Zigzag Journeys in Europe Part 18

curiosity.

Sherwood Forest, or as much of it as remains, is twenty-five miles long and about eight broad. The new growth of trees is very fine; but it is the remains of the grand old oaks that attract the tourist and summer wanderer. The wood has a ground-work of exhaustless ferns, the delicate birches flutter in the warm winds, their peculiar shade contrasting with the greenery around them. Here and there oaks of different ages and alt.i.tudes rise gray, gnarled, and almost leafless,--oaks on which a thousand tempests have beaten, and around which ten thousand storms have blown. In Henry II.'s time not only Nottingham, but the whole of England, was covered with oaks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHAMBLE OAK.]

Tommy Toby was very urgent to visit some of the old historic oaks of Sherwood, especially such as are a.s.sociated with quaint stories and tragic histories.

Procuring a guide, the Cla.s.s went first to see Shamble Oak. Think of it: in the main circuit it is thirty-four feet! It is called Shamble Oak because a butcher once used its hollow trunk to conceal stolen sheep. He was hung on an oak.

The guide next took the boys to a dreamy old place called Welbeck Park, to see the Greendale Oak, supposed to be seven hundred years old, and which has a circ.u.mference of more than thirty-five feet!

"It looks as though it had the rheumatism," said Tommy. "With all of its crutches and canes it will not live many years longer. Do you think it will?"

"I think it likely to outlive all of us," said the guide. "More than one hundred and fifty years ago an arch was cut in this tree, and a lord rode through it on his wedding day. It was very, very old then; but the lord is gone, and the oak lives."

[Ill.u.s.tration: GREENDALE OAK.]

The guide procured for the party a vehicle, and drove to Parliament Oak, under which it is said that Edward I. held a Parliament in 1290.

The tree still furnishes green boughs. Its girth is about twenty-nine feet.

Newstead Abbey, the home of Lord Byron, forms a part of the old forest of Sherwood, and is but a short distance from Mansfield. It was founded by Henry II., and presents one of the picturesque and interesting ruins in this part of England.

"You will not be allowed to visit the Abbey," said the guide. "The rooms of Lord Byron remain just as he left them; his bedstead, with gilded coronets, his pictures, portraits of friends, writing-table, and all; but it is private property, and visitors are not allowed."

"The Abbey was built by Henry as one of the many peace offerings which he made for the murder of Thomas a Becket," said Master Lewis. "You remember the story?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: PARLIAMENT OAK.]

"Yes," said Wyllys Wynn. "Thomas a Becket claimed that the power of the clergy was superior to the power of the king, and Henry p.r.o.nounced him a traitor. He was killed at the altar by a party of conspirators, whose deed had the supposed sanction of the king. Henry did penance at Thomas a Becket's tomb."

"He stripped his back, and allowed the monks to whip him, did he not?"

said Tommy. "I remember the picture of it in my history."

Distant views of Newstead, so full of strange memories and fantastic histories, were all the Cla.s.s could obtain. The ruin looked down upon the charming old Nottinghamshire woodlands like a picture of the past, and the spirit of romance and poetry seemed to linger around it still.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MORTIMER'S HOLE.]

Going next to the fine old town of Nottingham, almost the first thing which the boys desired to see was Mortimer's Hole. This is a pa.s.sage through a sand-rock, more than three hundred feet in length. Through this pa.s.sage young Edward entered Nottingham Castle by night, and thus surprised and captured Mortimer (Earl of March). The wicked Earl was conveyed by the same pa.s.sage out of the castle so secretly that the guards were not aware that it had been entered.

In the evening spent at Nottingham, Tommy Toby was asked about his story of which he had spoken in connection with the place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MURDER OF THOMAS a BECKET.]

"It is not a story of Nottingham, but of Gotham, near Nottingham. It is about the Wise Men."

"Who went to sea in a bowl?" asked Frank.

"No, they were much wiser than that. I will try to tell it in the way Master Lewis tells his stories: in the rather _decorated_ style."

"I hope you will always have as nice a sense of honor as you show now," said Master Lewis, "whenever you make the slightest change from plain truth to parable. You have a tact for story-telling, for one so young; and you studied up the story of 'The Frolicsome Duke,' which you told the Club, in a manner that quite surprised us. I hope this story will prove as entertaining."

THE STORY OF THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.

"More than six hundred and fifty years ago, there reigned in England a king, named John. They called him _Sansterre_ or Lackland, for, unlike his brothers, he had received from his father no fiefs.

