Cedric, the Forester Part 2

What with Marvin's simples, my wound was fast healing, and I longed for another fray where I could use my bow at close quarters. Scarce a day pa.s.sed without one of my bolts striking the steel harness of some Carleton knight; but none found their way to armor joints; and the peasants and leather-coated men-at-arms kept well beyond a hurtful range.

One dismal morning, when a month had pa.s.sed, my heart sank, as did those of all the Mountjoys, as we made out the tall figure in black armor and the long gray beard of the Lord of Carleton, again making his rounds at the head of a group of knights and squires. Plain to see, he had recovered from his wound and was as bent as ever on Mountjoy's fall. The old Gray Wolf was hungry not only for the house and lands of Mountjoy but also for the vengeance which to him would be sweeter than all the lands of England. Now might we expect new a.s.saults, planned with their two failures in mind, and bringing to bear new plans and schemes and all their beastly hate and greed. Some of our old serving men shivered as they spoke of the devilish deeds of the Gray Wolf, and of the fate in store for them if the next a.s.sault should win its way.

That night, at something after ten, the weather being raw and dismal with a cold spring rain and the spirits of all the Mountjoy folk somewhat adroop, one of the archers had been sent to the cellars to draw a pitcher of ale. In a moment he came up the stairs on the run, and burst into the hall with the empty pitcher held in shaking hands and with teeth chattering with fright.

"Oh, my lady!" he said, catching for his breath, "the Evil One hath us now, and all our doings are for naught."

"What say'st thou, Gavin?" called his mistress, "who tells thee tales of the Evil One?"

"'Tis-'Tis the truth," answered poor Gavin, "but now, in the cellars, he goes-_tap tap tap_ in the ground at one's feet. So has he come to take many a poor mortal. We be called for, and all our sins on our heads, with no holy man at hand to say him nay with book and bell."

"Go to. Thou'rt a coward when in the dark by thy lone," said my lady, scornfully, "though thou fight'st well and truly with comrades at thy elbow. Marvin, if our watchers are to have their sup of ale on this raw night, thou must even draw it thyself."

But our brave old archer, hero of a hundred battles, turned pale and answered slowly:

"Nay, my lady, it is not well for mortal men, with mayhap many a word and deed unconfessed and unpenanced, to meddle with the Powers of Darkness. For my sins I know them of old, and I dare not face them. Show me a mortal man, and I'll stand before him with whatever weapons, but not the spirits that thump on the footstones by night or twist the neck of a sleeping man with a hand not seen."

My mother turned pale, and I could see the fringe of her sleeve barely aquiver in the candlelight. She opened her mouth to speak in reproof of Marvin; but found no words, and sat gazing toward him with wide and glistening eyes. Truth to tell, it was a fearsome thing, and for myself I had but the smallest wish to face the dungeon pa.s.sages on that black night. 'Twas not so long since I would not have faced them by my lone on the most quiet and peaceful of nights with no armed enemies within a day's journey; and a great round lump came up into my throat as I thought of it. Yet, even as we sat eying one another in fear, a thought came to my mind of the duty of a Mountjoy. 'Twas but natural that our serving men should fear the evil sprites let loose by darkness and troublous times; and e'en my mother, a fair and gracious lady, and withal none too strong of body, was not made to face such things. But I was the Heir of Mountjoy; and my father had knelt before a King of France and been made Knight of a holy order for his deeds on the Plains of Jerusalem. I started up and cried:

"Tush! good Marvin. Methought thee far too bold for frightening with old wives' tales. Come! I'll go before thee bearing a candle to fright away thy imaginings."

"Spoken like a true Montmorency," said my mother with a strange little laugh, "truly, d.i.c.kon, thou'lt shame us all."

Then she rose and reached to the shelf behind her for a candlestick.

"Oh, now, my lady!" cried old Dame Franklin. "Go not to the dungeons on such a night. The men can better want their sup of ale. 'Tis an ill night for all uneasy sprites. Bide here by the fire, for soon we go to the battlements again."

But my lady already stood with her hand on the great latch of the door at the head of the stairway which led to the donjon keep. I took my cross-bow.

"If any of the Imps of Darkness challenge us," I said, "I'll see whether or no they can stand before a good steel bolt."

