Cedric, the Forester Part 15

And now it seemed that Fortune who with the sun had smiled upon us all day long, withdrew her favor also, for we had traversed scarce a league of the rocky track along which Rhys and his army had fled when thick clouds obscured the narrow sky above us; thunder roared and rumbled in the mountain pa.s.ses, and torrents of rain began to fall. The darkness swiftly enclosed us, and we had perforce to halt lest we should lose our way amongst the woods and rocks. There, drenched and chilled and worn with a day of riding and battle, we made bivouac and ate of the food in our pouches. Mindful of the skill and daring of the Welsh in night attacks, the Lord Constable posted double lines of sentinels; and we seized such sleep as we might, wrapped in our dripping cloaks and lying upon the gra.s.s and leaves.

At last, I for one, slumbered heavily; and it seemed but an hour ere our leaders roused us and we saw the black shadows of the mists around us turning gray with morning light. While we ate again of the bread and meat we carried, the Constable despatched two riders with a message to Sir Guy Baldiston at the pa.s.s, with commands to send back word to Wallingham of our whereabouts and our intent to pursue the ravagers still farther.

In half an hour we were again in saddle, and De Lacey was giving directions for our better ordering to guard against surprise upon the march, when one descried our messengers returning at full gallop and lying low upon their horses' necks as if in fear of arrows that might come from wayside rocks and trees. They rode indeed not like the soldiers of a victor's army but like men who are hunted and flee for their lives.

In a moment more they had attained our lines, their horses loudly panting with the labor of such galloping over rough and stony paths; and the foremost rider cried out to the Commander:

"Oh, my lord! Sir Guy and all his men are slain, and the Welsh have the pa.s.s again. We but narrowly escaped being taken ourselves."

The Constable sat on his great war-horse, gazing and frowning at the messenger for a length of time that an arrow, shot strongly upward, might have needed to come again to earth. Then he said, sternly:

"And how closely didst thou see all this?"

"My lord, we rode within a bowshot. 'Twas something dark and misty; and we knew not what was toward. The pa.s.s is filled with Welshmen; and they raise the skull-bone banner. 'Tis an army such as we encountered yesterday."

De Lacey glanced about him at his leaders.

"My lords and gentlemen: you hear what has chanced. Shall we attack again from this side or fare onward?"

"We must ride onward, my lord, and that quickly," answered Lord Mountjoy, "we cannot force that narrow pa.s.s 'gainst such an army as our messenger describes. Doubtless they hold also the crags above; and from thence they can roll down rocks that would fell and crush any force that attempted it."

"We saw many hundreds of them on the crags above," put in the messenger.

"And what if we ride forward?" demanded the Constable. "Have we a clearer road on that side?"

"Aye, my lord," returned my father, "once, years agone, I rode through this valley a hawking. There is another gateway, called the Pa.s.s of the Eagles, three leagues farther west. It is much broader than the other, and if we hasten, Rhys can scarcely gather a force that can hold it against us. Then beyond is the good wide valley of Owain, adown which, in ten hours hard riding we may gain the Marches once more."

The Lord Constable gazed at the ground before him for a moment. Then he lifted his head and spake so that all around might hear.

"My lords: this Welsh freebooter hath shown himself a better general than I. He hath enticed us into this valley, and then hath closed the gate behind us, as one entraps a bear or wolf. The storm, it seems, hath given him respite; he fights in his own land, and doubtless the night hath brought many recruits to his banner. Now ride we on to force this other gateway ere he gather an army that can close that also. Forward, for Saint George."

At the full trot we rode away, and for an hour and more we slackened not our speed. By the sides of the pathway, or crouching under crags on the hillside, we saw at intervals the huts of stones and turf of the Welsh mountain folk; but all stood silent and deserted with never a wisp of smoke from chimney or sight of woman or child.

