Cedric, the Forester Part 16

"He that plundered the chapel at Ravenstone?"

"The same. He would steal the pennies from the eyes of the dead, if no avenger were by. But 'tis spite rather than greed that prompts him in this matter of my friend. Some years ago, when we were all lads together, young Bardolph, who is the son of an innkeeper at Rothwell, came riding past Birkenhead with some village comrades of his. In a foolish attempt at wit, he cast some foul insult at Wilfrid who stood by the way, watching them pa.s.s. In an instant, Wilfrid had s.n.a.t.c.hed him from the saddle and rolled him well in a puddle of mud that chanced to be at hand, so that Bardolph rode home at last a sorry spectacle indeed.

That day he ne'er forgot, it seems, and only now has found an opportunity for vengeance. He hath been given the charge of the work at Kimberley where Prince John plans to enlarge and strengthen the fortress and fill it with a numerous garrison. He hath need of many cattle for the work of hauling the stone and timber; and though we are not now at war, and there can be seen no pressing need for haste, he seizes the horses and oxen from the farmers roundabout and drives the work as though the Scotch and Welsh were o'er the borders both at once. With this excuse he seized the yoke cattle at Birkenhead."

"But Birkenhead is full five leagues from Kimberley."

"Aye, and that it is that shows the act was done with malice and with none of necessity. A hundred farms were nearer to the castle, and some of them might far better spare their oxen. 'Twas in the thick of harvest too. Thou knowest how the rains have held it back till it seems that the snows may cover the uncut grain if the farmers make not haste. But Wilfrid made shift to go on with his hauling in some sort. He put to the yoke a pair of half-broke steers that should not have worked till the spring, and with half loads was bringing his crops to barn and stack.

Then what did Bardolph do but come again, with two soldiers at his back, and make demand of Wilfrid for these cattle also."

"The hound! I would I had been there to tell him straight what manner of cur he is."

"There was no need for that. Wilfrid forthwith flew into such a rage as drove from him all fear of what might betide. First he shouted at the bailiff some most naked truths as to his character and doings, then he rushed upon him, and, warding off a sword blow, pulled him from his horse, even as he had done that other time, and ere the soldiers could interfere had broken Bardolph's nose with one great blow from his fist."

"Oh Saints above! Did he so indeed? There's a yeoman for thee of the sort that win England's battles. I would we _had_ him under Mountjoy banner. But what next occurred?"

"The soldiers had leaped from their horses as soon as the bailiff went down, and both together they seized Wilfrid and overthrew and bound him fast. Then, lashing him on the back of a horse, they set out for Kimberley, with he of the broken nose riding close behind, shedding a stream of blood and furious oaths. The neighbor folk say that over and over again he swore that young Birkenhead should never leave Kimberley alive."

"By'r Lady!" I cried, "there's naught to prevent him making good his threats. He is in command at Kimberley now that the Sheriff hath left for the North."

Cedric nodded sadly.

"'Tis so. He dares not put him to death openly, but he may starve him in his cell and report that he died of a sickness. And if the Sheriff returns, I doubt of much betterment for one in Wilfrid's plight. Thou knowest well that throughout England at this moment there are lying in dungeons, with chains on their limbs, full many honest men who are as innocent of any crime as thou or me."

"I know it well indeed. And of these there are many as to whom their very jailers know not the charge against them, for their accusers are long ago dead. 'Tis a hard world we live in, Cedric; but I see not how we may better it."

Cedric sprang up and faced me with high-held head and blazing eyes.

"Sir Richard, if thou'lt help me, we _may_ better this hard world for one luckless man. It has come to me how we may take Wilfrid of Birkenhead from the very walls of Kimberley."

"Help thee? My word upon it, I _will_ help thee if it can be done at all. Say on."

"My thought is this," answered Cedric quickly, whilst tears of joy sprang to his eyes at my hearty seconding, "one that came from Kimberley even as we talked at my father's to-day hath told us that Wilfrid is confined not in the castle dungeons, since those are in some way concerned in the present changes, but in a strong room in the tower, some forty feet above the moat. The window is not barred, since the apartment was never meant to serve for prison; but the wall is sheer below it to the cliff that steeply slopes from thence to the moat.

'Twould be sure death to fling one's self down, since the rock at the base is after all too wide to be pa.s.sed by a leap from the window. But with a stout rope now, and with friends on the farther side with horses not far off-"

"But the sentries on the battlements would surely spy him as he descended."

"Not on a moonless night, and especially if he knew the moment when the sentry had just pa.s.sed overhead and therefore would not soon return.

