Books: The Herd Boy and His Hermit
C >>
Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Herd Boy and His Hermit
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 THE HERD BOY AND HIS HERMIT
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE
Henry, thou of holy birth,
Thou, to whom thy Windsor gave
Nativity and name and grave
Heavily upon his head
Ancestral crimes were visited.
Meek in heart and undefiled,
Patiently his soul resigned,
Blessing, while he kissed the rod,
His Redeemer and his God.
SOUTHEY
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. IN THE MOSS
II. THE SNOW-STORM
III. OVER THE MOOR
IV. A SPORTING PRIORESS
V. MOTHER AND SON
VI. A CAUTIOUS STEPFATHER
VII. ON DERWENT BANKS
VIII. THE HERMIT
IX. HENRY OF WINDSOR
X. THE SCHOLAR OF THE MOUNTAINS
XI. THE RED ROSE
XII. A PRUDENT RECEPTION
XIII. FELLOW TRAVELLERS
XIV. THE JOURNEY
XV. BLETSO
XVI. THE HERMIT IN THE TOWER
XVII. A CAPTIVE KING
XVIII. AT THE MINORESSES
XIX. A STRANGE EASTER EVE
XX. BARNET
XXI. TEWKESBURY
XXII. THE NUT BROWN MAID
XXIII. BROUGHAM CASTLE
THE HERD BOY AND HIS HERMIT
CHAPTER I. IN THE MOSS
I can conduct you, lady, to a low
But loyal cottage where you may be safe
Till further quest.--MILTON.
On a moorland slope where sheep and goats were dispersed among the
rocks, there lay a young lad on his back, in a stout canvas cassock
over his leathern coat, and stout leathern leggings over wooden
shoes. Twilight was fast coming on; only a gleam of purple light
rested on the top of the eastern hills, but was gradually fading
away, though the sky to the westward still preserved a little pale
golden light by the help of the descending crescent moon.
'Go away, horned moon,' murmured the boy. 'I want to see my stars
come out before Hob comes to call me home, and the goats are getting
up already. Moon, moon, thou mayst go quicker. Thou wilt have
longer time to-morrow--and be higher in the sky, as well as bigger,
and thou mightst let me see my star to-night! Ah! there is one high
in the sunset, pale and fair, but not mine! That's the evening star
--one of the wanderers. Is it the same as comes in the morning
betimes, when we do not have it at night? Like that it shines with
steady light and twinkles not. I would that I knew! There! there's
mine, my own star, far up, only paling while the sun glaring blazes
in the sky; mine own, he that from afar drives the stars in Charles's
Wain. There they come, the good old twinkling team of three, and the
four of the Wain! Old Billy Goat knows them too! Up he gets, and
all in his wake "Ha-ha-ha" he calls, and the Nannies answer. Ay, and
the sheep are rising up too! How white they look in the moonshine!
Piers--deaf as he is--waking at their music. Ba, they call the
lambs! Nay, that's no call of sheep or goat! 'Tis some child
crying, all astray! Ha! Hilloa, where beest thou? Tarry till I
come! Move not, or thou mayst be in the bogs and mosses! Come,
Watch'--to a great unwieldy collie puppy--'let us find her.'
A feeble piteous sound answered him, and following the direction of
the reply, he strode along, between the rocks and thorn-bushes that
guarded the slope of the hill, to a valley covered with thick moss,
veiling treacherously marshy ground in which it was easy to sink.
The cry came from the further side, where a mountain stream had force
enough to struggle through the swamp. There were stepping-stones
across the brook, which the boy knew, and he made his way from one to
the other, calling out cheerily to the little figure that he began to
discern in the fading light, and who answered him with tones
evidently girlish, 'O come, come, shepherd! Here I am! I am lost
and lorn! They will reward thee! Oh, come fast!'
'All in good time, lassie! Haste is no good here! I must look to my
footing.'
Presently he was by the side of the wanderer, and could see that it
was a maiden of ten or twelve years old, who somehow, even in the
darkness, had not the air of one of the few inhabitants of that wild
mountain district.
