Books: The Herd Boy and His Hermit
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Herd Boy and His Hermit
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'And what's that to a gentle lad that has always been tended as
becomes him?'
'Heed not, mother! Be comforted! I must have gone to the wars,
anyway. If so be I thrive, I'll send for thee to mine own castle, to
reign there as I remember of old. Here now! Comfort Piers as thou
only canst do.'
Piers, poor fellow, wept bitterly, only able to understand that
something had befallen his comrade of seven years, which would take
him away from field and moor. He clung to Hal, and both lads shed
tears, till Hob roughly snatched Piers away and threw him to his
aunt, with threats that drew indignant, though useless, interference
from Hal, though Simon Bunce was muttering, 'As lief take one lad as
the other!' while Dolly's angry defence of her nursling's wisdom
broke the sadness of the parting.
CHAPTER XII. A PRUDENT RECEPTION
So doth my heart misgive me in these conflicts,
What may befall him to his harm and ours.--SHAKESPEARE.
Through the woods the party went to the fortified house of Threlkeld,
where the gateway was evidently prepared to resist any passing
attack, by stout gates and a little watch-tower.
Sir Giles blew a long blast on his bugle-horn, and had to repeat it
twice before a porter looked cautiously out at a wicket opening in
the heavy door, and demanded 'Who comes?'
'Open, porter, open in the name of King Harry, to the Lords of
Clifford and of Peelholm.'
The porter fell back, observing, 'Sir, pardon, while I have speech
with my master, Sir Lancelot Threlkeld.'
Some delay and some sounds of conversation were heard, then, on a
renewed and impatient blast on Sir Giles's horn, Sir Lancelot
Threlkeld himself came to the wicket, and his thin anxious voice
might be heard demanding, 'What madness is this?'
'The madness is past, soundness is come,' responded Sir Giles. 'King
Harry is on his throne, the traitors are fled, and your own fair son
comes forth in his proper person to uphold the lawful sovereign; but
he would fain first see his lady mother, and take her blessing with
him.'
'And by his impatience destroy himself, after all the burthen of care
and peril he hath been to me all these years,' lamented Sir Lancelot.
'But come in, fair lad. Open the gates, porter. I give you welcome,
Lord Musgrave of Peelholm. But who are these?' he added, looking at
the troop of buff-coated archers in the rear.
'They are bold champions of the Red Rose, returned Sir Giles, 'who
have lived with me in the wolds, and now are on the way to maintain
our King's quarrel.''
Sir Lancelot, however, would not hear of admitting the outlaws.
Young Clifford and the Lord of Peelholm should be welcome, or more
truly he could not help receiving them, but the archers must stay
outside, their entertainment in beef and ale being committed to Bunce
and the chief warder, while the two noblemen were conducted to the
castle hall. For the first time in his life Clifford was received in
his mother's home, and accepted openly, as he knelt before her to ask
her blessing. A fine, active, handsome youth was he, with bright,
keen eyes, close-curled black locks and hardy complexion, telling of
his out-of-door life, and a free use of his limbs, and upright
carriage, though still with more of the grace of the free mountain
than of the training of pagedom and squiredom.
Nor could he speak openly and freely to her, not knowing how much he
might say of his past intercourse with King Henry, and of her
endeavour to discover it; and he sat beside her, neither of them
greatly at ease, at the long table, which, by the array of silver
cups, of glasses and the tall salt cellar separating the nobility and
their followers, recalled to him dim recollections of the scenes of
his youth.
He asked for his sister--he knew his little brother had died in the
Netherlands--and he heard that she had been in the Priory of St.
Helen's, and was now in the household of my Lady of Hungerford, who
had promised to find a good match for her. There was but one son of
the union with the knight of Threlkeld, and him Hal had never seen;
nor was he at home, being a page in the household of the Earl of
Westmoreland, according to the prevailing fashion of the castles of
the great feudal nobles becoming schools of arms, courtesy and
learning for the young gentlemen around. Indeed, Lady Clifford
surveyed her eldest son with a sigh that such breeding was denied
him, as she observed one or two little deficiencies in what would be
called his table manners--not very important, but revealing that he
had grown up in the byre instead of the castle, where there was a
very strict and punctilious code, which figured in catechisms for the
young.
She longed to keep him, and train him for his station, but in the
first place, Sir Lancelot still held that it could not safely be
permitted, since he had little confidence in the adherence of the
House of Nevil to the Red Rose; and moreover Hal himself utterly
refused to remain concealed in Cumberland instead of carrying his
service to the King he loved.
