Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times
it on that busy morning. It was but the tramp of three or four horses
coming at a rapid pace, but the young man's heart was anxious; and when
his eyes rested on the face of Richard de Ashby, who rode in, followed
by three men, and dressed with unusual splendour, well might the young
franklin's bosom be troubled with feelings bitter and indignant,
especially as he saw her whom he loved turn red and white, and read in
the changing colour the confirmation of many a dark suspicion.
The personage who had produced these sensations seemed at first to take
no notice of the gay groups around him, but advancing at once to the
low inn door, which was nearly blocked up by the jovial person of John
Greenly himself, he sprang to the ground lightly and gracefully,
asking, in such a tone that all around could hear what he said, whether
the Earl of Ashby had yet arrived.
On finding that such was not the case, he turned round with an
indifferent air, saying, "Good faith, then I must amuse myself as best
I may, till my fair cousin comes. What have you going forward here--a
May-day dance? Good sooth, I will make one. Pretty Kate," he continued,
advancing to the spot where she stood, "will you give me your hand to
lead you a measure round the Maypole?"
"It is promised to me," said Ralph Harland, in a stern tone, before
Kate could reply, bending his brows angrily upon his rival.
"Is it, indeed!" cried Richard de Ashby, gazing at him from head to
foot with that cool look of supercilious contempt which is so hard to
bear, and yet so difficult to quarrel with.--"Well, but she has two
hands; she shall give you one and me the other, and this pretty little
damsel," he continued, to a girl of some twelve or thirteen years of
age, who stood by listening, "this pretty little damsel shall take my
other hand--so that is all settled. Come, Master Violer, let us hear
the notes of the catgut! Come, sweet Kate, I long to see those lovely
limbs playing in the graceful dance."
Poor Ralph Harland! it was one of those moments when it is equally
difficult to act and not to act, especially for one inexperienced,
young, and brought up in habitual deference for superior rank and
station. A direct insult, an open injury, he would have avenged at once
upon the highest head that wagged in all the realm; but the covert
scorn of the manner, the hidden baseness of the design, he knew not how
to meet; and following, rather than accompanying, his light-o'-love
sweetheart to the dance, he joined in a pastime to which his heart was
but ill attuned.
It is under such circumstances that those who are wronged have always
the disadvantage. Ralph was fierce, silent, gloomy; while Richard de
Ashby was all grace, self-possession, smiles, and cheerfulness. His
speech and his glances were for Kate Greenly alone. His looks and his
voice were full of triumph, his eyes full of meaning; and many a time
and oft, as they danced gaily round, he whispered to her soft things,
of which no one heard the whole, although there was a keen and eager
ear close by, listening for every sound to fix a quarrel on the
speaker.
At length the notes of the viol stopped, and the dance came to an end,
just as Richard de Ashby was adding a word or two more to something he
had been saying in a low tone to the fair coquette beside him, while
her colour changed more than once, and eyelids were cast down. The
sudden silence rendered the last half of the sentence audible. It
was--"Then lose not a moment."
Ralph Harland cast her hand from him indignantly, and fronting Richard
de Ashby, exclaimed--"To do what?"
"What is that to thee, peasant?" demanded Richard de Ashby, colouring
as much with anger at his words having been overheard, as with pride.
"Everything that she does is matter to me," replied Ralph, fiercely,
"if I am to be her husband; and if I am not, woe be to the man that
makes her break her promise."
"You are insolent, peasant," replied the Earl's kinsman, with a look of
scorn; "take care, or you will make me angry."
"It shall be done without care," replied Ralph Harland, feeling no more
hesitation, now that he was fully embarked; "let go my arm, Kate, and I
will soon show you and others of what egg-shells a lord's cousin can be
made.--What brings you here to spoil our merriment, and mar our May-day
games? Take that as a remembrance of Ralph Harland!" and he struck him
a blow, which, although Richard de Ashby partially warded it off, made
him stagger and reel back. But at that very moment, the three servants
he had brought with him, who had hitherto stood at a distance, seeing
their master engaged in a squabble with one of the dancers, ran up, and
one of them, catching him by the arm, prevented him from falling.
His sword was now out of the sheath in an instant; the weapons of his
attendants were not behind, and all four rushed upon the young
franklin, exclaiming, "Cut off his ears! The villain has dared to
strike a nobleman! Cut off his ears!"
All the villagers scattered back from the object of their fury, except
two--Kate Greenly, who cast herself upon her knees before Richard de
Ashby, begging him to spare her lover, and Ralph's old grey-headed
father, who, running up from the inn door, placed a stout staff in his
son's hand, exclaiming, "Well done, Ralph, my boy! Thrash 'em all! Ho!
Greenly, give me another stick that I may help him!"
One of the serving-men, however, struck the old franklin with the
pummel of his sword, and knocked him down, while the two others pressed
forward upon Ralph, and the foremost caught his left arm, just as
Richard de Ashby, putting Kate aside, came within arm's-length of him
in front, reiterating with fierce vehemence, "Cut off his ears!"
It is probable that the order would have been executed unmercifully,
had not a sudden ally appeared upon Ralph Harland's side.
