Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

“Father,” said he, “I have it; leave the business to me. It is, I own, parlous ugly; yet, with the blessing of St. Edward, who is known to favour the Icinglas and such as serve them, I will hazard limb and life in the adventure.”

Styr the Saxon winced, and his paternal affection got the better of his hereditary devotion, as before his mind’s eye rose a vision of his son – so young, so comely, and so slight of frame – at the mercy of Hugh de Moreville, and in the clutches of De Moreville’s myrmidons.

“Wolf, boy,” said he, tenderly, “this may not be. Hugh de Moreville is a man whom it is not chancy to meddle with.”

“Hout, father!” exclaimed Wolf, who was waxing very valiant under the influence of his imagination. “What more dangerous is the Lord Hugh than any other lord? Perchance, after all, his bark is worse than his bite.”

“But thou art young, Wolf, being as yet a boy, with years to grow; thy form is too slight and thy strength all-insufficient to fight with so stormy a sea as that on which thou wouldst venture.”

“Fear not for me, father,” interrupted Wolf, half offended; “nor deem that because I am not so big of body as Forest Will, my peril will, therefore, be the greater. Bulk is not craft, or the fox would be less cunning than the ass; nor is size courage, or the sheep would not run before the dog; nor is stature swiftness, otherwise a cow could out-race a hare. Anyhow, I will go, and time will try whether I have mettle enough in me or not, as frost tries the strange plants in the physic garden of the monks of St. Alban’s. But speak on, father, that I may be instructed by thy words, for does not the proverb tell us that as the old cock crows the young one learns?”

Styr the Saxon, however, was not listening to his son’s remarks, for a great struggle was taking place in his breast, and when Wolf turned round for a reply his father’s chin was resting on his bosom, and his eye directed to the ground.

“Wolf,” said he, at length raising his head, with a sigh, “this is not an adventure to be undertaken lightly, nor without asking leave of the mother who bore thee. But pass through the woodland to thy home at eventide, and I will then tell thee more fully what I think concerning it.”

“As thou wiliest, father,” said Wolf, with filial reverence; “but fail not to consider what our grief would be, if, through our neglect, or aught of cowardice on our parts, evil befel the young Hlaford – the son, father, of him who is away.”

The eyes of Styr the Saxon filled with tears, and he did not attempt to speak; but, abruptly leaving the stable, he strode away from Oakmede, and made his way through the forest.

CHAPTER XXIX

HUNTING A WILD BOAR

ONE day in autumn, about a month after Styr the Anglo-Saxon had taken counsel with his son in the stable at Oakmede, when King John was occupied with the siege of Rochester, and Hugh de Moreville was in London urging on his confederates the desperate expedient which they subsequently adopted, a gallant party of knights and squires, armed with spears and hunting-horns, and attended by huntsmen with boar-hounds, left the castle of Chas-Chateil.

Riding through the chase, the hunters penetrated into the great forest of Berkshire, which at that time stretched from Windsor right away up the vale of the Kennet to Hungerford, a distance of some forty miles as the crow flies. Their object was to hunt a wild boar, and they were headed by Sir Anthony Waledger, who rode Oliver Icingla’s black steed Ayoub, an animal to which the Norman knight had taken a decided fancy, and which he already looked on as his own property.

It has been hinted that Sir Anthony Waledger was somewhat boastful over his cups, in which he at times indulged more deeply than prudence warranted; and after a carouse, while his blood was still heated, he at times deluded himself with the idea that he was an important feudal magnate. On such occasions, and in De Moreville’s absence, the knight gave himself much greater airs than ever the lord of the castle took the trouble to do; and as he paid his vows to St. Hubert, the patron of sylvan sports, as well as to St. Martin, the patron of mediæval Bacchanalians, he was particularly fond of displaying his mightiness and getting rid of his superfluous energy by indulging in that violent sport which has been described as “the image of war.” Nay, more; Sir Anthony relished violent sport in its most violent form, and looking with contempt on hawking and hunting the deer, even by way of whet for fiercer game, devoted himself to the wolf and the wild boar. Many were the perilous adventures he had passed in the forest; but he boasted frequently that he loved danger for its own sake, and loved it all the better that it was accompanied by the excitement of the chase.

“Sirs,” he would exclaim, when the red wine of Bordeaux sparkled in his cup, and the fire began to glow in his brain, “let us leave falconry to the ladies, and damsels, and spaniels, and stag-hunting to the greyhounds and men who are women in all but the name. By the head of my namesake, St. Anthony, I prefer pressing close on the track of the bear or the wild boar, beasts that have the courage to turn to bay and rend their pursuers.”

