Historical Tales Volume Iv Part 9

Fortunately for Richard, the perfidious emperor allowed the secret of his design to get adrift; one of the hostages left in his hands heard of it and found means to warn the king. Richard, at this tidings, stayed not for storm, but at once took pa.s.sage in the galliot of a Norman trader named Alain Franchemer, narrowly escaping the men-at-arms sent to take him prisoner. Not many days afterwards he landed at the English port of Sandwich, once more a free man and a king.

What followed in Richard's life we design not to tell, other than the story of his life's ending with its romantic incidents. The liberated king had not been long on his native soil before he succeeded in securing Normandy against the invading French, building on its borders a powerful fortress, which he called his "Saucy Castle," and the ruins of whose st.u.r.dy walls still remain. Philip was wrathful when he saw its ramparts growing.

"I will take it were its walls of iron," he declared.

"I would hold it were the walls of b.u.t.ter," Richard defiantly replied.

It was church land, and the archbishop placed Normandy under an interdict. Richard laughed at his wrath, and persuaded the pope to withdraw the curse. A "rain of blood" fell, which scared his courtiers, but Richard laughed at it as he had at the bishop's wrath.

"Had an angel from heaven bid him abandon his work, he would have answered with a curse," says one writer.

"How pretty a child is mine, this child of but a year old!" said Richard, gladly, as he saw the walls proudly rise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STATUE OF RICHARD COEUR DE LION.]

He needed money to finish it. His kingdom had been drained to pay his ransom. But a rumor reached him that a treasure had been found at Limousin,--twelve knights of gold seated round a golden table, said the story. Richard claimed it. The lord of Limoges refused to surrender it.

Richard a.s.sailed his castle. It was stubbornly defended. In savage wrath he swore he would hang every soul within its walls.

There was an old song which said that an arrow would be made in Limoges by which King Richard would die. The song proved a true prediction. One night, as the king surveyed the walls, a young soldier, Bertrand de Gourdon by name, drew an arrow to its head, and saying, "Now I pray G.o.d speed thee well!" let fly.

The shaft struck the king in the left shoulder. The wound might have been healed, but unskilful treatment made it mortal. The castle was taken while Richard lay dying, and every soul in it hanged, as the king had sworn, except Bertrand de Gourdon. He was brought into the king's tent, heavily chained.

"Knave!" cried Richard, "what have I done to you that you should take my life?"

"You have killed my father and my two brothers," answered the youth.

"You would have hanged me. Let me die now, by any torture you will. My comfort is that no torture to me can save _you_. You, too, must die; and through me the world is quit of you."

The king looked at him steadily, and with a gleam of clemency in his eyes.

"Youth," he said, "I forgive you. Go unhurt."

Then turning to his chief captain, he said,--

"Take off his chains, give him a hundred shillings, and let him depart."

He fell back on his couch, and in a few minutes was dead, having signalized his last moments with an act of clemency which had had few counterparts in his life. His clemency was not matched by his piety. The priests who were present at his dying bed exhorted him to repentance and rest.i.tution, but he drove them away with bitter mockery, and died as hardened a sinner as he had lived. It should, however, be said that this statement of the character of Richard's death, given by the historian Green, does not accord with that of Lingard, who says that Richard sent for his confessor and received the sacraments with sentiments of compunction.

As for Bertrand, the chronicles say that he failed to profit by the kindness of the king. A dead monarch's voice has no weight in the land.

The pardoned youth was put to death.

_ROBIN HOOD AND THE KNIGHT OF THE RUEFUL COUNTENANCE._

"Where will the old duke live?" asks Oliver, in Shakespeare's "As you like it."

"They say he is already in the forest of Arden," answers Charles, "and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England, and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world."

Many a merry man, indeed, was there with Robin Hood in Sherwood forest, and, if we may believe the stories that live in the heart of English song, there they fleeted the time as carelessly as men did in the golden age; for Robin was king of the merry greenwood, as the Norman kings were lords of the realm beside, and though his state was not so great nor his coffers so full, his heart was merrier and his conscience more void of offence against man and G.o.d. If Robin lived by plunder, so did the king; the one took toll from a few travellers, the other from a kingdom; the one dealt hard blows in self-defence, the other killed thousands in war for self-aggrandizement; the one was a patriot, the other an invader.

Verily Robin was far the honester man of the two, and most worthy the admiration of mankind.

Nor was the kingdom of Robin Hood so much less extensive than that of England's king as men may deem, though its tenants were fewer and its revenues less. For in those days forest land spread widely over the English isle. The Norman kings had driven out the old inhabitants far and wide, and planted forests in place of towns, peopling them with deer in place of men. In its way this was merciful, perhaps. Those rude old kings were not content unless they were hunting and killing, and it was better they should kill deer than men. But their cruel game-laws could not keep men from the forests, and the woods they planted served as places of shelter for the outlaws they made.

William the Conqueror, so we are told, had no less than sixty-eight forests peopled with deer, and guarded against intrusion of common man by a cruel interdict. His successors added new forests, until it looked as if England might be made all woodland, and the red deer its chief inhabitants. Sherwood forest, the favorite lurking-place of the bold Robin, stretched for thirty miles in an unbroken line. But this was only part of Robin's "realm of plesaunce." From Sherwood it was but a step to other forests, stretching league after league, and peopled by bands of merry rovers, who laughed at the king's laws, killed and ate his cherished deer at their own sweet wills, and defied sheriff and man-at-arms, the dense forest depths affording them innumerable lurking-places, their skill with the bow enabling them to defend their domain from a.s.sault, and to exact tribute from their foes.