In fact, when he heard the proposal of leaving him in the north, he
stood up, and, with far more energy than had been expected from him,
said, 'Go I must, to my lawful King's banner, and my father's cause.
To King Harry I carry my homage and whatever my hand can do!'
Such an expression of energy lighted his hitherto dreamy eyes, that
all beholders turned their glances on his face with a look of wonder.
Sir Lancelot again objected that he would be rushing to his ruin.
'Be it so,' replied Hal. 'It is my duty.'
'The time seems to me to be come,' added Musgrave, 'that my young
lord should put himself forward, though it may be only in a losing
cause. Not so much for the sake of success, as to make himself a man
and a noble.'
'But what can he do?' persisted Threlkeld; 'he has none of the
training of a knight. How can you tilt in plate armour, you who have
never bestridden a charger? These are not the days of Du Guesclin,
when a lad came in from the byre and bore down all foes before him.'
The objection was of force, for the defensive armour of the fifteenth
century had reached a pitch of cumbrousness that required long
practice for a man to be capable of moving under it.
'So please you, sir,' said Hal, 'I am not wholly unskilled. The good
Sir Giles and Simon Bunce have taught me enough to strike a blow with
a good will for a good cause.'
'With horse and arms as befits him,' began Musgrave.
'I know not that a horse is here that could be depended on,' began
Threlkeld. 'Armour too requires to be fitted and proved.'
He spoke in a hesitating voice that showed his unwillingness, and Hal
exclaimed, 'My longbow is mine own, and so are my feet. Sir Giles,
will you own me as an archer in your troop, where I will strive not
to disgrace you or my name?'
'Bravely spoken, young lord,' said Sir Giles heartily; 'right
willingly will I be your godfather in chivalry, since you find not
one nigher home.'
'So may it best be,' observed his mother, 'since he is bent on going.
Thus his name and rank may be kept back till it be plain whether the
enmity of my Lords of Warwick and Montagu still remain against our
poor house.'
There was no desire on either side to object when the Lord Musgrave
of Peelholm decided on departing early on the morrow. Their host was
evidently not sorry to speed them on their way, and his reluctant
hospitality made them anxious to cumber him no longer than needful;
and his mind was relieved when it was decided that the heir of the De
Vescis and Cliffords should be known as Harry of Derwentdale.
Only, when all was preparation in the morning, and a hearty service
had been said in the chapel, the lady called her son aside, and
looking up into his dark eyes, said in a low voice, 'Be not angered
with my lord husband's prudence, my son. Remember it is only by
caution that he has saved thine head, or mine, or thy sister's!'
'Ay, ay, mother, I know,' he said, more impatiently than perhaps he
knew.
'It was by the same care that he preserved us all when Edgecotefield
was fought. Chafe not at him. Thou mayst be thankful even now,
mayhap, to find a shelter preserved, while that rogue and robber
Nevil holds our lands.'
'I am more like to have to protect thee, lady mother, and bring thee
to thy true home again!' said Hal.
'Meantime, my child, take this purse and equip thyself at York or
whenever thou canst. Nay, thou needst not shrug and refuse! How
like thy father the gesture, though I would it were more gracious and
seemly. But this is mine, mine own, none of my husband's, though he
would be willing. It comes from the De Vesci lands, and those will
be thine after me, and thine if thou winnest not back thy Clifford
inheritance. And oh! my son, crave of Sir Giles to teach thee how to
demean thyself that they may not say thou art but a churl.'
'I trust to be no churl in heart, if I be in manners,' said Hal,
looking down on his small clinging mother.
'Only be cautious, my son. Remember that you are the last of the
name, and it is your part to bring it to honour.'
'Which I shall scarce do by being cautious,' he said, with something
of a smile. 'That was not my father's way.'
'Ah me! You have his spirit in you, and how did it end?'
'My Lord of Clifford,' said a voice from the court, 'you are waited
for!'
'And remember,' cried his mother, with a last embrace, 'there will be
safety here whenever thou shalt need it.'
'With God's grace, I am more like to protect you and your husband,'
said the lad, bending for another kiss and hurrying away.
CHAPTER XIII. FELLOW TRAVELLERS
And sickerlie she was of great disport,
And full pleasant and amiable of port;
Of small hounds had she that she fed
With roasted flesh and milk and wastel bread.--CHAUCER.
Sir Giles Musgrave of Peelholm was an old campaigner, and when Hal
came out beyond the gate of the Threlkeld fortalice, he found him
reviewing his troop; a very disorderly collection, as Sir Lancelot
pronounced with a sneer, looking out on them, and strongly advising
his step-son not to cast in his lot with them, but to wait and see
what would befall, and whether the Nevils were in earnest in their
desertion of the House of York.
