Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times
wrath kindled, he would urge her on, with mirth or taunts, till the
fire would flash from her eyes, and then drown itself in tears.
There was still, however, so much of unsated passion yet left in his
bosom, as to make him generally soothe her in the end; and, though
sometimes Kate's heart would continue to burn for a whole day, after
one of these scenes, they generally ended with her face hid on his
bosom. The very quickness and fiery nature of her spirit, indeed, gave
her charms in his cold, dissolute eyes, which none of the softer and
the weaker victims who had preceded her had ever possessed. It kept his
sensations alive, amused and excited him, and he treated her as a good
cavalier will sometimes treat a fiery horse, which he now spurs into
fury, now reins and governs with a strong hand, now soothes and
caresses into tranquillity and gentleness.
His servants marked all this, and smiled, and one would turn to another
and say, "This has lasted longer than it ever lasted before. She must
have some spell upon him, to keep his love for a whole month!" But it
was clear to see that, under such constant vehemence and irritation,
affection, on her part, at least, could not long endure, or that, as
will sometimes happen, love would change its own nature, and act the
part of hate.
CHAPTER XIII.
As unpleasant a moment as any in the ordinary course of life is when a
conversation with the being we love best--one of the few sweet
entrancing resting-places of the heart which fate sometimes affords us
in the midst of the ocean of cares, anxieties, sorrows, and trifles,
that surrounds us on every side--is interrupted suddenly by some one to
whom we are wholly indifferent.
The step upon the stairs, and the knock that followed it at the door,
were amongst the most ungrateful sounds that could have struck the ear
of Hugh de Monthermer and Lucy de Ashby; and there was no slight
impatience in the tone of the former, as he said, "Come in!"
The door opened slowly; but, instead of either of Lucy's maids or
pretty Cicely, who waited upon them, the ape-like face and figure of
poor Tangel, the dwarf, appeared, beckoning Hugh out of the room with
one of his strange gestures.
"What would you, boy?" said Hugh, without rising from his seat.
"I would have you get upon your walking-sticks," replied Tangel, "and
come with me."
"I must first know why," answered Hugh de Monthermer. "Go away, good
Tangel; I will come presently."
"Nay, you must come now," said the dwarf. "Robin stays for no man; and
Robin and the t'other fellow sent me for him of the purfled jerkin. He
has matter of counsel for thine ear, though well I wot that it is for
all the world like sticking a flower in a cock's tail."
"I see not the likeness, good Tangel," answered Hugh, slowly rising.
"It will soon fall out again," said Tangel. "Counsel, I mean, Sir Man
at Arms. What's the wit of giving counsel to a man in a purfled jerkin?
But you must come and have it, whether you will or not."
"It must be so, I suppose," answered Hugh. But Lucy held him for a
moment by the sleeve, saying, anxiously--
"You will come back, Hugh? You will come back?"
"Think you that I will leave you here now, Lucy?" he asked, with a
smile. "No, no, dear Lucy; as I said before, if I take you not with me,
I will remain and spend my life in the forest with you."
"Ho, ho!" cried the dwarf, as if he had made a discovery, "Ho, ho! I
were better away, methinks."
"We did not wish for you, good Tangel," answered Hugh, laughing. "Lead
on, however. Where is your master?"
The dwarf again made a sign, waving one of his long arms in the
direction of the stairs, and Hugh de Monthermer, after a word or two
more to Lucy de Ashby, in a lower tone, quitted the room, and followed
the boy down to the same chamber into which the Outlaw had led him on
his first arrival. It was now tenanted by two men--the bold forester,
and another, who was standing with his back towards the door. At the
step of the young lord, however, the latter turned round, displaying
the face of the good franklin, Ralph Harland.
Hugh de Monthermer started; for in the short space which had passed
since last he saw him on the village green, a change had taken place in
his countenance such as nothing but intense grief can work. Indeed,
mortal sickness itself but rarely produces so rapid an alteration; he
looked like one of those, whom we read of, stricken with the plague of
the fourteenth century, where the warning sign of the coming death was
read by others in the face and eyes, before the person doomed was at
all aware that the malady had even laid the lightest touch upon them.
Of poor Ralph Harland, it might indeed be said, as then of those
attacked by the pestilence, "the plague was at his heart."
Hugh de Monthermer instantly took him by the hand, exclaiming, "Good
Heaven! Ralph, what ails thee? Thou art ill, my good friend--thou art
very ill!"
"Sick in mind, my lord, and ill in spirit," replied Ralph Harland,
gloomily, "but nothing more."
"Nay, nay, Ralph," exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer, "you must not speak to
me so coldly. We have wrestled on the turf in our boyhood, we have
galloped together through the woodland in our youth; I have eaten your
good father's bread and drank his wine, and rested my head upon the
same pillow with yourself--and Hugh de Monthermer must have a brother's
answer from Ralph Harland. What is it ails thee, man? On my honour and
my knighthood, if my sword, or my voice, or my power can do you
service--But I know, I know what it is," he continued, suddenly
recollecting the events of the May-day; and though he was not fully
aware of the whole, divining more than he actually knew, by combining
one fact with another--"I remember now, Ralph; and I know what is the
serpent that has stung thee. Alas, Ralph, that is a wound I have no
balm to cure!