'Lost art thou, maiden,' he said, as he stood beside her; 'where is
thine home?'
'I am at Greystone Priory,' replied the girl. 'I went out hawking
to-day with the Mother Prioress and the rest. My pony fell with me
when we were riding after a heron. No one saw me or heard me, and my
pony galloped home. I saw none of them, and I have been wandering
miles and miles! Oh take me back, good lad; the Mother Prioress will
give thee--'
''Tis too far to take thee back to-night,' he said. 'Thou must come
with me to Hob Hogward, where Doll will give thee supper and bed, and
we will have thee home in the morning.'
'I never lay in a hogward's house,' she said primly.
'Belike, but there be worse spots to be harboured in. Here, I must
carry thee over the burn, it gets wider below! Nay, 'tis no use
trying to leap it in the dark, thou wouldst only sink in. There!'
And as he raised her in his arms, the touch of her garment was
delicate, and she on her side felt that his speech, gestures and
touch were not those of a rustic shepherd boy; but nothing was said
till he had waded through the little narrow stream, and set her down
on a fairly firm clump of grass on the other side. Then she asked,
'What art thou, lad?--Who art thou?'
'They call me Hal,' was the answer; 'but this is no time for
questions. Look to thy feet, maid, or thou wilt be in a swamp-hole
whence I may hardly drag thee out.'
He held her hand, for he could hardly carry her farther, since she
was almost as tall as himself, and more plump; and the rest of the
conversation for some little time consisted of, 'There!' 'Where?'
'Oh, I was almost down!' 'Take heed; give me thy other hand! Thou
must leap this!' 'Oh! what a place! Is there much more of it?'
'Not much! Come bravely on! There's a good maid.' 'Oh, I must get
my breath.' 'Don't stand still. That means sinking. Leap! Leap!
That's right. No, not that way, turn to the big stair.' 'Oh--h!'
'That's my brave wench! Not far now.' 'I'm down, I'm down!' 'Up!
Here, this is safe! On that white stone! Now, here's sound ground!
Hark!' Wherewith he emitted a strange wild whoop, and added, 'That's
Hob come out to call me!' He holloaed again. 'We shall soon be at
home now. There's Mother Doll's light! Her light below, the star
above,' he added to himself.
By this time it was too dark for the two young people to see more
than dim shapes of one another, but the boy knew that the hand he
still held was a soft and delicate one, and the girl that those which
had grasped and lifted her were rough with country labours. She
began to assert her dignity and say again, 'Who art thou, lad? We
will guerdon thee well for aiding me. The Lord St. John is my
father. And who art thou?'
'I? Oh, I am Hob Hogward's lad,' he answered in an odd off-hand
tone, before whooping again his answer to the shouts of Hob, which
were coming nearer.
'I am so hungry!' said the little lady, in a weak, famished tone.
'Hast aught to eat?'
'I have finished my wallet, more's the pity!' said the boy, 'but
never fear! Hold out but a few steps more, and Mother Doll will give
thee bite and sup and bed.'
'Alack! Is it much further! My feet! they are so sore and weary--'
'Poor maiden, let me bear thee on!'
Hal took her up again, but they went more slowly, and were glad to
see a tall figure before them, and hear the cry, 'How now, Hal boy,
where hast been? What hast thou there?'
'A sorely weary little lady, Daddy Hob, lost from the hawking folk
from the Priory,' responded Hal, panting a little as he set his
burthen down, and Hob's stronger arms received her.
Hal next asked whether the flock had come back under charge of Piers,
and was answered that all were safely at home, and after 'telling the
tale' Hob had set out to find him. 'Thou shouldst not stray so far,'
he said.
'I heard the maid cry, and went after her,' said Hal, 'all the way to
the Blackreed Moss, and the springs, and 'twas hard getting over the
swamp.'
'Well indeed ye were not both swallowed in it,' said Hob; 'God be
praised for bringing you through! Poor wee bairn! Thou hast come
far! From whence didst say?'
