Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times
"You must have heard if often, my father," said Alured de Ashby. "It is
the name of one of our good forest outlaws of Sherwood. I have seen the
man twice in the neighbourhood of our own place, and though I did not
mark this fellow with the arrow much, he has the same look and air."
"Seen him twice, and did not arrest him?" cried Richard de Ashby, with
marked emphasis.
"Heaven forefend!" exclaimed Alured laughing. "What, arrest a good
English yeoman, on account of a taste for the King's venison! If Harry
would throw open his forests to us, and not give to proud Frenchmen and
Spaniards rights that he denies to his English nobles, we might help
him in such matters; but as it is, no free-forester shall ever be
arrested by our people, or on our land."
The Earl of Monthermer and his nephew had both been silent, leaving the
rebuke of Richard de Ashby to his own relations; for they well knew the
jealousy of the nobles with whom they were leagued, and were anxious to
avoid every matter of offence. The poor kinsman, however, had
established a right to sneer even at the proud Earl of Ashby and his no
less haughty son, upon grounds which at first sight would seem to
afford no basis for such a privilege. His poverty and partial
dependence upon them had taught them to endure much at his hands which
they would have borne from no other man on earth; and he, keen-sighted
in taking advantage of the higher as well as the lower qualities of all
those he had to do with, failed not to render their forbearance a
matter of habit, by frequently trying it as far as he dared to venture.
"Forgive an old proverb, Alured," he replied, "but you know, it is
said, that 'fowls of a feather flock together.' Perhaps, as you love
forest thieves so well, you have no distaste for the King's venison
yourself?"
"An unlucky proverb for you, Richard," said the young lord, while his
father's cheek got somewhat red; "if what we have heard be true, the
fowls you flock with are not quite those that suit our present
purposes."
"What you have heard!" exclaimed Richard de Ashby, turning somewhat
pale. "If you have heard aught against me," he added, after an
instant's thought, turning at the same time towards Hugh de Monthermer,
and bowing low, "I know to what noble hands I may trace it."
"You are mistaken, sir," said Hugh, sternly. "Respect for these two
noble lords, your kinsmen, has made me eager that no charge should be
brought against you by any of our people. Of this they are well aware."
"And they are aware also," added the Earl, "that both I and my nephew
declared from the first that we believe you utterly innocent of all
knowledge of the fact, even if it should prove to be true."
"What fact?" demanded Richard, in a low tone, and with a wandering eye,
which did not produce a very favourable impression on the minds Of
those who observed his countenance. "What fact, my lord?--but any
charge brought by a Monthermer, or one of a Monthermer's followers,
against an Ashby; should be viewed with some slight caution, methinks."
"Certainly!" said Alured de Ashby, in a marked tone.
But to the surprise of both, the Earl of Monthermer added likewise,
"Certainly!--Old feuds, even after they are happily laid at rest," he
continued, calmly, "will leave rankling suspicions, especially in the
minds of the low and the uneducated, and such I doubt not may be, in
some degree at least, the origin of a charge to which I would not have
listened for a moment, if it had not been that my good lord and friend
here, who was present when it was made this morning, insisted that it
should be inquired into.--The charge is this, sir, that you have with
you, disguised as one of your servants, a spy of the King's. This
accusation was brought by my good yeoman, Blawket, who vows he saw that
man with you when I sent him to meet you and others here but a few days
ago.--Sir, you seem agitated, and I know that such a charge must
necessarily affect any gentleman deeply; but my Lord of Ashby here
present is well aware that, from the first, I declared my conviction of
your innocence of all share in the transaction."
"I assure you, my lord,--on my honour, gentlemen believe me," cried
Richard de Ashby, hesitating, "it is not true--the man is a liar!"
"No, Sir Richard, no," said Hugh de Monthermer at once, "the man is no
liar, but as honest a yeoman as ever lived. You may have been deceived,
Sir Richard," he added, with a slight smile curling his lip; "we are
all of us subject to be deceived, occasionally. Blawket may have been
deceived, too; but that I should say may soon be proved, for he
declares that the leopards of Henry of Winchester will be found upon
the breast of your servant, Richard Keen."
"Fool!" muttered Richard de Ashby to himself, but at the same moment
his kinsman, the Earl, exclaimed, "Let him be sent for--let him be sent
for!"
"I will call him immediately," said Richard de Ashby, turning towards
the door; "but I declare, so help me Heaven! if this man have ever been
in the King's service, it is more than I know."
"Stay, stay, Richard!" exclaimed the Lord Alured. "Let some one else go
and call him, and let no word be said to him of the matter in hand."
"Do you doubt me, my lord?" demanded his kinsman, turning upon him with
a frowning brow. "If I am to have no support from my own relations----"
"An honest man needs no support, sir, but his own honesty," said Lord
Alured, interrupting him. "Not that I doubt thee, Richard," he
continued; "but I would fain have thee tell me how that fellow came
into thy service, while some one else calls him hither. Sir Charles Le
Moore, I pr'ythee bid them send hither this Richard Keen. Now, good
cousin, tell us how this man came to thee, for he is not one of our own
people born, that is evident. Richard Keen! I never heard the name."