"There is none for it on earth," replied Ralph Harland.
"Ay," said Robin Hood, "but though there be none to cure, there may be
balm to allay, my lord; and yours must be the hand to give it. I will
tell you the truth; we hold here a certain fair young lady, whom, as
you see, we treat with all respect. You may ask, why we hold her--why
we have taken her from her friends? My lord, one of her noble house has
taken from a father's care, a child beloved as she can be; has broken
bonds asunder which united many a heart together--parent and child,
lover and beloved--has made a home desolate, crushed the hopes of an
honest spirit, and made a harlot of a once innocent country girl. This
is all bad enough, my lord; but still we seek not for revenge. All that
we require is, the only slight reparation that can be made by man. Let
her be sent back to her home--let her be given up to her father--let
her not be kept awhile in gaiety and evil, and then turned an outcast
upon the bitter, biting world. You, my lord, must require this at the
hands of the Earl of Ashby; he only can do that which is right, and to
you we look to induce that noble lord to do justice even to us poor
peasants."
Hugh de Monthermer paused for a moment or two in thought ere he
replied, but he then answered--"I can bear no compulsory message to the
Earl, my good friend. What you have done here is but wild justice; this
lady never injured you--her father never injured you. You take her
unwilling from her home as a hostage for the return of one who went
willingly where she did go--who stays willingly where she now is. If
she chooses to stay there, who can send her back again? I can do
nothing in this, so long as you keep this lady here. Indeed, I tell you
fairly, as you have bound me by my honour not to mention what I have
seen, I must e'en remain here, too; for my first act as a knight and a
gentleman, when I am at liberty, must be to do my endeavour to set her
free."
"And as a lover, also," added Robin Hood; "but, my lord, we will spare
you a useless trouble; for, let me tell you, that not all the men of
Monthermer, and Ashby to boot, would liberate that lady if I chose to
hold her. But there is some truth in what you say; and that truth
struck me before you uttered it. It was on that account I left you an
hour or two ago, and went to seek this much injured young man, to
confess to him what I am never ashamed to confess, when it is so, that
I have been rash--that I had no right to punish a fair and innocent
lady for the fault of a false traitor. To-morrow morning she shall
return under your good charge and guidance; but still, my lord, to you
I look to demand of the Earl of Ashby that he compel his kinsman both
to send back that light-o'-love, Kate Greenly, to her father's house,
and to make such poor reparation, in the way of her dowry to a convent,
as may at least punish the beggarly knave for the wrong he has
committed. I charge you; my lord, as a knight and gentleman, to do
this."
"And I will do it," answered Hugh de Monthermer, "since you so
willingly set the lady free, whatever be the consequences; and to me
they may be bitterer than you think. I will do what you require because
my heart tells me it is right, and my oath of chivalry binds me to
perform it."
"Ah, my lord!" said Robin Hood, "would the nobles of England
but consult the dictates of the heart, and keep that heart
unhardened--would they remember the oath of their chivalry, and act as
that oath requires, there would be less mourning in the land--there
would be more happiness in the cottage, and some reverence for men in
high station."
"You are wrong," said Hugh de Monthermer, laying his hand upon the bold
forester's arm--"you are wrong, and give more way to common prejudice
than I had hoped or expected. There are amongst us, Robin, men who
disgrace the name of noble, whose foul deeds, like those of this
Richard de Ashby, carry misery into other orders, and disgrace into
their own. But vices and follies find ready chroniclers--virtues and
good actions are rarely written but in the book of Heaven. One bad
man's faults are remembered and talked of, and every one adds, 'He was
a noble;' but how many good deeds and kindly actions, how many
honourable feelings and fine thoughts remain without a witness and
without a record? Who is there that says, This good old lord visited my
cottage and soothed me in sickness or in sorrow? Who is there that
says, I love this baron, or that, because he defended me against wrong,
protected me against trouble, supported me in want, cheered me in
adversity? And yet there are many such. I mean not to assert that there
are not many corrupt and vicious, cruel and hard-hearted. I mean not to
contend that there are any without faults, for every man has some, be
be rich or poor. But if the merits and demerits could be fairly
weighed, I do believe that the errors of my own class would not be
found greater than those of any other, only that our rank serves to
raise us, as it were, on a pedestal, that malice may see all flaws, and
that envy may shoot at them."
Robin Hood paused, with his eyes bent down upon the ground, making no
reply; and Hugh de Monthermer went on a moment after, saying, "At
least, do us justice in one point. In this age, and in others gone
before, the nobles of England have stood forward against tyranny
wherever they found it. Have they ever failed to shed their blood in
defence of the rights of the people? Is it not their doing, that such a
thing as human bondage is disappearing from the island? We may have
vassals, followers, retainers, men who are bound, for the land they
hold, to do us service in time of need, but we have no serfs, no
theows, as in the olden time, and even villain tenure is passing away.
Again, who is it, even at the very present time, that is calling