'From Greystone Priory,' wearily said the girl, who had her head down
on Hob's shoulder, and seemed ready to fall asleep there.
'Her horse fell with her, and they were too bent on their sport to
heed her,' explained the boy, as he trudged along beside Hob and his
charge, 'so she wandered on foot till by good hap I heard her moan.'
'Ay, there will be a rare coil to-night for having missed her,' said
Hob; 'but I've heard tell, my Lady Prioress heeds her hawks more than
her nuns! But be she who she may, we'll have her home, and Mother
Doll shall see to her, for she needs it sure, poor bairn. She is
asleep already.'
So she was, with her head nestled into the shepherd's neck, nor did
she waken when after a tramp of more than a mile the bleatings of the
folded sheep announced that they were nearly arrived, and in the low
doorway there shone a light, and in the light stood a motherly form,
in a white woollen hood and dark serge dress. Tired as he was, Hal
ran on to her, exclaiming 'All well, Mammy Doll?'
'Ah well!' she answered, 'thank the good God! I was in fear for
thee, my boy! What's that Daddy hath? A strayed lamb?'
'Nay, Mammy, but a strayed maiden! 'Twas that kept me so long. I
had to bear her through the burn at Blackreed, and drag her on as
best I might, and she is worn out and weary.'
'Ay,' said Hob, as he came up. 'How now, my bit lassie?' as he put
her into the outstretched arms of his wife, who sat down on the
settle to receive her, still not half awake.
'She is well-nigh clemmed,' said Hal. 'She has had no bite nor sup
all day, since her pony fell with her out a-hawking, and all were so
hot on the chase that none heeded her.'
Mother Doll's exclamations of pity were profuse. There was a kettle
of broth on the peat fire, and after placing the girl in a corner of
the settle, she filled three wooden bowls, two of which she placed
before Hal and the shepherd, making signs to the heavy-browed Piers
to wait; and getting no reply from her worn-out guest, she took her
in her arms, and fed her from a wooden spoon. Though without clear
waking, mouthfuls were swallowed down, till the bowl was filled again
and set before Piers.
'There, that will be enough this day!' said the good dame. 'Poor
bairn! 'Twas scurvy treatment. Now will we put her to bed, and in
the morn we will see how to deal with her.'
Hal insisted that the little lady should have his own bed--a chaff-
stuffed mattress, covered with a woollen rug, in the recess behind
the projecting hearth--a strange luxury for a farm boy; and Doll
yielded very unwillingly when he spoke in a tone that savoured of
command. The shaggy Piers had already curled himself up in a corner
and gone to sleep.
CHAPTER II. THE SNOW-STORM
Yet stay, fair lady, rest awhile
Beneath the cottage wall;
See, through the hawthorns blows the cold wind,
And drizzling rain doth fall.--OLD BALLAD.
Though Hal had gone to sleep very tired the night before, and only on
a pile of hay, curled up with Watch, having yielded his own bed to
the strange guest, he was awake before the sun, for it was the
decline of the year, and the dawn was not early.
He was not the first awake--Hob and Piers were already busy on the
outside, and Mother Doll had emerged from the box bed which made
almost a separate apartment, and was raking together the peat, so as
to revive the slumbering fire. The hovel, for it was hardly more,
was built of rough stone and thatched with reeds, with large stones
to keep the roof down in the high mountain blasts. There was only
one room, earthen floored, and with no furniture save a big chest, a
rude table, a settle and a few stools, besides the big kettle and a
few crocks and wooden bowls. Yet whereas all was clean, it had an
air of comfort and civilisation beyond any of the cabins in the
neighbourhood, more especially as there was even a rude chimney-piece
projecting far into the room, and in the niche behind this lay the
little girl in her clothes, fast asleep.
