much of them.”
”Thou wert right, after all,” went on Lord Mountjoy, ”in holding to the rights thy fathers had of old. I should well have known thou wert too staunch ever to be a breeder of trouble in the house of thy friends. Now would I give the half of my lands to have thee back, well and sound, at Mountjoy Hall.”
Then Cedric smiled again, now broadly as of old.
”No such price as that shall you pay, my lord, for somewhat which shall be granted without price whatsoever. I have two deep wounds, forsooth, but little thought of dying. The good leech here knows not of the strength that a plain-living forester can muster when his friends come all these leagues to bid him be of good cheer. I will ride again beneath the Mountjoy banner, my lord, and that before the spring.”
At that all three of us that had before knelt dry-eyed before his couch, began weeping copiously for very joy, and Old Marvin, from his bed offered up a prayer of thanksgiving. The leech now came forward, and closely noting the change in Cedric's face, added his a.s.surance to the stricken youth's own testimony. Two hours later we came softly from the cottage where both our faithful men lay soundly sleeping. Into the forest the leech followed us to say that now the worst was past, and that he doubted not their full recovery.
CHAPTER X-THE Pa.s.s OF THE EAGLES
On a breezy autumn morning, while we made practice of arms in the courtyard, a herald from De Lacey, the Lord High Constable, rode over Mountjoy drawbridge. He had an urgent message for my father, and the like for Sir Geoffrey, the young Lord of Carleton, Sir James Dunwoodie of Grimsby and all the other loyal knights and barons of our neighborhood. The Welsh had broken over the border once more; and under Rhys, their barbarous chief who styled himself King of Wales, were burning and ravaging through the Western Marches. Many miles of fair and fruitful land they had overrun; and now they lay before Wallingham, threatening that goodly fortress and all of those who had taken refuge within it with fire and sword.
The army of the Welsh was five thousand strong. They had driven the garrison of Wallingham within walls at once; and had they been as skilled in the use of mangonels and other enginery of siege as they were with the swords and javelins of their ancient custom, they would ere this have breached or scaled the walls and given the place over to ma.s.sacre and the torch. But stout Sir Philip De Courcey still stood at bay; and now De Lacey was arming for his relief. The Constable had but five hundred hors.e.m.e.n; and of these seven score mail-clad knights, for the young king, Richard the Lion Hearted, so lately crowned, was gathering for the Crusade a vast array of the chivalry of England; and this left our Western Marches but lightly defended. So the Lord Constable was sending messengers far and wide, calling to his standard the knights and barons of the Western counties with all the mounted men that at a day's notice they could muster.
De Lacey had many times before met and scattered the bands of Welsh marauders. Now he meant to deliver such a blow as should break their power forever. He had sworn to drive them not only from the plain of Wallingham, but across the Marches and into their mountain fastnesses and to harry and slay them till not a score of the robbers remained under the skull-bone banner of their chief. To this end, he would accept no foot-soldiers, even as archers. His whole force must be mounted in order that the Welsh, on their tough little mountain horses might not escape as they had done after many another b.l.o.o.d.y raid.
On the following day there gathered under the Constable's banner at Hereford such an array of chivalry as I had ne'er before seen. Four hundred mail-clad knights were there, and near a thousand men-at-arms in good steel caps and braced and quilted leathern jackets and bearing the stout s.h.i.+elds and heavy broadswords of their trade. Then there were twelve hundred and more of archers, mostly armed with cross-bows, but some with long-bows and cloth-yard shafts, some having quilted caps and jackets, but more being lightly clad in the foresters' Lincoln green or peasants' hodden gray. All, as by the Constable's command, were mounted in some sort, though truly some of the sorry old nags and hairy-legged plow-horses that they bestrode might have much to do to overtake one of the wiry and long-shanked Welsh who fled on foot, to say naught of their ponies that could run all day without tiring on their moorland tracks and winding mountain ways.
Geoffrey, the young Lord of Carleton, with two hundred men, was at the meeting place when we arrived. Soon after came Dunwoodie of Grimsby, Lord Pelham, Lionel of Montmorency and the men of Mannerley, Whitbury and Gresham. By the Commander's order, each man had in his pouch store of bread and dried meat for three days' campaigning. Beyond that time, we must find our eating where we could. 'Twas mid-afternoon ere our force was a.s.sembled; but we took the road straightway, and by nightfall were encamped at Hardiston, half way to Wallingham.
For Geoffrey of Carleton, for myself, the Heir of Mountjoy, and my squire and comrade, Cedric of Pelham Wood, this was the first sight and sound of war on such a scale; and we were fairly lifted up by the thought of what the morrow would bring. Cedric and I had each nineteen years at Candlemas, and Sir Geoffrey but six months less. Many b.l.o.o.d.y frays had we seen in the petty warfare of our countryside with robber baron and with banded forest outlaws; and each of us already knew the pang of hostile steel. Cedric, indeed, was but lately recovered from the wounds he had a year before at Morton where he had been accounted as one dead. But the tramp of an army of mounted men and the sweet music of their clinking armor and weapons we heard for the first time that day.
We rode near the middle of the line; and, glancing forward and back at the gallant train, that seemed a whole crusade on the narrow roads, could scarce believe that there existed anywhere an enemy that could stand before its charge. Our mail-clad knights alone, riding under the lead of the stern old Constable, seemed invincible. The Welsh, we knew, fought without defensive armor, save their bull's hide s.h.i.+elds; and almost I pitied them for their nakedness when I thought of the terrible Norman spears and swords in the hands of men long trained in their skillful use and hardened by years of warfare. It seemed scarce fair indeed that knights and gentlemen should fight at such advantage. The arrows and javelins and e'en the sword strokes of their enemies would touch them not, while their own well-aimed blows would cleave through flimsy defenses and scatter wounds and death. Thus mused I in my youthful ignorance; but ere two days had pa.s.sed I was both sadder and wiser. Never again will I pa.s.s such hasty judgment on the power of an enemy I have not surely tried.