Leaping from the window of the inn, a man clothed in a close-fitting
coat, and hose of Lincoln green, with a sword by his side, a narrow
buckler on his shoulder, a sheaf of arrows under his left arm, and a
leathern bracer just below the bend of the elbow, sprang forward, with
a pole some six feet long in his hand, and at three bounds cleared the
space between the inn and the disputants. The third leap, which brought
him up with them, was scarcely taken, when one blow of his staff struck
the man who held Ralph by the left arm to the ground, and a second sent
the sword of Richard de Ashby flying far over his head.
At the same moment he exclaimed, looking at the servant whom he had
knocked down, "Ha! ha! my old acquaintance; when last we had a fall in
yonder inn together, I thought we should meet again! Fair play! fair
play!--Not four against one! Get you in, Kate Light-o'-love! out of
harm's way! The day may not end so well as it has begun. Fair play, I
say, or we may take odds too!"
Richard de Ashby looked round, furiously, after his sword, and laid his
hand upon the dagger that hung at his right side; but the sight he saw,
as he turned his eyes towards the inn, was one well calculated to
moderate, at least, the expression of his rage, for some eight or nine
men, all habited alike in close coats of Lincoln green, were coming up
at a quick pace from behind the house, and their apparel, and
appearance altogether, could leave little doubt that they were
companions of him who had first arrived, and in whom he recognised with
no slight surprise, the same blue-nosed old peasant whom he had found
contending with his servants not many nights before. The hump, indeed,
was gone, and the neck was straight enough. All signs of decrepitude,
too, had passed away; but the face was not to be mistaken, and Richard
de Ashby's countenance fell at the sight.
He was no coward, however; for, amongst the swarm of vices, and
follies, and faults, which degraded so many of the Norman nobility of
that day, cowardice was rarely, if ever, to be met with. They were a
people of the sword, and never unwilling to use it.
His first thought, then, was to resist to the death, if need might be;
his next, how to resist to the best advantage. Snatching his sword,
then, which one of his servants had picked up, he looked to the clump
of trees, but Harland, and the man in green, with a whole host of
villagers, whose angry faces betokened him no good, were immediately in
the way, so that his only resource seemed to be to retreat to the inn
door.
The first step he took in that direction, however, produced a rapid
movement on the part of the yeomen, or foresters, or whatever the
green-coated gentlemen might be, which cut him off from that place of
refuge, and, at the same moment, the voice of Hardy exclaimed, "Stop
him from the church path, Much! This rat-trap of ours has too many
holes in it, but that will close them all--Now, Master Richard de
Ashby, listen to a word or two. You come here with no good purposes to
any one, and we want no more of you. But you shall have your choice of
three things:--You shall either get to your horse's back, and go away,
swearing, as you believe in the blessed Virgin, never to set foot in
this place again,--I don't think you dare break that oath,--or--"
"I will not!" replied Richard de Ashby, fiercely.
"Very well, then," said Hardy; "if that is the case, you shall stand
out in the midst, cast away sword and dagger, betake you to a
quarter-staff, and see whether, with the same arms, young Ralph Harland
here will not thrash you like a sheaf of wheat."
"Fight a peasant with a quarter-staff!" cried Richard de Ashby. "I will
not!"
"Well, then, the third may be less pleasant," said Hardy. "I have
nothing else to offer, but that we all fall upon you and yours, and
beat you till you remember Hendley-green as long as you call yourself a
man."
"Murder us, if you will," said Richard de Ashby, doggedly; "but we will
sell our lives dearly."
"I don't know that, worshipful sir," said the man with the purple nose;
"we have no inclination to thrash more men than necessary, so all your
servitors may take themselves off, if they like. Run, my men, run, if
it so please you. But make haste, for my quarter-staff is itching to be
about your master's ears!" And so saying, he made it whirl round in his
hand like the sails of a mill.
One of the men needed no time to deliberate, but betook himself to his
heels as fast as he could go. A second hesitated for a moment or two,
and then saying, "It is no use contending with such odds," moved slowly
away. The third, however--Hardy's old adversary in the hostelry--placed
himself by Richard de Ashby's side, saying, "I will stand by you, sir!"
and added a word or two in a lower tone.
"Now, Much--and you, Tim-of-the-Mill," cried Hardy, "let us rush on
them all at once, beat down their swords with your bucklers, and tie
them tight. Then we will set the bagpipe before them, and flog them
half way to Pontefract. Quick! quick! I see the priest coming, and he
will be for peace-making."
The first step was hardly taken in advance, however, when the blast of
a trumpet sounded upon the high road, and a dozen different cries from
the villagers of----
"Hold off! hold off!"
"Forbear! Here comes the Sheriff!"
"Run for it, Master Hardy--they are the lords Greenly talked of!"
"Away--away, good yeomen!" all uttered at once, gave notice to the
gentlemen in green that some formidable enemy was in the rear.
In a moment after, two or three gentlemen of distinguished port, riding
slowly at the head of some fifty horsemen, came down the road upon the
green; and Hardy, as he was called, seeing that the day was no longer
his own, was passing across to join his companions on the other side,
when Richard de Ashby cast himself in his way, and aimed a blow at him
with his sword. The stout yeoman parried it easily with his staff, and