Zigzag Journeys in Europe Part 4

"ALL O!"

The boys looked at the characters mysteriously.

"Is that the secret?" asked Frank.

"Yes, and I myself am going to keep it for the club."

Master Lewis had a private talk with George Howe and Leander Towle immediately on their return.

"I wish you to go," he said; "and I think a most profitable tour can be made in the way you propose for $100. You can at least visit Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, London, and Paris, and spend three days each in the three great capital cities. The information you would thus gain would be of great value to you. I thus estimate the probable expense to each:--

Steerage pa.s.sage to go and return $50.00 Glasgow to Edinburgh, 2_s._ 6_d._, or 60 Edinburgh to London, and London to Paris by way of Dieppe, about 3, or 14.40 Shilling lodgings and meals for fourteen days 14.00 Miscellaneous expenses 11.00 ______ $90.00

"I will do my best to make your expenses as light as possible. I am told that one can live comfortably on four shillings a day in Scotland and England, and for five francs a day in Paris. You will not be able to enjoy our walks in historic places outside of the great cities, and you will probably be obliged to return before the rest of the party; but the very restraint you will have to use will be a good experience for you. As Franklin once said, 'A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world.' It is good for one to bear the yoke in his youth. You see what I mean,--self-reliance, independence! I am not altogether sorry that you will be compelled to make the journey in this way."

The boys thanked their teacher.

When they had left him, George Howe said decidedly,--

"I never respected any teacher as much as I do Master Lewis. How n.o.bly he has treated us!"

CHAPTER III.

FIRST MEETING OF THE CLUB.

Normandy.--Story of the New Forest and the Red King.--Story of Robert of Normandy.--Story of the White Ship.--Story of the Frolicsome Duke and the Tinker's Good Fortune.--Master Lewis commends the Club.--The Secret.

When the boys were allowed to go to Boston,--once a week,--they had access to the fine Public Library of which that city is justly so proud. It was observed that the whole character of their reading changed from merely entertaining to the most instructive books, after the forming of the Club. Such picturesque historical works as Guizot's "France" and "England," Palgrave's "Norman Conquest," Froude's "England," Agnes Strickland's "Lives of the Queens," became especial favorites. Even Tommy Toby read through d.i.c.kens's Child's History of England, several of Abbott's short histories of the kings and queens, and a book of marvellous old English ballads.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAROLD'S OATH.]

The Club met as appointed. Each of the six boys had made his best preparation for the exercises of the evening. All the boys were present; and Master Lewis and his little daughter Florence sat beside young President Wynn, on the platform.

Wyllys Wynn was the first speaker.

"Although President of the Club," he said, "I am expected to take part in these exercises, and have been asked to present my story first.

Normandy is our subject to-night, and there is no name that is so famously a.s.sociated with the old Norman cities we expect to visit--Caen, Falaise, Rouen, Fecamp, St. Valery--as that of William the Conqueror. I will tell you the story of his life, and call it

THE NEW FOREST.

"About eight hundred years ago, William, Duke of Normandy, aspired to become King of England, and to wear the crown whose rightful claimant was Edgar Atheling. He made Harold, another heir to the English crown, support his claim, and take an oath to be true to him. To make Harold feel how solemn was an oath, he obliged him to swear it over a chest full of dead men's bones.

"But Harold disregarded the oath that he had taken over the chest of bones in Normandy; and, when old Edward, who was called The Confessor, died, he seized the crown and royal treasure for himself, being counselled to do so by an a.s.sembly of n.o.bles called the Witenagemote.

"Duke William was an ambitious and a fiery-minded man. He gathered an army of sixty thousand men, and a fleet of a thousand vessels and transports; and one September day he sailed from St. Valery with his army and fleet, the trumpets sounding and a thousand banners rising to the wind. His own ship had many-colored sails: from its mast floated the banner of the three Norman Lions; and a golden boy, pointing to England, glittered on the prow.

"This fleet came into the harbor of Pevensey. He led his army to Hastings; and there, on a bright afternoon in October, he met the army of Harold.

"Duke William reviewed his army, and caused his men to pray for victory ere they laid down beneath the moon and stars to rest. In the morning, they sung an ode, called the War Song of Roland: then a battle was fought, and the three Norman Lions at night waved triumphantly over the field.

"Harold was slain, and the monks wandered over the battle-ground to find his body. It was discovered at last, a despoiled and discrowned figure, by Edith Swansneck, a beautiful girl who loved Harold and whom the dead king had loved.

"Then William returned to Normandy. Fecamp blazed in his honor, and all the cities received him with loud acclaim.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FINDING THE BODY OF HAROLD.]

"A hard king was Duke William. With his great army of Normans, he marched over England, suppressing all who opposed him. The rivers were tinged with blood, the beautiful English towns were reduced to ash-heaps, the land was blackened with fire: he is said to have killed or maimed a hundred thousand people.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DEATH OF THE RED KING.]

"Having conquered England, he sought enjoyment, and turned his attention to field-sports and to hunting. He had sixty-eight royal forests, full of stags and deer; but he permitted no one but himself and the people of his court to hunt in them.

"At Winchester, he thought it would be a fine thing to have a great hunting-park near his residence. There was a tract of country in the county of Hampshire, very picturesque and beautiful, that he determined to use for this purpose. But there were churches scattered among the hills; and thousands of peasants dwelt here, who had rude but happy homes.

"William cared little for the churches and less for the homes of the peasants; so he sent soldiers to burn the former, and to drive the people away from the latter.

"Nothing was done by the ruthless king to supply the wants of the people, or to relieve their misery. They left their native hills with wailing and weeping and wringing of hands, uttering imprecations on the head of the Conqueror and upon his race.

"The stags multiplied, and the deer increased; and delightful to the Norman was the New Forest, on the golden autumn days.

"One day, one of the king's sons, a fair-haired youth, named Richard, went to hunt in this New Forest.

"He encountered a stag. The animal, maddened by the attack, rushed upon the prince, and killed him.

"As the dead body was borne from the forest, broken and stained with blood, the people said that this was a beginning of the reckoning G.o.d would make with William, and that the New Forest would prove an unquiet place to the Conqueror and to those of his blood.

"Foolish and superst.i.tious stories began to be circulated. The people said that the New Forest was haunted; that spirits were seen, by moonlight, gliding among the dusky trees; that demons revelled there when the tempest arose, and the lightnings flashed, and the rain dashed on the great oaks. The old foresters did not wish to return to it now. They talked of it in low whispers, as of a place accursed.

"At last William died. It was a bitter death. The Conqueror trembled before that CONQUEROR to whom the princes of the earth must yield.

"It is said that, when he had reached the height of his fame, he declared that he would surrender his crowns and kingdom to know again 'peace of mind, the love of a true friend, or the innocent sleep of a child.'

"When his last hour drew near, the n.o.bles fled from his bedside. His servants pillaged the apartment where he died, and rolled the dead body from the bed, and left it lying on the floor. A good knight took it up, and carried it to St. Stephen's Church, at Caen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH AT CAEN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT THROWING HIMSELF ON HIS KNEES BEFORE HIS PROSTRATE FATHER.]

"He left three sons, William Rufus, Robert, and Henry. To the first he bequeathed England, to the second Normandy, and to the last 5,000.

"William Rufus now became king of England. He was called the Red King, because he had a red face and red hair; and a red king he proved to be, in another sense.

"The Red King, like his father, quarrelled with everybody, and, like him, sought and found enjoyment by hunting in the New Forest.