"He was the son of Henry Plantagenet, a good king, as kings went in those rude times, who governed England for thirty-four years.

"His mother was Eleanora of Aquitaine, who was, in her day, the prettiest girl in France. But she was a wilful little woman and full of craft. She married the French king first, but, not liking him on account of his monkish ways, she procured a divorce, and told Henry Plantagenet, who was young and handsome and gay, that she would like to marry him. He accepted the proposal, because the union would add to his dominions several provinces. Henry loved Rosamond Clifford,--'Fair Rosamond,'--whom he had met in the valley of the Wye, and who was the prettiest girl in all the world.

"The marriage proved an unhappy one. Henry soon discovered what a wily, wilful little woman she was; he tried to curb her, and a terrible time he had.

"Richard succeeded his father. It was he who made the grandest crusade of the Middle Ages; who was married at Cyprus in flower-time; who fought with n.o.ble Saladin at Acre and Jaffa; who was obliged to sail away from the Holy Land; who looked back from his beautiful ship on the unconquered coast with regret; who was shipwrecked and cast upon a hostile coast; and who was discovered, when imprisoned in a gloomy old castle on the Danube, by the harp of Blondel the Troubadour.

"Then came John, in whose veins flowed the worst blood of King Henry's family. Prince Arthur, Geoffrey's son, had the best claim to the crown, but somehow John got himself crowned, and he began to reign so terribly that the hearts of the barons quaked within them; and so, for a time, he silenced all opposition. He was as cunning as bad Queen Eleanora, and he loved to make mischief as well. He would order that a man should be killed, apparently with as little conscience as he would have ordered a butcher to slay a sheep. Most bad kings have been notable for some good qualities; King John, so far as I know, had none.

"In Nottinghamshire there is an old town, removed from the great centres of life and activity, called Gotham. The inhabitants were of good Saxon stock, and they hated the whole race of Norman Plantagenets. These people had learned something of liberty from bold Robin Hood, 'all under the greenwood tree.'

"One day there came a report to Old Gotham that King John was making a progress, and would pa.s.s through the town. Now it was an old custom in feudal times that the course that a king took, in pa.s.sing for the first time through a district or a shire, should become ever after a public highway. The people of Gotham wanted no public highway to their town, no avenue that would open their retreat to the Normans, and put them more easily in the power of brutal kings. And they hated John. So they held a council, and resolved that the feet of John Lackland, the murderer, should never dishonor the town of Gotham.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD'S FAREWELL TO THE HOLY LAND.]

"But the people understood that it would be a foolhardy work to oppose the progress of the king openly. They must rely upon their wits.

The men decided to go in a body and fell large trees across a certain upland, over which the royal party must pa.s.s to enter the town. This they did, making a barrier through which mounted hors.e.m.e.n would find it difficult to break, and which would compel a party like the king's to turn off by another way.

"When King John came to the eminence, and found his progress arrested, he was very angry, and, finding a couple of rustics near the place, he demanded of them who had made the barrier.

"'The people of Gotham,' answered one of the rustics.

"'Go you to Gotham,' said the king, 'and tell the people from me, that as soon as I return to camp I will send a troop to cut off their noses.'

"The two rustics ran off, terribly frightened, and reported the cheerful intelligence at Gotham. Oh, then there were stirring times in that old town! The people had no wish to receive a kingly decoration in that way.

"What was to be done?

"They met for consultation.

"Now there were wise men in Gotham, and, when the convention met, these wise men expressed their opinions not only on the nose question, but on public affairs in general. After a long deliberation, one of these wise men, whom I will call Fitz Peter, said: 'Our wits have thus far prevented King John from setting foot in our town, and our wits are able to save our noses.' This opinion was received with great satisfaction.

"But how should they accomplish the end?

"Now chief among the wise men of Gotham was one whom I will call Leofric. He at last stood up with a very knowing look, and said: 'I have heard of many people who were punished for being wise, but I never heard of a person who was punished for being a fool. When the king's troops come, let us each imitate a safe example, and act like a fool.'

"At this the people shouted. So they decided to rely on their wits for the safety of their noses, and to act like fools.

"One morning, very early, as a party of hors.e.m.e.n were leaving the town for hunting, a troop appeared, with a fierce sheriff at their head.

"The bowmen were terribly scared, and the question pa.s.sed around as to what they should do. They hit upon a plan, and threw away their hunting-gear. When the sheriff came up, he found the old men rolling great stones up the hill, and the young men bending over and grunting as if they were in great distress.