Hal restrained himself with difficulty enough to take a courteous
leave of his mother's husband, to whose prudence and forbearance he
was really much beholden; though, with his spirit newly raised and
burning for his King, it was hard to have patience with neutrality.
He found Sir Giles employed in examining his followers, and rigidly
sending home all not properly equipped with bow, sheaf of arrows,
strong knife or pike, buff coat, head-piece and stout shoes; also a
wallet of provisions for three days, or a certain amount of coin. He
would have no marauding on the way, and refused to take any mere
lawless camp follower, thus disposing of a good many disreputable-
looking fellows who had flocked in his wake. Sir Lancelot's steward
seconded him heartily by hunting back his master's retainers; and
there remained only about five-and-twenty--mostly, in fact, yeomen or
their sons--men who had been in arms for Queen Margaret and had never
made their submission, but lived on unmolested in the hills, really
outlawed, but not coming in collision with the authorities enough to
have their condition inquired into. They had sometimes attacked
Yorkist parties, sometimes resisted Scottish raids, or even made a
foray in return, and they were well used to arms. These all had full
equipments, and some more coin in their pouches than they cared to
avow. Three or four of them brought an ox, calf or sheep, or a rough
pony loaded with provisions, and driven by a herd boy or a son eager
to see life and 'the wars.' Simon Bunce, well armed, was of this
party. Hob Hogward, though he had come to see what became of his
young lord, was pronounced too stiff and aged to join the band, which
might now really be called a troop, not a mere lawless crowd of rough
lads. There were three trained men-at-arms, the regular retainers of
Sir Giles, who held a little peel tower on the borders where nobody
durst molest him, and these marshalled the little band in fair order.
It was no season for roses, but a feather was also the cognisance of
Henry VI., and every one's barret-cap mounted a feather, generally
borrowed from the goodwife's poultry yard at home, but sometimes
picked up on the moors, and showing the barred black and brown
patterns of the hawk's or the owl's plumage. It was a heron's
feather that Hal assumed, on the counsel of Sir Giles, who told him
it was an old badge of the Cliffords, and it became well his bright
dark hair and brown face.
On they went, a new and wonderful march to Hal, who had only looked
with infant eyes on anything beyond the fells, and had very rarely
been into a little moorland church, or seen enough people together
for a market day in Penrith. Sir Giles directed their course along
the sides of the hills till he should gain further intelligence, and
know how they would be received. For the most part the people were
well inclined to King Henry, though unwilling to stir on his behalf
in fear of Edward's cruelty.
However, it was as they had come down from the hills intending to
obtain fresh provisions at one of the villages, and Hal was beginning
to recognise the moors he had known in earlier childhood, that they
perceived a party on the old Roman road before them, which the
outlaws' keen eyes at once discovered to be somewhat of their own
imputed trade. There seemed to be a waggon upset, persons bound, and
a buzz of men, like wasps around a honeycomb preying on it.
Something like women's veiled forms could be seen. 'Ha! Mere
robbery. This must not be. Upon them! Form! Charge!' were the
brief commands of the leader, and the compact body ran at a rapid but
a regulated pace down the little slope that gave them an advantage of
ground with some concealment by a brake of gorse. 'Halt! Pikes
forward!' was the next order. The little band were already close
upon the robbers, in whom they began to recognise some of those whom
Sir Giles had dismissed as mere ruffians unequipped a few days
before. It was with a yell of indignation that the troop fell on
them, Sir Giles with a sharp blow severing the bridle of a horse that
a man was leading, but there was a cry back, 'We are for King Harry!
These be Yorkists!'
'Nay! nay!' came back the voices of the overthrown. 'Help! help! for
King Harry and Queen Margaret! These be rank thieves who have set on
us! Holy women are here!'
These exclamations came broken and in utter confusion, mingled with
cries for mercy and asseverations on the part of the thieves, and
fierce shouts from Sir Giles's men. All was hubbub, barking dogs,
shouting men, and Hal scarcely knew anything till he was aware of two
or three shrouded nuns, as it seemed, standing by their ponies, of
merchantmen or carters trying to quiet and harness frightened mules,
of waggons overturned, of a general confusion over which arose Lord
Musgrave's powerful authoritative voice.
'Kit of Clumber! Why should I not hang you for thieving on yonder
tree, with your fellow thieves?'
'Yorkists, sir! It was all in the good cause,' responded a sullen
voice, as a grim red and scarred face was seen on a ruffian held by
two of the archers.