On this occasion Sir Anthony Waledger, having washed down his breakfast with copious draughts, was particularly enthusiastic. Moreover, he was violent in proportion to his enthusiasm. He talked loudly and largely about the qualities of De Moreville’s dogs, and which was likely to hunt the best, always in a way which would have led a stranger to believe they were his own, brooking no contradiction whatever; and no sooner had the huntsmen roused a huge boar from his lair than he became highly excited, and, shouting loudly as he hounded the dogs on the game, dashed his spurs into Ayoub’s side and went off in keen pursuit. All the forenoon the chase continued, and as their horses grew weary and began to flag, the hunters gradually tailed off; but Sir Anthony never halted in the pursuit, nor did the black steed give the slightest sign of weariness, though his glossy coat was literally covered with foam. On the knight went, the dogs gradually gaining on the boar, and the boar making a circuit till he led them back to within a mile of Chas-Chateil, and turned fiercely to bay under a gigantic oak hard by the spot where the castle of Donnington was afterwards built – perhaps the oak under which, according to tradition, Geoffrey Chaucer in his last years wrote many of his poems.

And terrible was the aspect which the boar now presented; his ears erect, his shaggy hair standing in bristles, and his mouth foaming with rage, as, tearing and tossing aside the dogs with his mighty tusks, he collected all his remaining strength to spring at the horse and the rider. Nor did Sir Anthony shrink from the stern encounter. Blowing his horn till it resounded through the woods, and shouting with a ferocity which rivalled the dumb ferocity of his grisly antagonist, he, with an oath and a gesture of fiery impatience, threw down his hunting-spear, and, drawing his sword of Bordeaux steel, dashed the rowels of his spurs into Ayoub’s flank and swung aloft his weapon to deal a decisive blow.

But the blow was not destined to be struck. Unaccustomed to such treatment, rendered furious by the provocation of hours, and startled by the fierce aspect of the boar, the noble animal made one plunge, reared himself high in the air, and then fell prostrate on the ground, bearing his rider with him. It was a terrible moment. Sir Anthony was, indeed, little hurt by the fall, but his sword had dropped from his hand, and he lay at the boar’s mercy.

The knight in terror bawled out for St. Anthony and St. Hubert to come to his aid.

Only two moments did the boar lose ere making the rush; they were employed in freeing himself from the dogs, already blinded by the blood from the wounds he had inflicted; and then he made his final rush – a rush that brought his very snout in contact with the prostrate knight’s person. But ere that rush took place, and ere mischief could be done, from the branches of the oak dropped something which to the knight’s swimming eyes looked like a large ball. Next moment the sword of Bordeaux steel, driven by a sure hand, penetrated the boar’s throat; and, as the monster rolled back on the grass, writhing in the agonies of death, and Sir Anthony freed himself from the steed, and the steed sprang to his feet with a bound, he found standing before him, holding Ayoub’s bridle-rein in his left hand and the Bordeaux blade in the right, a dark-haired and rather swarthy youngster, in parti-coloured garments of an outlandish cut, with a smile on his countenance. The smile was meaningless, and the boy looked marvellously innocent; nevertheless, Sir Anthony was so enraged with his mishap that he almost felt inclined to kill his preserver on the spot for that meaningless smile and that innocent look.

“Who in the fiend’s name are you?” he asked with a frowning brow and in a voice of thunder.

The boy, who had not, as it happened, parted with the sword, replied with a smile which disarmed Sir Anthony’s anger; but the answer was in a language which the knight did not understand; so he muttered a slight imprecation to rid himself of the remnant of his wrath, and, having again loudly sounded his horn, began to look more kindly on the mysterious stranger who had come to his rescue at the very moment of his extreme need, and when otherwise he must have been torn to pieces.

“By my faith,” said he in a low tone and with a thrill of superstitious awe, “I firmly believe that St. Anthony or St. Hubert has sent this youth to my aid, and it behoves me, therefore, to treat him as one whom the saints account worthy of being their messenger. One thing is lucky,” continued he: “the youth cannot speak our tongue, and therefore cannot report the unworthy spectacle I have presented.”

As Sir Anthony thus soliloquised, the huntsmen and two squires, attracted by the repeated blasts of his horn, rode up to the spot, and the knight, having given a very inadequate description of the scene that had been enacted, and consigned the boar to the huntsmen to be cut up, ordered them to take care of the boy and bring him to the castle. He then attempted to remount, but he might as well have attempted to scale the heavens. Ayoub positively resisted, and, despising both threats and caresses, stood proudly upon the dignity which had been so recently and so deeply injured. The knight was finally under the necessity of mounting the horse of one of the huntsmen, and leaving Ayoub, and the mystic boy, and the dead boar under their care, rode slowly away through the trees towards Chas-Chateil.