Such was the realm of Robin Hood, a realm of giant oaks and silvery birches, a realm prodigal of trees, o'ercanopied with green leaves until the sun had ado to send his rays downward, carpeted with brown moss and emerald gra.s.ses, thicketed with a rich undergrowth of bryony and clematis, p.r.i.c.kly holly and golden furze, and a host of minor shrubs, while some parts of the forest were so dense that, as Camden says, the entangled branches of the thickly-set trees "were so twisted together, that they hardly left room for a person to pa.s.s."

Here were innumerable hiding-places for the forest outlaws when hunted too closely by their foes. They lacked not food; the forest was filled with grazing deer and antlered stags. There was also abundance of smaller game,--the hare, the coney, the roe; and of birds,--the partridge, pheasant, woodc.o.c.k, mallard, and heron. Fuel could be had in profusion when fire was needed. For winter shelter there were many caverns, for Sherwood forest is remarkable for its number of such places of refuge, some made by nature, others excavated by man.

Happy must have been the life in this greenwood realm, jolly the outlaws who danced and sang beneath its shades, merry as the day was long their hearts while summer ruled the year, while even in drear winter they had their caverns of refuge, their roaring wood-fires, and the spoils of the year's forays to carry them through the season of cold and storm. A follower of bold Robin might truly sing, with Shakespeare,--

"Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me, And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither: Here shall he see No enemy, But winter and rough weather."

But the life of the forest-dwellers was not spent solely in enjoyment of the pleasures of the merry greenwood. They were hunted by men, and became hunters of men. True English hearts theirs, all Englishmen their friends, all Normans their foes, they were in no sense brigands, but defenders of their soil against the foreign foe who had overrun it, the successors of Hereward the Wake, the last of the English to bear arms against the invader, and to keep a shelter in which the English heart might still beat in freedom.

No wonder the oppressed peasants and serfs of the fields sang in gleeful strains the deeds of the forest-dwellers; no wonder that Robin Hood became the hero of the people, and that the homely song of the land was full of stories of his deeds. We can scarcely call these historical tales: they are legendary; yet it may well be that a stratum of fact underlies the aftergrowth of romance; certainly they were history to the people, and as such, with a mental reservation, they shall be history to us. We propose, therefore, here to convert into prose "a lytell geste of Robyn Hode."

It was a day in merry spring-tide. Under the sun-sprinkled shadows of the "woody and famous forest of Barnsdale" (adjoining Sherwood) stood gathered a group of men attired in Lincoln green, bearing long bows in their hands and quivers of sharp-pointed arrows upon their shoulders, hardy men all, strong of limb and bold of face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBIN HOOD'S WOODS.]

Leaning against an oak of centuried growth stood Robin Hood, the famous outlaw chief, a strong man and st.u.r.dy, with handsome face and merry blue eyes, one fitted to dance cheerily in days of festival, and to strike valiantly in hours of conflict. Beside him stood the tall and stalwart form of Little John, whose name was given him in jest, for he was the stoutest of the band. There also were valiant Much, the miller's son, gallant Scathelock, George a Green, the pindar of Wakefield, the fat and jolly Friar Tuck, and many another woodsman of renown, a band of l.u.s.ty archers such as all England could not elsewhere match.

"Faith o' my body, the hours pa.s.s apace," quoth Little John, looking upward through the trees. "Is it not time we should dine?"

"I am not in the mood to dine without company," said Robin. "Our table is a dull one without guests. If we had now some bold baron or fat abbot, or even a knight or squire, to help us carve our haunch of venison, and to pay his scot for the feast, I wot me all our appet.i.tes would be better."

He laughed meaningly as he looked round the circle of faces.

"Marry, if such be your whim," answered Little John, "tell us whither we shall go to find a guest fit to grace our greenwood table, and of what rank he shall be."

"At least let him not be farmer or yeoman," said Robin. "We war on hawks, not on doves. If you can bring me a bishop now, or i' faith, the high-sheriff of Nottingham, we shall dine merrily. Take Much and Scathelock with you, and away. Bring me earl or baron, abbot or simple knight, or squire, if no better can be had; the fatter their purses the better shall be their welcome."

Taking their bows, the three yeomen strode at a brisk pace through the forest, bent upon other game than deer or antlered stag. On reaching the forest edge near Barnsdale, they lurked in the bushy shadows and kept close watch and ward upon the highway that there skirted the wood, in hope of finding a rich relish to Robin's meal.

Propitious fortune seemed to aid their quest. Not long had they bided in ambush when, afar on the road, they spied a knight riding towards them.

He came alone, without squire or follower, and promised to be an easy prey to the trio of stout woodsmen. But as he came near they saw that something was amiss with him. He rode with one foot in the stirrup, the other hanging loose; a simple hood covered his head, and hung negligently down over his eyes; grief or despair filled his visage, "a soryer man than he rode never in somer's day."

Little John stepped into the road, courteously bent his knee to the stranger, and bade him welcome to the greenwood.

"Welcome be you, gentle knight," he said; "my master has awaited you fasting, these three hours."

"Your master--who is he?" asked the knight, lifting his sad eyes.

"Robin Hood, the forest chief," answered Little John.