'No Yorkists we, sir!' began a stout figure, coming forward from the
waggon. 'We be peaceable merchants and this is a holy dame, the--'
'The Prioress Selby of Greystone,' interrupted one of the nuns,
coming forward with a hawk on her wrist. 'Sir Giles of Musgrave, I
am beholden to you! I was on my way to take the young damsel of
Bletso to her father, the Lord St. John, with Earl Warwick in London.
He sent us an escort, but they being arrant cravens, as it seems, we
thought it well to join company with these same merchants, and thus
we became a bait for the outlaws of the Border.'
'Lady, lady,' burst from one of the prisoners, 'I swear that we
kenned not holy dames to be of the company! Sir, my lord, we thought
to serve the cause of King Harry, and how any man is to guess which
side is Earl Warwick's is past an honest man.'
'An honest man whose cause is his own pouch!' returned Sir Giles.
'Miscreants all! But I trow we are scarce yet out of the land of
misrule! So if the Lady Prioress will say a word for such a sort of
sorners, I'll e'en let you go on your way.'
'They have had a warning, the poor rogues, and that will suffice for
this time! Nay, now, fellows, let my wimple alone! You'll not find
another lord to let you off so easy, nor another Prioress to stand
your friend. Get off, I say.'
An archer enforced her words with a blow, and by some means, rough or
otherwise, a certain amount of order was restored, the ruffians
slinking off among the gorse bushes, their flight hastened by the
pointing of pikes and levelling of arrows at them. While the
merchants, diving into their packages, produced horns of ale which a
younger man offered to their defenders, the chief of the party, a
portly fellow, interrupted certain civilities between the Prioress
and Sir Giles by praying them to partake of a cup of malmsey, and
adding an entreaty that they might be allowed to join company with so
brave an escort, explaining that he was a poor merchant of London and
the Hans towns who had been beguiled into an expedition to Scotland
to the young King James, who was said to have a fair taste. He waved
his hands as if his sufferings had been beyond description.
'Went for wool and came back shorn!' said the Prioress, laughing.
'Well, my Lord Musgrave, what say you to letting us join company?--as
I see your band is afoot it will be no great delay, and the more the
safer as well as the merrier! Here, let me present to you my young
maid, the Lady Anne of Bletso, whom I in person am about to deliver
to her father.'
'And let me present privately to both ladies,' said Sir Giles, 'the
young squire Harry of Derwentdale, who hath been living as a shepherd
in the hills during the York rule.'
'Ha! my lord, methinks this may not be the first meeting between Lady
Anne and you, though she would not know who the herd boy was who
found her, a stray lambkin on the moor.'
The young people looked at each other with eyes of recognition, and
as Hal made his best bow, he said, 'Forsooth, lady, I did not know
myself till afterwards.'
'Your shepherd and his wife gave me to understand that I should do
hurt by inquiring too much,' said the young lady smiling, and holding
out her hand, which Hal did not know whether to kiss or to shake. 'I
hope the kind old goodwife is well, who cosseted me so lovingly.'
'She fares well, indeed, lady, only grieved at parting with me.'
'There now,' said the Prioress, 'since we are quit of the robbers,
methinks we cannot do better than halt awhile for Master Lorimer's
folk to mend the tackling of their gear, while we make our noonday
meal and provide for our further journey. Allow me to be your
hostess for the nonce, my lords.'
And between the lady's sumpter mules and the merchant's stores a far
more sumptuous meal was produced than would have otherwise been the
share of the Lancastrian party.
CHAPTER XIV. THE JOURNEY
'Twas sweet to see these holy maids,
Like birds escaped to greenwood shades,--SCOTT.
The Prioress Agnes Selby of Greystone was a person who would have
made a much fitter lady of a castle than head of a nunnery. She
would have worked for and with her lord, defended his lands for him,
governed his house and managed her sons with untiring zest and
energy. But a vow of her parents had consigned her to a monastic
life at York, where she could only work off her vigour by teasing the
more devout and grave sisters, and when honourably banished to the
more remote Greystone, in field sports, and in fortifying her convent
against Scots or Lancastrians who, somewhat to her disappointment,
never did attack her. No complaint or scandal had ever attached
itself to her name, and she let Mother Scholastica manage the nuns,
and regulate the devotions, while Greystone was known as a place
where a thirsty warrior might be refreshed, where tales and ballads
of Border raids were welcome, and where good hawk or hound was not
despised.
It had occurred to the Lord St. John of Bletso that the little
daughter whom he had left at York might be come to a marriageable
age, and he had listened to the proposal of one of the cousins of the
house of Nevil for a contract between her and his son, sending an
escort northwards to fetch her, properly accompanied.