Very young and childish she looked as she lay, her lips partly
unclosed, her dark hair straying beyond her hand, and her black
lashes resting on her delicate brunette cheeks, slightly flushed with
sleep. Hal could not help standing for a minute gazing at her in a
sort of wondering curiosity, till roused by the voice of Mother Doll.
'Go thy ways, my bairn, to wash in the burn. Here's thy comb. I
must have the lassie up before the shepherd comes back, though 'tis
amost a pity to wake her! There, she is stirring! Best be off with
thee, my bonnie lad.'
It was spoken more in the tone of nurse to nursling than of mother to
son, still less that of mistress to farm boy; but Hal obeyed, only
observing, 'Take care of her.'
'Ay, my pretty, will not I,' murmured the old woman, as the child
turned round on her pillow, put up a hand, rubbed her eyes, and
disclosed a pair of sleepy brown orbs, gazed about, and demanded,
'What's this? Who's this?'
''Tis Hob Hogward's hut, my bonnie lamb, where you are full welcome!
Here, take a sup of warm milk.'
'I mind me now,' said the girl, sitting up, and holding out her hands
for the bowl. 'They all left me, and the lad brought me--a great
lubber lout--'
'Nay, nay, mistress, you'll scarce say so when you see him by day--a
well-grown youth as can bear himself with any.'
'Where is he?' asked the girl, gazing round; 'I want him to take me
back. This place is not one for me. The Sisters will be seeking me!
Oh, what a coil they must be in!'
'We will have you back, my bairn, so soon as my goodman can go with
you, but now I would have you up and dressed, ay, and washed, ere he
and Hal come in. Then after meat and prayer you will be ready to
go.'
'To Greystone Priory,' returned the girl. 'Yea, I would have thee to
know,' she added, with a little dignity that sat drolly on her bare
feet and disordered hair and cap as she rose out of bed, 'that the
Sisters are accountable for me. I am the Lady Anne St. John. My
father is a lord in Bedfordshire, but he is gone to the wars in
Burgundy, and bestowed me in a convent at York while he was abroad,
but the Mother thought her house would be safer if I were away at the
cell at Greystone when Queen Margaret and the Red Rose came north.'
'And is that the way they keep you safe?' asked the hostess, who
meanwhile was attending to her in a way that, if the Lady Anne had
known it, was like the tendance of her own nurse at home, instead of
that of a rough peasant woman.
'Oh, we all like the chase, and the Mother had a new cast of hawks
that she wanted to fly. There came out a heron, and she threw off
the new one, and it went careering up--and up--and we all rode after,
and just as the bird was about to pounce down, into a dyke went my
pony, Imp, and not one of them saw! Not Bertram Selby, the Sisters,
nor the groom, nor the rabble rout that had come out of Greystone;
and before I could get free they were off; and the pony, Imp of Evil
that he is, has not learnt to know me or my voice, and would not let
me catch him, but cantered off--either after the other horses or to
the Priory. I knew not where I was, and halloaed myself hoarse, but
no one heard, and I went on and on, and lost my way!'
'I did hear tell that the Lady Prioress minded her hawks more than
her Hours,' said Mother Doll.
'And that's sooth,' said the Lady Anne, beginning to prove herself a
chatterbox. 'The merlins have better hoods than the Sisters; and as
to the Hours, no one ever gets up in the night to say Nocturns or
even Matins but old Sister Scholastica, and she is as strict and
cross as may be.'
Here the flow of confidence was interrupted by the return of Hal, who
gazed eagerly, though in a shamefaced way, at the guest as he set
down a bowl of ewe milk. She was a well-grown girl of ten, slender,
and bearing herself like one high bred and well trained in
deportment; and her face was delicately tinted on an olive skin, with
fine marked eyebrows, and dark bright eyes, and her little hunting
dress of green, and the hood, set on far back, became the dark locks
that curled in rings beneath.
She saw a slender lad, dark-haired and dark-eyed, ruddy and embrowned
by mountain sun and air; and the bow with which he bent before her
had something of the rustic lout, and there was a certain shyness
over him that hindered him from addressing her.