“Cog’s wounds! friend Martin,” said one of the huntsmen to his fellow, after examining the boy as to his proficiency in the vernacular tongue, “I can make nothing of this jackanapes. Beshrew me if I do not think he is such a creature as was of late taken in the sea on the coast of Suffolk.”

“Hubert, lad, I fail to comprehend thee,” said Martin.

“Natheless, it is true as any story ever sung by minstrel,” continued Hubert. “It was a fish in the form of a man, and they kept it alive six months on land, feeding it the whilst on raw meat; but seeing they could get no speech out of it, they cast it back into the sea.”

“I doubt thee not, Hubert, lad – I doubt thee not,” said Martin cheerily; “but, credit me, this is no such creature, but a boy from some outlandish country beyond the seas. I have heard the like of him ere now singing glees on the great bridge at London. Mark how simple and innocent he is. Even that fiend of a horse, that wouldn’t so much as look at Sir Anthony, takes kindly to the child and licks his hand.”

CHAPTER XXX

A GRAND FEAT OF HORSEMANSHIP

AFTER reaching Chas-Chateil, and relating his adventure to Dame Waledger, Sir Anthony saw no reason to repent of the resolution he had expressed to befriend the mysterious entity whom, as he devoutly believed, the saints had sent to his succour in the hour of peril, and when, otherwise, nothing could have intervened between him and certain destruction. The dame encouraged his pious intent, and expressed unbounded curiosity to see the strange child but for whose timely appearance she would have been a weeping widow; and no sooner had the knight dined than he sent for the young stranger to the daïs of the great hall.

Apprehensive, however, that the whole business – the carouse of the previous night, the boar-hunt of the morning, and the danger to which her husband had been exposed, might be a device of Satan, and that the boar and the boy might be agents of his satanic majesty, Dame Waledger suggested the propriety of first handing over the child to be examined by the chaplain of the castle as to his origin and position in life; and Father Peter, though a little nervous, undertook the delicate investigation.

The result was, in the main, satisfactory. Father Peter was no great linguist, but he had been on the continent, and knew enough of continental tongues to comprehend that the boy’s name was Pedro; that he was a native of Burgos, the capital of Castile; that he had left his country as one of a band of musicians bound for London: that they had been shipwrecked on the coast, and that he, having escaped a watery grave, had wandered into the woods, not knowing whither he went; and on the approach of the boar, and the hounds, and the hunter, he had climbed a tree to escape observation; and, with an innocent smile, he confirmed his story by producing an instrument, and accompanying himself, while he sang the ballad of “The Captive Knight and the Merle;” and finally melted all hearts by bursting into tears, and deploring his plight as a helpless orphan in a strange land.

The victory was now complete. Dame Waledger insisted on young Pedro being handed over to her as a page; and in a day or two he was strutting about dressed in crimson, accompanying the ladies of the castle when they ventured into the chase to fly their hawks, singing to them his native ballads, and diverting them with his droll attempts to speak the language of the country in which he found himself, and of the people among whom he had been so strangely cast.

Sir Anthony’s liking for Pedro rather increased as weeks passed over, and he allowed the boy to come about him at times when he would not have been seen by any other mortal – even in a certain wainscoted chamber of the great hall, which was reserved for the use of the lord of the castle and the governor, and which none of the household – knights, squires, or grooms – were ever allowed to enter; not that there was anything very particular about the interior, except one tall panel, on which was depicted the battle of Hastings, with a very grim De Moreville bearing one of the conqueror’s standards. But this panel appeared to have much more interest for Pedro than even the pictorial embellishment would account for, and often his eye stole furtively towards it.

Ere long Pedro did something which, but for superstition and jealousy, ought to have won golden opinions among that part of De Moreville’s household attached to the stables, and devoted to the Norman baron’s stud. After being conducted to his stall, fresh from the horrors of the boar-hunt, Ayoub displayed a very haughty temper. For days he declined in the most distinct manner to be groomed, and refused all provender, and after his hunger got the better of him, and he began to feed, he took refuge in sullenness, and repelled every attempt to deal with him as an ordinary steed.