She had been all these years at Greystone, and the Prioress
immediately decided that this would be an excellent opportunity of
seeing the southern world, and going on a round of pilgrimages which
would make the expedition highly decorous. The ever restless spirit
within her rose in delight, and the Sisterhood of York were ready to
acquiesce, having faith in Mother Agnes' good sense to guide her and
her pupil to his castle in Bedfordshire by the help of Father Martin
through any tangles of the White and Red Roses that might await her,
as well to her real principle for avoiding actual evil, though she
might startle monastic proprieties.
There was no doubt but that conversation, when she could have it, was
as great a joy to her as ever was galloping after a deer; and there
she sat with her beautiful hound by her side, and her hawk on a pole,
exchanging sentiments of speculation as to Warwick's change of front
with Sir Giles Musgrave, Father Martin, and Master Ralph Lorimer,
while discussing a pasty certainly very superior to anything that had
come out of the Penrith stores.
Young Clifford and Lady Anne sat on the grass near, too shy for the
present to renew their acquaintance, but looking up at one another
under their eyelashes, and the first time their eyes met, the girl
breaking into a laugh, but it was not till towards the end of the
refection that they were startled into intercourse by a general
growling and leaping up of the great hound, and of the two big
ungainly dogs chained to the waggon, as wet, lean, bristling but
ecstatic, Watch dashed in among them, and fell on his master.
For four days (unless he was tied up at first) the good dog must have
been tracking him. 'Off! off!' cried the Prioress, holding back her
deer-hound by main strength. 'Off, Florimond! he sets thee a pattern
of faithfulness! Be quiet and learn thy devoir!'
'O sir, I cannot send him back!' entreated Hal, also embracing and
caressing the shaggy neck.
'Send him back! Nay, indeed. As saith the Reverend Mother, it were
well if some earls and lords minded his example,' said Sir Giles.
'Here! Watch, I mind thee well,' added Anne. 'Here's a slice of
pasty to reward thee. Oh! thou art very hungry,' as the big mouth
bolted it whole.
'Nearly famished, poor rogue!' said Hal, administering a bone. 'How
far hast thou run, mine own lad! Art fain to come with thy master
and see the hermit?'
'Thou must e'en go,' growled Simon Bunce, 'unless the lady's dog make
an end of thee! 'Tis ever the worthless that turn up.'
'I would Florimond would show himself as true,' said the Prioress.
'Don't show thy teeth, sir! I can honour Watch, yet love thee.'
''Tis jealousy as upsets faith,' said the merchant. 'The hound is a
knightly beast with his proud head, but he brooks not to see a
Woodville creep in.'
'Nay, or a Beaufort!' suggested Sir Giles.
'No treason, Lord Musgrave!' said the Prioress, laughing.
'Ah, madam,' responded Sir Giles, 'what is treason?'
'Whatever is against him that has the best of it,' observed Master
Lorimer. 'Well that it is not the business of a poor dealer in
horse-gear and leather-work. He asks not which way his bridles are
to turn! How now, Tray and Blackchaps? Never growl and gird. You
have no part in the fray!'
For they were chained, and could only champ, bark and howl, while
Florimond and Watch turned one another over, and had to be pulled
forcibly back, by Hal on the one hand and on the other by the Mother
Agnes, who would let nobody touch Florimond except herself. After
this, the two dogs subsided into armed neutrality, and gradually
became devoted friends.
The curiously composed cavalcade moved on their way southward. The
Prioress was mounted on the fine chestnut horse that Sir Giles had
rescued. She was attended by a nun, Sister Mabel, and a lay Sister,
both as hardy as herself, and riding sturdy mountain ponies; but her
chaplain, a thin delicate-looking man with a bad cough, only ventured
upon a sturdy ass; Anne St. John had a pretty little white palfrey
and two men-at-arms. There were two grooms, countrymen, who had run
away on the onset of the thieves, but came sneaking back again, to be
soundly rated by the Prioress, who threatened to send them home again
or have them well scourged, but finally laughed and forgave them.
The merchant, Master Lorimer--who dealt primarily in all sorts of
horse furniture, but added thereto leather-work for knights and men-
at-arms, and all that did not too closely touch the armourer's trade--
had three sturdy attendants, having lost one in an attack by the
Scottish Borderers, and he had four huge Flemish horses, who sped
along the better for their loads having been lightened by sales in
Edinburgh, where he had hardly obtained skins enough to make up for
the weight. His headquarters, he said, were at Barnet, since tanning
and leather-dressing, necessary to his work, though a separate guild,
literally stank in the nostrils of the citizens of London.
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