But even in the midst of my confident words, I had a thought anent the spectral tappings which chilled the blood in my veins. Ghostly visitants I was ready then to challenge; but I had heard my father tell how the Crusaders took one Saracen stronghold by means of a mine or tunnel, dug with weeks of toil under the walls and into the pa.s.sages of the ancient keep. Why should not the Old Wolf of Carleton have planned a like attack? During the weeks when his men had seemed so quiet and had given the Mountjoys scarcely a chance for a long bowshot, might they not have been driving such a tunnel under their very feet? Suppose that tapping that Gavin thought the work of the Evil One were the sound of the tools of the servants of one scarcely less evil and with even more cause to wish us ill!

"Come then," said my mother, her face white but firm. Opening the great oak door, she led the way toward the dungeons.

Cross-bow in hand, I followed; and just behind me came Dame Franklin. As she moved toward the door, Old Marvin picked up his cross-bow, made sure of the poniard in his belt and followed also, mumbling the while, as best he might, the words of a Latin prayer.

We came to pause amid the stillness of the vault which was like unto that of the Mountjoy tomb at Kirkwald Abbey to which one day, with my hand tightly clasping my father's, I had paid a well remembered visit.

The candle wavered and guttered in a faint draught, and the light gleamed on the wide eyes of the old dame and the trembling hands of the archer. I was standing full still with my eyes on my mother's face. For long we stood while I could hear no sound save the beating strokes beneath my doublet. Then, suddenly, from the floor beneath or the solid wall beside us,-

Tap, tap-tap-tap tap.

No one spoke. The candle shook in my lady's hand till it threatened to fall and leave us in utter darkness. Dame Franklin and the old soldier were frozen in their places. Then again:

Tap tap-tap-tap tap.

"Oh, Mother," I whispered, "the pa.s.sage! The secret pa.s.sage! Our enemies have found it."

There was another fearsome silence. Then again-Tap tap-tap-tap tap.

Then the echoes of the great vault were roused by a loud, clear call from my lady mother:

"Oh, my lord! My Lord Mountjoy, is it thou?"

There came a m.u.f.fled voice in reply, and again we heard the tapping.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _DAME FRANKLIN AND THE OLD SOLDIER WERE FROZEN IN THEIR PLACES_]

At once she leaped toward the wall with a glad cry:

"Oh, my lord, my lord, have patience but a moment. I will undo the door."

She brushed aside some old and mildewed hangings, all heavy with dust and grime, and brought to view a small iron door. s.n.a.t.c.hing from her girdle the largest key, she fitted it into the lock. Still, try as she would, she could not turn it till old Marvin came to her help. Then indeed the rusty lock gave way, the door swung slowly open, and my father, the Lord of Mountjoy, followed by half a score of knights and men-at-arms, stepped forth into the candlelight.

When Lady Mountjoy at last was free from my father's embrace, she stood with her hands on his shoulders and asked a dozen questions, demanding that he answer all at once.

"Whence comest thou, my lord? Are the Scots beaten? Had'st thou news of the treachery of the Old Wolf of Carleton? How many men hast thou? Oh! I had forgot this secret pa.s.sage and the door to which thou gavest me the key on our wedding day. My foolish men, and almost myself, believed thy signal was a ghostly tapping. But d.i.c.kon remembered the pa.s.sage; and when I had thrice heard the signal I knew it for the knock that thou makest at my door,-the signal that means thee and none else in the world."

Meanwhile old Marvin had made fast the secret door, and we all were moving toward the stairway, my father's arm encased in link armor thrown around the waist of the castle's mistress.

"Welladay, my dearest Kate! Not quite so fast and I will tell thee. The Scots are beaten; and we of Mountjoy had an honorable share in it. The campaign goes on, but a loyal youth from Mountjoy village found me after the battle and told of the doings of the traitor, Carleton. Straightway I took the boy before the King. And he being pleased with some work I had done that day, did bid me take ten of my best men, make my choice of ten horses from his train, and ride post haste to the relief of my house and my lady. We reached the Tarn Rock, half a league from here, at nightfall, and reconnoitered Carleton's camp. He being in greater force than we could cope with at once, I bethought me of this old pa.s.sage from the wood two furlongs off. And so I have been tap, tap tapping for an hour, hoping at last to get the news of my coming to thee. And art thou well, my Kate? And have the rascals done aught to harm thee or d.i.c.kon here?"