At length Sir Anthony’s peremptory command had such an effect that the grooms forcibly cast the refractory steed in his stall, bitted and bridled him, and led him forth to exercise. But a fresh difficulty now arose. Do what they would, he kicked against all attempts to mount him, and Clem the Bold Rider, a lad of seventeen, and one of those mediæval stable-boys who had hitherto had the credit of being able to deal successfully with the wildest and fiercest of chargers, in vain essayed to bring Ayoub to reason or reduce him to submission.

It was a November morning, but the sun was shining brightly for the time, when the grand struggle took place outside the great drawbridge leading into the courtyard, and all the officials connected with the stable, and the huntsmen, and most of the garrison, were present to witness the contest between the skilful equestrian and the refractory steed. Sir Anthony also was there, determined that – no matter how many necks might be broken – Ayoub should be mounted and ridden; and with him were Richard de Moreville, Hugh’s nephew, and Pedro, the lady’s page, who appeared to take a lively interest in the business, and clapped his hands in the excess of his innocent excitement, till the knight, smiling kindly on him, patted his head, and remarked to young De Moreville that of all urchins this urchin was the most diverting.

At length the critical moment arrived, and Clem the Bold Rider manned himself with dauntless air, and, coaxing and caressing the while, attempted quietly to mount. It was vain. Ayoub declined. Unable to accomplish his purpose by flattery, Clem had recourse to stratagem, and made a brave effort to take the charger unawares, vault on his back, and then trust to his skilful hand and strong arm. But it would not do. Ayoub was vigilant as a rabbit, and though his eyes were covered for the moment by the grooms who held him, he seemed instinctively to know what was intended, and baffled the stratagem by a sudden movement which left Clem sprawling on the ground. Still, the word of Sir Anthony being law, and his purpose continuing inflexible, force was resorted to, and a fierce struggle ensued, the men having the advantage at one moment and the horse at another. But in the long run, Ayoub, by plunging, and capering, and kicking furiously, gained the victory, and the knight’s rage knew no bounds.

“By the head of St. Anthony!” exclaimed he, drawing his dagger, “the accursed brute shall pay the penalty of its obstinacy by dying on the spot where he has defied our will.”

“Holy Woden, sir knight!” exclaimed Richard de Moreville in surprise, “you would not kill that noble horse, and he the property of another person? Master Icingla is a prisoner, but not taken in battle, and neither his steed nor his sword is forfeit. Credit me, the world, if it hears of this, will cry shame on us if we so flagrantly violate the laws of honour, which are binding on all chevaliers – especially on you and me, who are of Norman race, and therefore doubly bound to observe all usages.”

Sir Anthony was about to reply, but at that moment Pedro, who had been listening to the conversation, without, of course, understanding it, ran forward to the spot where the grooms were still holding Ayoub, and commenced earnest endeavours to communicate by signs something which he wished them to understand, now pointing to the sky, then to the ground, and then to the horse. Meanwhile Richard de Moreville resumed the conversation.

“By my faith, Sir Anthony,” said he, half laughing, as if thinking that he had spoken too strongly, and wishing to soothe the knight, “methinks, since this steed proves too much for the whole garrison, we could not do better than bring forth the captive, and let him try his powers of persuasion. Master Icingla, doubtless, could find some way of casting out the devil which seems to have entered into his charger.”

Sir Anthony laughed a hoarse laugh.

“Bring forth the captive!” said he – “bring forth the captive, and give him an opportunity of escape! That, forsooth, were blind policy, and you may call me Englishman when I do aught so foolish. No, by St. Anthony’s head, had I my will the young Saxon churl should be in the deepest dungeon of Chas-Chateil till he rotted, if it were only to avenge ourselves for the heart of pride which made the father who begot him look down, as from an elevation, on better men than himself. I myself forget not his insolence when he was on the eve of departing from Mount Moreville, where he was a guest, when last summoned to embark with Cœur-de-Lion for Normandy. ‘Good Norman,’ said he, ‘I pray thee hold my stirrup while I mount;’ and when I showed some disinclination, he added, calmly, ‘Nay, sir, it misbecomes you not; albeit you have lands and living, and wear golden spurs as well as myself, you are still the descendant of one of the adventurers who fought for hire at Hastings: I am still the heir of the Icinglas.’”

“Holy Woden!” exclaimed Richard de Moreville, with a sly laugh, which had its meaning, “and what answered you, sir knight? You drew your sword, or challenged him to mortal combat on the spot?”

Sir Anthony changed colour, and hesitated.

“No,” said he, at length, “I wished not to have the death of the husband of a de Moreville on my conscience, and I pardoned his insolence for his lady’s sake.”

“And held his stirrup?”