When the sun was an hour high, the valley narrowed again around us; and we came in sight of the Pa.s.s of the Eagles. Then indeed we knew that if any of us returned alive from this adventure, 'twould be by the favor of all the Saints and by the utmost might of our arms. For the army of Rhys stood before us, drawn up in twenty ranks across the defile which was there of a furlong's width. In the front rank stood the spearmen with the b.u.t.ts of their weapons firmly planted in the ground and the points held at the height of a horse's breast; in the next the King and his sons, the leaders of tribes and all of those who bore the heaviest arms and iron shields; behind them, rank after rank of swordsmen and javelin throwers, and, rearmost, their archers with bows in hand and arrows ready notched.

The flanks of the Welsh array were protected by high and rocky slopes where scrubby oaks and thorns found scant foothold amidst the crags and where no horse could tread. On both sides of the valley where it narrowed to the pa.s.s were broken cliffs that not a mountain goat could scale. Beyond these lay the heather-covered mountainsides and faraway rocky peaks where already snow had come.

At the word our men wheeled into line of battle, the armored knights in the van, in two open ranks, then the men-at-arms in three more of closer array. The archers were not to charge with us, but, with a dozen knights and a hundred men-at-arms under Lord Mountjoy, were to form a rearguard lest other bodies of the Welsh close in upon us. Both Sir Geoffrey and I had won favor in the Lord Constable's eyes by somewhat we had accomplished in the fighting at the ford; and now I led the forces of Mountjoy at his right and Geoffrey those of Carleton and Teramore on his left hand.

In a moment came the furious shock of battle and all the frightful scenes of the struggle by the river's edge-with the vantage now on the side of our enemies. Many of the steeds of our gallant knights transfixed themselves upon the Welsh lances; and their riders, brought to the ground, fell victims to swords or javelins or were crushed beneath the hoofs of our own oncoming ranks. But the line of spears was utterly broken; and the other knights and men-at-arms drove furiously into the ma.s.s before them. Swords and lances did their terrible work, and in the briefest time hundreds of our enemies had fallen. The Constable fought that day with a huge mace, and, swinging it about his head as it were a willow wand, he seemed like the great G.o.d Thor of the heathen worship of old.

But now for every two or three of the Welsh one of our knights or men-at-arms perished also. Some of the tribesmen, struck down by the swords of the riders, thrust upwards at our horses with swords and knives as we pa.s.sed over them, and so cast down many a rider into the melee of dashing hoofs and glancing blades; and many times furious warriors, laying hold upon the riders, brought them to the earth and to speedy death. Their archers and javelin throwers aimed at our necks and faces; and though many of their shafts flew wide or even struck down their own, others found their marks indeed and added to our fatal losses.

From one desperate moment to another, for a length of time ever unknown to me, the struggle and the slaying went on unchecked. Our numbers grew ever fewer, and we were gaining scarce a yard of ground. For all the heaps of fallen, the Welsh fought on with undiminished fury; and 'twas evident that they would slay the last of us ere we could force the pa.s.s.

Lionel of Montmorency had fallen with half his men, as also Dunwoodie and Sir William, his brother and heir. The Lord Constable himself was wounded, and, panting with fatigue and loss of blood, had dropped his mace to fight again with broadsword. Sir Geoffrey of Carleton had once saved him from the hands of a huge Welsh warrior who sought to drag him from his saddle; and now the two fought almost back to back in an ever narrowing circle of enemies.

Suddenly I saw and felt the tribesmen wavering and giving ground before us, and became aware of a shower of cross-bow bolts that was falling among them and striking them down by hundreds. Looking up to see whence they came, I beheld Cedric of Mountjoy and half a thousand of his cross-bow men among the rocks in the promontory to the right, discharging their bolts as fast as they could lay them in groove and pouring a most deadly hail into the thick ranks of our enemies. 'Twas evident that Cedric had dismounted all his men and found some means to scale the cliffs and strike the Welsh in flank.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _THE LEADER HAD HIS GREAT SWORD THRUST ASIDE BY CEDRIC'S BOW, THEN WAS SEIZED ABOUT THE WAIST AND HURLED TO THE ROCKS BELOW_]

Then I saw that a body of the enemy, hastily called from the rear-most ranks by the huge and red-haired Gruffud, son of Rhys, a.s.saulted this position and sought to pull our archers from their posts of vantage.