'Tis a desperate thing, I own; but believe me, Sir Richard, we shall not fail. Already I see the way to take the rope and our messages to Wilfrid in his cell. There is a group of trees which in the last score of years while the castle has been little used as a stronghold, has been allowed to grow on the hither side of the moat, just opposite the tower. There we will hide and do our part in the venture. To-morrow night will be moonless. What sayest thou?"

The next day at noon, soon after Bardolph of the Broken Nose had ridden away from Kimberley on some necessary errand, a stout old monk, in the flowing robe of his order, with hood and cowl closely drawn about his face, and bearing a basket on his arm, appeared at the gate of Kimberley. He wished to see the prisoner, Wilfrid, and to bear to him the consolations of religion and also some articles of food which friends of his had prepared. The clerkly youth who seemed in authority in the absence of the bailiff was much in doubt as to the wisdom of permitting any such entry, and, indeed, at first refused. But the good monk fairly overwhelmed him with quotations from the Scripture and the writings of the Holy Fathers relative to his duty to visit those who were sick or in prison, and quoted so many Latin texts that the youth was soon fairly bewildered and overcome. Stipulating only that the basket be left below, since the bailiff had given strict orders that no food was to be taken to the prisoner by any save himself, he led the way up the tower stairs, and unlocking the heavy oaken door, admitted the monk to the room where Birkenhead was confined.

In another quarter of an hour the monk had departed as he came, taking up his basket again at the gateway and leaving with the chatelaine his heartiest blessing. To me, who had been anxiously watching from one of the village houses, a furlong from the walls, it seemed that he walked with much firmer and more vigorous step as he returned o'er the drawbridge than he had when first he crossed it. But if this were so, none in the castle seemed to remark it-at any rate the monk's departure was not interrupted, and he pa.s.sed out of the village, looking neither to the right nor the left.

Soon after, I followed and overtook him after he had entered a thick copse of yew and hazel half a mile away. Beneath that leafy screen, Cedric flung off the monkish gown and hood, dropped the basket on the ground, and stood gazing at it gloomily.

"Sir Richard," he said at length, "Wilfrid of Birkenhead hath been for three days close shut in that tower room, and no least morsel of food hath been given him. Bardolph verily means to compa.s.s his death by starving."

"The miserable hound!" I answered between set teeth, "'tis a pity Wilfrid did not strike a thought harder and break his worthless skull."

Cedric's face was wried with pain and wrath. He stamped upon the ground in bitter impatience. Then, pulling from the basket the huge meat pie which had formed the greater part of the provision he had sought to carry to the prisoner, he dropped it before him and struck it with most vicious kick before it reached the ground. The crust flew off in a dozen pieces, and revealed the inner part as no juicy slices of flesh of fowl or pig but a close-wound coil of hempen rope, such as no mortal man could feed upon.

"Had I placed this beneath my armpits as was my first thought," growled Cedric, "it would now have been safe hidden in the bundle of straw they have given Wilfrid for a bed. Fortune favored us not, it seems; but mayhap that fickle jade will smile on our further contrivings. I made a new plan even as I climbed the tower stairs; and Wilfrid is well apprised of it. 'Tis not so simple as the first nor seemingly so sure; but it may serve our turn."

"Must we wait till the morrow and risk another entry of the castle?" I questioned. "Mayhap the bailiff will not ride abroad so opportunely."

"Nay, we shall make the essay to-night," he answered slowly. "Time presses, if Wilfrid is not to be so weakened by fasting as to be incapable of any effort in his own behalf. Marcel hath already been told to have the horses here at nine and await our coming till dawn if need be. If we can come by a ball of fine, stout cord like fishing lines, we will have that rope in the tower room by midnight. Then all the rest will be quickly done, and Wilfrid a dozen leagues from Kimberley ere sunrise."

An hour before midnight Cedric and I lay under the group of saplings, ten yards from the castle moat and opposite the window of the room which held young Wilfrid of Birkenhead. Beside us on the ground, lay the ball of cord, with one projecting end fastened to the coil of rope. Now Cedric took a cross-bow bolt from the sack at his girdle and tied the other end of the cord firmly about it. Then, drawing the bow, he placed the bolt in groove.

The sky was covered with thin clouds that half obscured the stars; and the moon had not yet risen. The castle wall on the other side of the moat was a gray blur in the murk, but we could clearly see the sentinel as he slowly paced his rounds of the battlements. The steel cap that he wore and the point of his spear caught now and again a gleam of the starlight. Twenty feet below the tower's summit a blacker square in the wall was the window of Wilfrid's cell; and to the right of this could barely be discerned the lattice which had been swung wide as though to admit the fresher air.

