Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times
Your lordship may try him against what horse you will, you will be sure
to win the race; and should you be disposed to try to-morrow, you will
find spectators in Monington Wood who will receive you at the winning
post. Mark this, for it is from
"A FRIEND."
"Would that I knew his name," cried Edward, as he concluded the letter.
"I can tell you, my lord," replied Thomas de Clare. "It is Richard de
Ashby."
"Ha!" said Edward, as if not well pleased--"Ha! Richard de Ashby. He is
a faithful subject of my father's, I believe, but that is all the good
I know of him. However, I must not be ungrateful--Hark! There is a step
upon the stairs. Get the fruit into the basket--quick!" and concealing
the note, Edward cast himself into the chair which he had previously
occupied.
De Clare had scarcely replaced the strawberries and set down the
basket, when a heavy, stern-looking man, one of the chief officers whom
the Earl of Leicester had placed in attendance, as he called it, upon
the Prince, entered the room, with a silver dish in his hand.
"Seeing that a fair lady has carried you some strawberries, my lord,"
he said, "I have brought you a dish to put them in;" and taking the
basket, he emptied it slowly into the silver plate.
"Thanks, Ingelby, thanks," replied the Prince with a look of total
indifference as to what he did with the fruit. "Methinks, if you had
brought me some cream also it would have been as well."
"Your lordship shall have it immediately," answered the officer. "They
are fine berries, so early in the season."
"They will refresh me, after the fever," said Edward; "for still my
mouth feels dry."
"You shall have the cream directly, my good lord," rejoined the
officer, and left the room.
Edward and De Clare looked at each other with a smile, and the note was
soon re-read and totally destroyed.
CHAPTER XVII.
About the hour of ten, on the morning following the day of which we
have just been speaking, Simon de Montfort sat alone at a small table
in a room adjoining that which he used as a council chamber. Manifold
papers and parchments were before him, and a rude map of England, such
as the geographical skill of that day enabled men to produce, lay
underneath his large powerful hand, with the forefinger resting upon
the word, Gloucester. His brow was heavy and his teeth were set; and he
fixed his eyes--we cannot call it vacantly, for they were full of
expression, though without sight--upon the opposite wall of the room,
while his right hand ran slowly up and down the hilt of his heavy
sword.
"Care," he said--"continual care! thought, and anxiety, and
strife!--Oh, life, life! the gilded bubble--how is it that man clings
to thee so fondly!--Who would not gladly be waked from an unpleasant
dream? and yet how troublous is this sad dream of human existence,
which we are so loath to lose? Some five or six years in early youth,
when fancy, passion, and inexperience forbid us to think, and teach us
only to enjoy, may have a portion of chequered brightness; but the
rest, alas! has its care for every day, and its anxiety for every hour.
It is a weary place, this world to dwell in, and life but a grim and
discontented tenant of the house!"
He paused, and looked at the papers again, but it seemed difficult for
him to fix his mind upon them. "It is strange," he continued--"I am not
often thus; but I feel as if all things were passing away from me. Can
it be, that sometimes the spirit has an indication of coming fate, from
beings that we see not?--It may be so--but it is weak to give way to
such thoughts. It is with human actions and endeavours that we have now
to do. Ho! without there!--Does any one wait?" he continued, addressing
a servant who appeared at his call.
"The constable of the guard of the west court, my lord," replied the
attendant; "he has something to report."
"Send him, in," said the Earl of Leicester; "and dispatch a messenger
to the Earl of Ashby, with many courteous greetings, to say that I am
ready to receive him when it suits his pleasure: the same to the Earl
of Monthermer and the lord Hugh.--Now, constable, what have you to tell
me?"
The servant had beckoned in from the door where he stood, a sturdy
soldier, clad in full armour, except the casque; and the latter now
replied to Leicester's question--
"You told me, my lord, that the pass was withdrawn from Sir Richard de
Ashby, and that he was no more to have access either to the King or the
Prince."
"I said, moreover," answered Leicester, "that he was to quit Hereford.
Is he not gone?"
"He may be now, my lord," replied the soldier, "but last night I found
him several times lingering about the castle."
"If you find him any more, arrest him on the spot," cried De Montfort,
hastily. "Methinks the man is a traitor. I sent him hence for his good;
if he come back, evil shall overtake him."
He spoke evidently with considerable irritation, which the Great Earl
of Leicester, as he was generally called, was seldom, if ever, known to
display. Impetuous he certainly had been in his early youth; and pride
and sternness had been faults of his years; but excitement upon
trifling occasions was so foreign to his character, that the constable
of the guard, as he retired from his presence, muttered--"Something
must have gone very wrong with the Great Earl; I never saw him so
before."
When the officer had departed, Simon de Montfort rose, and took two or
three turns up and down the room, murmuring to himself--"Each petty
knave dares to disobey me; but I doubt these Ashbys; they are none of
them stern and steadfast in the cause of right. This conference with
Gloucester, on pretence of being stopped by his troops--'tis
rank,--'tis evident. But we shall soon hear more. Here they come, I
suppose:" and opening the door into the council-room, he walked slowly
to the head of the table, while the old Earl of Monthermer advanced to
meet him, and Hugh lingered for a moment at the opposite side reading a
note which seemed to have been just put into his hands.