Climbing upward amongst the crags, they faced at closest range the deadly aim of the cross-bow men. Backward they fell by scores, their bodies crushing down those below them. Not a dozen came to grips with the archers. Of these the leader had his great sword thrust aside by Cedric's bow, then was seized about the waist, lifted from the earth and thrown to the rocks below where he lay still with broken back.

With the fall of Gruffud, our men set up a mighty shout, and pressed the Welsh ever the harder. The deadly bolts still poured down from Cedric's vantage ground, but shifted ever their direction as we drove the enemy before us. The yells of the Welshmen, which had been those of victory and triumph, now changed to cries of despair. Hundreds turned and fled; and of these many cast down their weapons that they might run the faster. Soon the downward pathway ahead of us was filled with fugitives, and only a few bands of desperate warriors fought on, preferring death to such a defeat after victory had been almost within their grasp.

With the pa.s.s open before us, we paused not to pursue the Welsh into the rocky and wooded fastnesses where they had fled. Taking up our sorely wounded in such litters as we could hastily form, and those with less grave hurts behind the other hors.e.m.e.n, we reformed our column and rode away down the broad valley toward the Marches and the goodly fortress of Wenderley that Sir John Clarendon held for the King.

When the moon rose at the ninth hour of the evening of that day the Lord High Constable stood in the courtyard at Wenderley, surrounded by the lords and barons of his expedition and of the castle garrison. His wounds had been bathed and bandaged, but his face was white with the bloodletting and the fatigues of the day so that his friends were urging him to seek his rest. Yet for the time he put away their counsel, declaring that one duty yet remained. Young Geoffrey of Carleton and I with Cedric, my squire, had been summoned before him.

"Kneel down," he commanded, sternly. We obeyed in silence, and he drew his sword from its sheath and thrice struck the young Lord of Carleton lightly on the shoulder.

"Rise, Sir Geoffrey of Carleton," he said, "I dub thee knight. Be thou ever faithful, true and valorous as thou hast been this day."

Then I also received the strokes of the sword and words were p.r.o.nounced that made me a knight and chevalier in verity.

Lastly, and to my great amaze, I heard the words:

"Rise, Sir Cedric De La Roche. I dub thee Knight of the Crag. The device on thy shield shall be an eagle in token of the spot where thy resource changed defeat to victory. Be thou ever faithful, true and valorous as thou hast been this day, and England hath gained a stout defender and King Richard of the Lion Heart a worthy support to his throne."

CHAPTER XI-BY KIMBERLEY MOAT

After the Battle of the Pa.s.s we had a season of quiet at Mountjoy. King Richard had sailed on the Great Crusade, leaving his brother John as Regent; and the people of England, n.o.bles and commons alike, learned that there was a far worse rule than that of stern old Henry of Anjou, for John Lackland, his younger son, had at once the greed of a tiger and the meanness of a rat. Many of the high places of Church and State were filled with his favorites-miserable creatures for the most part whose only merits were a ready complaisance to the wishes of their master and a measure of craft and subtlety in furtherance of his schemes. Sheriffs and bailiffs of a yet more contemptible strain hurried to do the bidding of these velvet-clad beggars and thieves, and honest and forthright men led a hard life indeed unless they were themselves high in power and of numerous following.

Among these last might be reckoned the Mountjoys and their friends and allies, the Carletons of Teramore. We were too strong and too valuable in the defense of the Western Marches to be meddled with save for the greatest cause; so the land for some leagues about us was in a measure free from the ills which now and again brought other portions of the Kingdom to the verge of rebellion.