"How he came to me, matters not much to the question," replied Richard
de Ashby. "I hired him in London. I was told he was a serviceable
knave, had been in France and Almaine, and--but here comes Sir Charles
Le Moore. Have you not found him?"--and as he spoke he fixed his eyes
eagerly, but with a dark smile, upon the face of the gentleman who
entered, as if some anticipations of triumph had crossed his mind.
"The people have gone to seek him," said Sir Charles; "he is somewhere
about the green, and it is growing dark; so I let them go, as I know
not the place."
A moment or two elapsed, but before the conversation could be generally
renewed, one of the attendants of the Earl of Ashby appeared at the
door, bringing intelligence that Richard Keen was nowhere to be found,
and that his horse and saddle-bags had disappeared also.
The kinsman of the Earl of Ashby affected to be furious at the
news--"The villain has robbed me of the horse," he said, "and,
doubtless, of other things also. My lord," he continued, tuning to the
Earl of Monthermer, "I beg your pardon; doubtless your servant was
right, and this man has fled, having obtained same intimation of the
charge against him. Did any of you see him go?" he added, addressing
the servant who had appeared.
"No, sir," replied the yeoman. "We were all upon the green, for it must
have been, while these noble lords were talking with you, before they
came in, that he went away. The host saw him go toward the stable, just
before the arrow was shot that stuck in your hood."
Richard de Ashby frowned, for the man's tone was certainly not the most
respectful. But before any observation could be made, a noise and
bustle was heard without, which suspended the reply upon the lips of
the Earl's kinsman; and the next moment, the landlord himself, with his
full round face on fire with anger and grief, pushed his way into the
room, exclaiming--"Noble lords and gentlemen, I claim justice and help.
They have taken away my daughter from me--they have corrupted and
carried off my poor Kate.--You, sir, you are at the bottom of this!" he
continued, turning furiously to Richard de Ashby. "I have seen your
whisperings and your talkings!--My good lords and gentlemen, I claim
justice and assistance."
"How now!" cried Richard de Ashby, in as fierce a tone as his own, but
not quite so natural a one. "Dare you say that I have anything to do
with this? Your light-o'-love daughter has made mischief enough to-night
already. Let us hear no more of her. Doubtless you will find her in
some cottage, if not in the woods, with her lover, trying to make up by
courtesies for her fickle conduct of this morning."
"No, sir--no, no, no!" replied the host, vehemently; "she is in neither
of those places! She was seen, some half an hour ago, going out at the
end of the village with your servant beside her; and a boy says that he
found a black mare tied to a tree not a quarter of a mile along the
road. Gentlemen, I pray you do me right, and suffer not my child to be
taken from me in this way by any one, be he gentle or simple."
"Was your daughter going willingly!" demanded the Earl of Ashby.
"I know not, sir--I know not!" cried the host, wringing his hands; "all
I know is, they have taken her, and I am sure this is the man who has
caused it to be done."
"I know nothing of her, fellow!" replied Richard de Ashby. "You must
hold your daughter's beauty very high to suppose that I would take the
trouble of having her carried off."
"Why, Richard, you are not scrupulous," said his cousin.
"London and Winchester," cried another gentleman, with a laugh, "are
indebted to him for many a fair importation, I believe."
"His taste lies amongst country wenches," added a third. And
notwithstanding the misery of the injured father, a great deal of
merriment and jesting was the first effect produced by the complaint of
the host.
"If this tale be true," said Hugh de Monthermer, who had been looking
down with a frowning brow, "I would strongly advise Sir Richard de
Ashby to mount his horse, put his spurs to the flanks, and not draw a
rein till he is safe in Nottingham. There be people about this
neighbourhood who are likely to render such a course expedient."
"I shall do no such thing, sir," replied Richard de Ashby; "this good
man's suspicions are false as far as they regard me, though it is not
at all improbable that the knave, Keen, who has, it seems, deceived
me--and is a good-looking varlet, moreover has played the fool with a
buxom light-headed country wench, whose cheek I may once or twice have
pinched for lack of something better to do."
"Such being the case, my Lord of Ashby," said the Earl, drily, "as your
kinsman has nought to do with the affair, and as this servant of his
has cheated and robbed him, injured this good man, and is suspected of
being a spy--by your leave, I will send some of my people after him
without farther delay. Without there! Is Blawket to be found?"
"Here, my lord," replied the man, standing forward as upright as a
lance and as stiff as a collar of brawn, from amidst a group of six or
seven servants, who were all discussing as vehemently on the one side
of the door the events which had just taken place as their masters were
on the other.
"Mount in a minute," said the Earl of Monthermer. "Take with you three
of your fellows whose horses are the freshest; follow this Richard
Keen, from the best information you call get, and bring him hither with
all speed, together with the girl he has carried off."
"Shall I beat him, my lord?" asked the yeoman.
"Not unless he resists," replied the Earl; "but bring him dead or
alive, and use all means to get information of his road."
"I will bring him, my lord," replied Blawket, and retired, followed by
the host, who ceased not, till the man was in the saddle, to give him
hints as to finding his daughter, mingled with lamentations over fate
and praises of the house of Monthermer.