Cedric crouched on his knees, gazing at the window till the sentry pa.s.sed from sight; then softly he uttered the cry of an owl. At once some white object fluttered in the blackness of the cell window. Cedric rose to his feet, took careful aim at the window and let fly the bolt.

But alas! the pull of the cord as it unwound from the ball checked the quarrel sadly, and it rang on the stones of the wall no higher than our heads. We crouched at once in the shadows, certain that the sentry had heard its steely stroke; but he came not back to the tower; and soon we breathed again.

Cedric drew in the line and recharged his weapon, whispering to me the while that he should have better known than to have it so tightly coiled, and that another try, with the cord lying loose, would surely place the bolt within the window.

Now the sentry came again on his rounds; and we waited perforce for his pa.s.sing. When he had gone once more Cedric threw his weapon to his shoulder and sent the bolt on its way. How my ears strained in listening! And, an instant later, how my heart sank when I heard once more the clang of iron 'gainst the tower stones and realized that Cedric had failed a second time to strike his mark at fifty paces.

This time the sentry heard the stroke-or so it seemed-for he came hurrying back to the tower battlements, and peered downward past the open window for minutes together. But all had become as still as death, and there was naught that he could see; so at length he turned away and resumed his pacing.

As Cedric again drew in the quarrel, he whispered to me:

"I have it now. The line drew down my bolt by a yard or more. I must allow for that by a higher aim. The third cast never fails; and for that we yet have time ere yonder sentry is sure there's mischief afoot."

He took a fresh bolt and tied the cord with care about it. Then for the third time he aimed at the tower above us. 'Twas the lucky third indeed, for, close following the whir of the quarrel, came a m.u.f.fled thud as it struck the oaken door within the cell. This seemed not to reach the ears of the sentry on the other side of the battlements, for though we listened with bated breath, there was no sound of his returning footsteps. The next instant we could see the unspent portion of the line was tightening with a pull from the tower. Then straightway the coil of rope left its place at our feet, swam through the moat and climbed the tower's side.

Cedric and I clasped hands in joy, for now we could see our project succeeding. In no more time than he needed to descend from the window, swim the moat and reach the horses in the hazel copse, Wilfrid would be safely away from Kimberley.

Once more the sentry made his rounds, and once more pa.s.sed regardless of what was going forward six yards below him. Wilfrid appeared at the window, and, lowering himself hand over hand, came swiftly down the rope to the cliff below. There misfortune awaited us. As he dangled from the rope with his feet seeking a hold on the sloping cliff, he loosened a bit of rock, the size of a man's head, that lay near the tower base; and this accursed stone slid and rolled noisily down the crag and struck the waters of the moat with a hideous splashing.

At once the sentry, whose ears mayhap had been sharpened by the other noise for which he had found no reason, came running again to the tower.

Peering into the darkness below, he spied the prisoner just as he leaped down the rock and plunged into the moat.

The sentinel was a ready man and determined,-such an one as might well have served a better master. Setting up a l.u.s.ty shout of alarm, he turned at once to a pile of the stones that were kept on the battlements for the repelling of besiegers, and began hurling these into the moat.

The water's surface was in shadow and we could not see the head of the swimmer, nor could we tell whether any of the soldier's wild-flung missiles had found their mark. A minute pa.s.sed wherein my blood seemed to freeze and my limbs to lock themselves fast like those of one who perishes from a mad dog's bite. The stones still followed one another in vicious plunges into the black waters: and the soldier continued to halloo for the guardsmen at the gate to lower the bridge and search the farther bank.

Then Cedric broke away from me and plunged into the moat. Forgetting all else, I followed him to the water's edge, stood peering vainly into the blackness, and might have dived in also had he not speedily returned. He was swimming l.u.s.tily with one hand, and with the other bearing up his comrade. I seized them both as they came within reach, and hauled them ash.o.r.e. Cedric joined with me and we drew Wilfrid up the bank and half way to the group of saplings. There Cedric stopped with a groan of misery, and fell on his knees by the limp body of his friend. The wind had brushed the clouds from the sky; and by the starlight I saw that Wilfrid's head had been crushed by one of the stones from the battlements.

Cedric rose to his feet and shook his fist in frenzy toward the King's stronghold. But already the bridge was down, and the guard was pouring across. I plucked my comrade by the sleeve.

"Come Cedric, come! Our friend is past all help. Let us away ere they slay us also."

He turned to me with a face of deathly whiteness; and for a moment I thought he would refuse. But I seized his hand, and he let me hurry him to the shelter of the trees. Through these we quickly pa.s.sed, and then raced down the dim-lit field to a hedgerow a furlong away. Running behind this, we soon distanced our pursuers.