'So, shepherd,' she said, 'when wilt thou take me back to Greystone?'
'Father will fix that,' interposed the housewife; 'meanwhile, ye had
best eat your porridge. Here is Father, in good time with the cows'
milk.'
The rugged broad-shouldered shepherd made his salutation duly to the
young lady, and uttered the information that there was a black cloud,
like snow, coming up over the fells to the south-west.
'But I must fare back to Greystone!' said the damsel. 'They will be
in a mighty coil what has become of me.'
'They would be in a worse coil if they found your bones under a snow
wreath.'
Hal went to the door and spied out, as if the tidings were rather
pleasant to him than otherwise. The goodwife shivered, and reached
out to close the shutter, and there being no glass to the windows,
all the light that came in was through the chinks.
'It would serve them right for not minding me better,' said the
maiden composedly. 'Nay, it is as merry here as at Greystone, with
Sister Margaret picking out one's broidery, and Father Cuthbert
making one pore over his crabbed parchments.'
'Oh, does this Father teach Latin?' exclaimed Hal with eager
interest.
'Of course he doth! The Mother at York promised I should learn
whatever became a damsel of high degree,' said the girl, drawing
herself up.
'I would he would teach me!' sighed the boy.
'Better break thy fast and mind thy sheep,' said the old woman, as if
she feared his getting on dangerous ground; and placing the bowl of
porridge on the rough table, she added, 'Say the Benedicite, lad, and
fall to.' Then, as he uttered the blessing, she asked the guest
whether she preferred ewes' milk or cows' milk, a luxury no one else
was allowed, all eating their porridge contentedly with a pinch of
salt, Hob showing scant courtesy, the less since his guest's rank had
been made known.
By the time they had finished, snowflakes--an early autumn storm--
were drifting against the shutter, and a black cloud was lowering
over the hills. Hob foretold a heavy fall of snow, and called on Hal
to help him and Piers fold the flock more securely, sleepy Watch and
his old long-haired collie mother rising at the same call. Lady Anne
sprang up at the same time, insisting that she must go and help to
feed the poor sheep, but she was withheld, much against her will, by
Mother Dolly, though she persisted that snow was nothing to her, and
it was a fine jest to be out of the reach of the Sisters, who mewed
her up in a cell, like a messan dog. However, she was much amused by
watching, and thinking she assisted in, Mother Dolly's preparations
for ewe milk cheese-making; and by-and-by Hal came in, shaking the
snow off the sheepskin he had worn over his leathern coat. Hob had
sent him in, as the weather was too bad for him, and he and Anne
crouched on opposite sides of the wide hearth as he dried and warmed
himself, and cosseted the cat which Anne had tried to caress, but
which showed a decided preference for the older friend.
'Our Baudrons at Greystone loves me better than that,' said Anne.
'She will come to me sooner than even to Sister Scholastica!'
'My Tib came with us when we came here. Ay, Tib! purr thy best!' as
he held his fingers over her, and she rubbed her smooth head against
him.
'Can she leap? Baudrons leaps like a horse in the tilt-yard.'
'Cannot she! There, my lady pussy, show what thou canst do to please
the demoiselle,' and he held his arms forward with clasped hands, so
that the grey cat might spring over them, and Lady Anne cried out
with delight.
Again and again the performance was repeated, and pussy was induced
to dance after a string dangled before her, to roll over and play in
apparent ecstasy with a flake of wool, as if it were a mouse, and
Watch joined in the game in full amity. Mother Dolly, busy with her
distaff, looked on, not displeased, except when she had to guard her
spindle from the kitten's pranks, but she was less happy when the
children began to talk.
'You have seen a tilt-yard?'
'Yea, indeed,' he answered dreamily. 'The poor squire was hurt--I
did not like it! It is gruesome.'
'Oh, no! It is a noble sport! I loved our tilt-yard at Bletso. Two
knights could gallop at one another in the lists, as if they were out
hunting. Oh! to hear the lances ring against the shields made one's
heart leap up! Where was yours?'