"Not a whit, my lord. Save for an arrow stroke our d.i.c.kon hath come by in open fight, and which is already nearly healed. They have made some mighty threats, and would have carried them through with right good will could they have reached us; but, thanks to d.i.c.kon, to old Marvin here and the others, they got much worse than they gave. Many a Carleton knave will ne'er cut another throat, be it of man or pig; and the Old Wolf himself was very near to his just reward in the shape of a good steel bolt from Marvin's bow."

On the ramparts next morning swung my father's banner of purple and gold. Watching our enemies' camp, I could plainly see that the display of this flag, which they knew should signify naught else than the presence of the head of our house, early brought most of them, and finally the Gray Wolf himself, to gaze at the flagstaff. They were telling one another, as I could well imagine, that this was but a ruse on the part of the castle's mistress, intended to deceive them into the belief that Lord Mountjoy had come through their lines in the night.

What was their surprise therefore, when Lord Mountjoy appeared on the battlements in full armor and wearing the purple plume he had brought from Italy, and yet more when they saw him attended and followed as he was. Armored knights, in numbers they could not tell, came into sight and pa.s.sed from view on the battlements and at the cas.e.m.e.nts. We could fairly see the rumor flying through the Carleton camp that Lord Mountjoy had returned with all his men and by stealth or by magic had pa.s.sed their sentinels during the night.

The Gray Wolf stared long and viciously at our battlements, and called on those with younger eyes to make sure of what he saw. Then with oaths and curses that made his men quail before him, he gave orders to break camp and return to Teramore.

By midday the last signs of the siege were gone, the ashes of the circling camp fires were cold, and the great drawbridge was down once more. A messenger was sent to the Tarn Rock to bring in the horses and their guards. In the sunny spring afternoon, when we went forth to reconnoiter the deserted camps of our enemies, I rode at my father's side, wearing for the first time the gold-hilted sword which had been brought from Damascus.

Two months later, the King returning to London, confirmed my father in possession of his estates, and sent messengers to old Lord Carleton demanding his instant attendance at court. Again the Old Wolf was ill, too much so to obey the command of his sovereign; but this time he was not to rise from his bed as soon as the messengers had turned their backs.

The wound in his throat made by Marvin's bolt had never fully healed, and now this, coupled with his old distemper, had laid him low. Even while the heralds waited, the priest in the great upper chamber was saying the prayers for the dying. At sunset on that day, I could see from the Tarn Rock the blue and white banner of Carleton flying at half mast over the battlements of Teramore.

CHAPTER III-CEDRIC THE FORESTER

It was on a sunny noontide, in fair October, some six months after we had driven the hounds of Carleton from our castle of Mountjoy, that I was riding in the forest, three leagues and more from home, on the way to see my cousins of Leicester at their manor by the edge of Pelham Wood, and mayhap to share with them one of those goodly pasties of venison which their table never lacks.

My bonny white mare, Clothilde, did amble along the woodland path with dainty and springing steps, as though 'twere joy enough to be abroad and lightly burdened on such a day; and it seemed to me I felt my youth and growing bones and sinews as ne'er before. As I pa.s.sed the Tarleton Water which was rippling most sweetly under the sun glints, I was minded of a fair dream that had come to me on that night we halted the second a.s.sault of the Carletons, and after old Marvin had bathed and dressed the wound I had from a cross-bow bolt. Here was the sparkling water, just as I had seen it then, and the glimmering of the light on the oak leaves of red and brown and gold; and here was I astride the goodly mare that I had raised and broken from a colt, and on an errand far enough removed from the grim business of that dark and dangerous time.

By my side was the gold-hilted sword from Damascus which had been mine since the return of my father, Lord Mountjoy, from the Scottish war; and I bore no other arms nor thought of any need for them. My sixteenth birthday would not now be long in coming; and already my mark on the lintel post was within a handsbreadth of my father's own. My voice had grown more settled of late; and, in the lonely reaches of the forest, I was practicing for my own delight a sweet ballad which I had often heard him sing, and which he had from the minstrels of Provence who had journeyed with the armies to the Holy Land.

Suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I marked the movement of a bush in a little glade two hundred yards to the right of my path. The swing it made was none such as are caused by the wind; and indeed at the time all the air about was still and warm with the quietness of the summer of St.

Martin's. Rather was the movement I had scarcely seen the twitch of the leafy top of a sapling when its stem is roughly seized or when some heavy thing hath fallen against it. To me it told, plainly and well, that either was a deer grazing in that thicket or that some man, mayhap with good reason for not wishing to be seen, was hiding there.