Sir Cedric, as now we gladly styled him, was high in the councils of Mountjoy. My father consulted him as often as myself on the gravest questions; and Lady Mountjoy willingly spent uncounted hours in bettering his knowledge of polite and courtly ways and of those divers little matters of knightly bearing to which in our rough Western land we give mayhap too little heed. At the books, to her amaze, he soon had far outstripped her. An uncle of his was one of the monks at Kirkwald Abbey, and a famous Latin scholar. For a year past, Cedric had been making frequent journeys to the Abbey; and once we had old Father Benedict at Mountjoy for a month or more. For hours together they would pore over dusty and ancient tomes that made me ache with weariness but to look upon them. The first we knew, our Cedric was better at the Latin reading than any layman we had seen or heard of. History and chronicles were good meat and drink to him; and often, with his head between the covers of a book, his dinner would be quite forgot but for my l.u.s.ty calling.

Withal he was no pale bookworm, but a l.u.s.ty and rollicking lad who in rough and tumble play could lay me on the broad of my back with scarce a minute's striving. At the sword-play I was ever his better, but his mastery of the cross-bow grew yet more wonderful as the seasons pa.s.sed.

Even the oldsters admitted that he equalled Marvin at Marvin's best.

Already he had the name of the best cross-bowman in England; and I found that strangers to our county, who had heard nothing of the deeds of my father and all our n.o.ble forbears, had knowledge, nevertheless, of Mountjoy as the house to which Sir Cedric gave allegiance.

But I think the thing that warmed me most toward my former squire and constant comrade was the loyalty he ever had to the cla.s.s of folk from which he sprung. Lord Mountjoy often gave to him authority over working crews at some necessary task on farm or highway or scouting parties of swordsmen and archers that rode the Marches to guard against the Welsh marauders. It would have been no wonder had such a sudden rise to t.i.tle and preferment bred in a youth who had been born in a forester's cot a certain arrogance of manner and an overweening confidence in his own worth and deserts. But, by his own desire, the archers and men-at-arms of Mountjoy still addressed him as they had when his station was no higher than theirs; and though he could be quick and firm on occasion, he was never above listening to and profiting by the counsels of the elder men in buckram or in hodden gray. Nor did he forget the cottage in Pelham Wood which housed his old father and his small, tow-headed brethren. Since he had dwelt at Mountjoy Hall, scarce a month had pa.s.sed without his riding thence and leaving with them some share in any guerdon he had won.

It was after such a journey that Cedric returned to the Hall one autumn evening in such a mood of silence and depression as I had never seen since those sad days when he quarreled with my father over the punishment due the churls of De Lancey Manor. At his supper he spoke no word, and ate and drank but little. My lady mother did anxiously inquire if he were ill, for we knew him well as a valiant trencherman, and he had ridden far in a frosty air. He put away her questionings with his usual courtesy, denying that aught ailed him; but me he could not so easily check, for I followed him to his room, and, finding him sitting with his face in his hands, demanded to know as friend and comrade what had turned his world awry.

"Sir Richard," he replied sadly, "hast ever had friend of thine flung into dungeon cell, there to lie at the pleasure of some low-living scoundrel?"

"Nay," I answered quickly, "this evil I have thus far 'scaped, though I well know 'tis common enough in these days, and many there be that suffer it."

"Of those I am one," replied Cedric. "And now I rack my head to know whether or not there be any possible help for it. Wilfrid, son of the farmer of Birkenhead, was my comrade and playmate since ever I can remember. We hunted and fished and swam together and willingly fought each other's battles when we were but little lads. Once he plunged in and pulled me from the Tarleton Water, when, far gone with cramp, I had twice sunken. His handling of the long-bow is well-nigh equal to my father's, and better than that of any youth I know. I had lately planned to bring him to Mountjoy and to say a word to thy father of his deserts."

"And who is it that now hath seized him?"

"'Tis that wry-mouthed and rat-eyed scoundrel, Bardolph, that lately hath been made King's Bailiff, and hath in charge the rebuilding of Kimberley Castle."