Here Dolly interrupted hastily, 'Hal, lad, gang out to the shed and
bring in some more sods of turf. The fire is getting low.'
'Here's a store, mother--I need not go out,' said Hal, passing to a
pile in the corner. 'It is too dark for thee to see it.'
'But where was your castle?' continued the girl. 'I am sure you have
lived in a castle.'
Insensibly the two children had in addressing one another changed the
homely singular pronoun to the more polite, if less grammatical,
second person plural. The boy laughed, nodded his head, and said,
'You are a little witch.'
'No great witchcraft to hear that you speak as we do at home in
Bedfordshire, not like these northern boors, that might as well be
Scots!'
'I am not from Bedfordshire,' said the lad, looking much amused at
her perplexity.
'Who art thou then?' she cried peremptorily.
'I? I am Hal the shepherd boy, as I told thee before.'
'No shepherd boy are you! Come, tell me true.'
Dolly thought it time to interfere. She heard an imaginary bleat,
and ordered Hal out to see what was the matter, hindering the girl by
force from running after him, for the snow was coming down in larger
flakes than ever. Nevertheless, when her husband was heard outside
she threw a cloak over her head and hurried out to speak with him.
'That maid will make our lad betray himself ere another hour is over
their heads!'
'Doth she do it wittingly?' asked the shepherd gravely.
'Nay, 'tis no guile, but each child sees that the other is of gentle
blood, and women's wits be sharp and prying, and the maid will never
rest till she has wormed out who he is.'
'He promised me never to say, nor doth he know.'
'Thee! Much do the hests of an old hogherd weigh against the wiles
of a young maid!'
'Lord Hal is a lad of his word. Peace with thy lords and ladies,
woman, thou'lt have the archers after him at once.'
'She makes no secret of being of gentle blood--a St. John of Bletso.'
'A pestilent White Rose lot! We shall have them on the scent ere
many days are over our head! An unlucky chance this same snow, or I
should have had the wench off to Greystone ere they could exchange a
word.'
'Thou wouldst have been caught in the storm. Ill for the maid to
have fallen into a drift!'
'Well for the lad if she never came out of it!' muttered the gruff
old shepherd. 'Then were her tongue stilled, and those of the
clacking wenches at York--Yorkists every one of them.'
Mother Dolly's eyes grew round. 'Mind thee, Hob!' she said; 'I ken
thy bark is worse than thy bite, but I would have thee to know that
if aught befall the maid between this and Greystone, I shall hold
thee--and so will my Lady--guilty of a foul deed.'
'No fouler than was done on the stripling's father,' muttered the
shepherd. 'Get thee in, wife! Who knows what folly those two may be
after while thou art away? Mind thee, if the maid gets an inkling of
who the boy is, it will be the worse for her.'
'Oh!' murmured the goodwife, 'I moaned once that our Piers there
should be deaf and well-nigh dumb, but I thank God for it now! No
fear of perilous word going out through him, or I durst not have kept
my poor sister's son!'
Mother Doll trusted that her husband would never have the heart to
leave the pretty dark-haired girl in the snow, but she was relieved
to find Hal marking down on the wide flat hearth-stone, with a bit of
charcoal, all the stars he had observed. 'Hob calls that the Plough--
those seven!' he said; 'I call it Charles's Wain!'
'Methinks I have seen that!' she said, 'winter and summer both.'
'Ay, he is a meuseful husbandman, that Charles! And see here! This
middle mare of the team has a little foal running beside her'--he
made a small spot beside the mark that stood for the central star of
what we call the Bear's Tail.
'I never saw that!'
'No, 'tis only to be seen on a clear bright night. I have seen it,
but Hob mocks at it. He thinks the only use of the Wain is to find
the North Star, up beyond there, pointing by the back of the Plough,
and go by it when you are lost.'
'What good would finding the North Star do? It would not have helped
me home if you had not found me!'
'Look here, Lady Anne! Which way does Greystone lie?'
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11