"Public or private?" asked De Montfort, looking upon his young friend
with a smile.
"Private, my lord," answered Hugh--"at least it is marked so; and
though I have some doubt of the honesty of the writer, I will keep it
private--at least for the present."
The Earl was about to reply; but at that moment the jingling step of
Alured de Ashby was heard in the stone corridor at the top of the
stairs; and after a brief pause he followed, his father into the
council chamber.
"Welcome, my Lord of Ashby," said De Montfort, advancing, and taking
the Earl's hand. "I am right glad to see you here; and welcome, too,
Lord Alured. I fear that you have passed through some perils, and met
with somewhat rough treatment on your road hither?"
"Perils, my lord, I may have passed through," answered Alured, "but
rough treatment I have none to complain of. The noble Earl of
Gloucester treated me with more courtesy than I had a right to expect;
and, as you see, suffered me to proceed, to join your lordship."
De Montfort strove in vain to prevent his brow from gathering into a
heavy frown; and he replied, with a bitter smile--"Doubtless the Earl
is wise."
In the meanwhile the Earl of Ashby had been greeting cordially the
Monthermer and his nephew; and the sight of their mutual courtesies,
which was in no way pleasant to Alured de Ashby, prevented him, in all
probability, from making a rash reply to the Earl of Leicester.
"Well, sir," he said, not noticing the words of De Montfort, but
turning sharply to Hugh, "you informed me, some time ago, that the
cause of my sister's being carried off and detained by some rude
country people, or forest outlaws, would be explained to my good father
here. Pray let us hear it in this noble presence! I am as curious as a
woman."
"Tush, Alured!" cried his father; "you are an impatient, irritable boy.
First let me render thanks to our young friend, for his gallant,
well-conducted search after our dear Lucy, and for restoring her to us
so soon."
"Whatever thanks he has merited, my lord," replied Alured, "I am right
willing to pay; but first I wish to hear the full extent of his great
deservings, lest my gratitude should overwhelm me. Luckily, however,
there is a small deduction to be made, for having even at this early
hour, brought an unjust charge against our kinsman Richard, and roused
dark suspicions of him in the breast of this noble Earl."
"I fear, my young friend," said the old Lord of Monthermer, in a calm
and kindly tone, "that the gratitude which seems to sit so heavy upon
you--if there prove any cause for gratitude at all, which I doubt--can
suffer no diminution on the account you would place against it. The
charge against your kinsman was made by me, not Hugh. I neither
concealed any part of the suspicion, nor aggravated it in the least;
but merely told noble De Montfort that which we all know, and which
behoved him to be acquainted with, when he was trusting daily near
Prince Edward a person of whom even your father must entertain grave
doubts."
"No--no! not so, my lord!" cried the Earl of Ashby, "my doubts have
been dispelled."
Some farther conversation, of a menacing character, took place, the old
Lord of Monthermer showing himself desirous of soothing the two Lords
of Ashby, but Alured evidently striving to drive the matter to a
personal quarrel.
It is no easy task, with a companion so disposed, to avoid
administering some occasion of offence; and although Hugh de
Monthermer, in his love for Lucy, found every motive for avoiding a
breach with her brother, yet there was a point of endurance beyond
which even that inducement could not carry him.
"Well--well, Lord Alured," he said, at length, "it is clear to me, and
must be clear to all, what is your object now. You have never forgotten
ancient feuds, though we all agreed to cast them aside for ever. I
would do all that is honourable and just, to maintain and strengthen
every kindly feeling between our two houses, but even the desire of so
doing shall not induce me to swerve from what I consider right. I
believe Richard de Ashby to be a false traitor, unworthy of the name he
bears; for your noble race, whatever side it has taken, has never
produced such a one before."
"And I maintain him honest and true," replied Alured, "and will uphold
it at----"
He was going to add, the spear's point; but his father stopped him,
exclaiming--"Hush--hush! no violence! Hear what Lord Hugh would say."
"At all events," said De Montfort, "have some respect, sir, for those
in whose presence you speak."
Alured de Ashby bit his lip, but made no reply, and Hugh de Monthermer
turned with a glowing cheek to the Earl of Ashby, inquiring--"My lord,
have you heard from your daughter, in whose hands I found her?"
"I have not seen her," replied the Earl--"I have not yet seen her. This
city is so full of troops and armed men, that Alured judged it better
to leave her at a place a short distance hence, between this and
Gloucester. But Alured has told me what she told him."
"Well then, my lord," continued Hugh, "I have but to add, that the men
in whose hands she was, and against whom I could bring no force
sufficient to set her free, agreed to liberate her on condition that I
requested you, by your honour and high name, to compel your kinsman,
Richard de Ashby, to restore the unhappy girl he carried off, when we
all met in Barnesdale, to the house of her father, John Greenly, and to
make him pay such dowry, on her entering a convent, as may punish him
and ensure her reception. It was as a hostage for her return that they
seized your daughter; and it was only upon this condition that they set