CHAPTER IV--A GREENWOOD COMPANY
Matcham was well rested and revived; and the two lads, winged by whatDick had seen, hurried through the remainder of the outwood, crossed theroad in safety, and began to mount into the high ground of TunstallForest. The trees grew more and more in groves, with heathy places inbetween, sandy, gorsy, and dotted with old yews. The ground became moreand more uneven, full of pits and hillocks. And with every step of theascent the wind still blew the shriller, and the trees bent before thegusts like fishing-rods.
They had just entered one of the clearings, when Dick suddenly clappeddown upon his face among the brambles, and began to crawl slowly backwardtowards the shelter of the grove. Matcham, in great bewilderment, for hecould see no reason for this flight, still imitated his companion'scourse; and it was not until they had gained the harbour of a thicketthat he turned and begged him to explain.
For all reply, Dick pointed with his finger.
At the far end of the clearing, a fir grew high above the neighbouringwood, and planted its black shock of foliage clear against the sky. Forabout fifty feet above the ground the trunk grew straight and solid likea column. At that level, it split into two massive boughs; and in thefork, like a mast-headed seaman, there stood a man in a green tabard,spying far and wide. The sun glistened upon his hair; with one hand heshaded his eyes to look abroad, and he kept slowly rolling his head fromside to side, with the regularity of a machine.
The lads exchanged glances.
"Let us try to the left," said Dick. "We had near fallen foully, Jack."
Ten minutes afterwards they struck into a beaten path.
"Here is a piece of forest that I know not," Dick remarked. "Where goethme this track?"
"Let us even try," said Matcham.
A few yards further, the path came to the top of a ridge and began to godown abruptly into a cup-shaped hollow. At the foot, out of a thick woodof flowering hawthorn, two or three roofless gables, blackened as if byfire, and a single tall chimney marked the ruins of a house.
"What may this be?" whispered Matcham.
"Nay, by the mass, I know not," answered Dick. "I am all at sea. Let usgo warily."
With beating hearts, they descended through the hawthorns. Here andthere, they passed signs of recent cultivation; fruit trees and pot herbsran wild among the thicket; a sun-dial had fallen in the grass; it seemedthey were treading what once had been a garden. Yet a little farther andthey came forth before the ruins of the house.
It had been a pleasant mansion and a strong. A dry ditch was dug deepabout it; but it was now choked with masonry, and bridged by a fallenrafter. The two farther walls still stood, the sun shining through theirempty windows; but the remainder of the building had collapsed, and nowlay in a great cairn of ruin, grimed with fire. Already in the interiora few plants were springing green among the chinks.
"Now I bethink me," whispered Dick, "this must be Grimstone. It was ahold of one Simon Malmesbury; Sir Daniel was his bane! 'Twas BennetHatch that burned it, now five years agone. In sooth, 'twas pity, for itwas a fair house."
Down in the hollow, where no wind blew, it was both warm and still; andMatcham, laying one hand upon Dick's arm, held up a warning finger.
"Hist!" he said.
Then came a strange sound, breaking on the quiet. It was twice repeatedere they recognised its nature. It was the sound of a big man clearinghis throat; and just then a hoarse, untuneful voice broke into singing.
"Then up and spake the master, the king of the outlaws: 'What make ye here, my merry men, among the greenwood shaws?' And Gamelyn made answer--he looked never adown: 'O, they must need to walk in wood that may not walk in town!'"
The singer paused, a faint clink of iron followed, and then silence.
The two lads stood looking at each other. Whoever he might be, theirinvisible neighbour was just beyond the ruin. And suddenly the colourcame into Matcham's face, and next moment he had crossed the fallenrafter, and was climbing cautiously on the huge pile of lumber thatfilled the interior of the roofless house. Dick would have withheld him,had he been in time; as it was, he was fain to follow.
Right in the corner of the ruin, two rafters had fallen crosswise, andprotected a clear space no larger than a pew in church. Into this thelads silently lowered themselves. There they were perfectly concealed,and through an arrow-loophole commanded a view upon the farther side.
Peering through this, they were struck stiff with terror at theirpredicament. To retreat was impossible; they scarce dared to breathe.Upon the very margin of the ditch, not thirty feet from where theycrouched, an iron caldron bubbled and steamed above a glowing fire; andclose by, in an attitude of listening, as though he had caught some soundof their clambering among the ruins, a tall, red-faced, battered-lookingman stood poised, an iron spoon in his right hand, a horn and aformidable dagger at his belt. Plainly this was the singer; plainly hehad been stirring the caldron, when some incautious step among the lumberhad fallen upon his ear. A little further off, another man layslumbering, rolled in a brown cloak, with a butterfly hovering above hisface. All this was in a clearing white with daisies; and at the extremeverge, a bow, a sheaf of arrows, and part of a deer's carcase, hung upona flowering hawthorn.
Presently the fellow relaxed from his attitude of attention, raised thespoon to his mouth, tasted its contents, nodded, and then fell again tostirring and singing.
"'O, they must need to walk in wood that may not walk in town,'" hecroaked, taking up his song where he had left it.
"O, sir, we walk not here at all an evil thing to do. But if we meet with the good king's deer to shoot a shaft into."
Still as he sang, he took from time to time, another spoonful of thebroth, blew upon it, and tasted it, with all the airs of an experiencedcook. At length, apparently, he judged the mess was ready; for takingthe horn from his girdle, he blew three modulated calls.
The other fellow awoke, rolled over, brushed away the butterfly, andlooked about him.
"How now, brother?" he said. "Dinner?"
"Ay, sot," replied the cook, "dinner it is, and a dry dinner, too, withneither ale nor bread. But there is little pleasure in the greenwoodnow; time was when a good fellow could live here like a mitred abbot, setaside the rain and the white frosts; he had his heart's desire both ofale and wine. But now are men's spirits dead; and this John Amend-All,save us and guard us! but a stuffed booby to scare crows withal."
"Nay," returned the other, "y' are too set on meat and drinking, Lawless.Bide ye a bit; the good time cometh."
"Look ye," returned the cook, "I have even waited for this good time siththat I was so high. I have been a grey friar; I have been a king'sarcher; I have been a shipman, and sailed the salt seas; and I have beenin greenwood before this, forsooth! and shot the king's deer. Whatcometh of it? Naught! I were better to have bided in the cloister.John Abbot availeth more than John Amend-All. By 'r Lady! here theycome."
One after another, tall, likely fellows began to stroll into the lawn.Each as he came produced a knife and a horn cup, helped himself from thecaldron, and sat down upon the grass to eat. They were very variouslyequipped and armed; some in rusty smocks, and with nothing but a knifeand an old bow; others in the height of forest gallantry, all in Lincolngreen, both hood and jerkin, with dainty peacock arrows in their belts, ahorn upon a baldrick, and a sword and dagger at their sides. They camein the silence of hunger, and scarce growled a salutation, but fellinstantly to meat.
There were, perhaps, a score of them already gathered, when a sound ofsuppressed cheering arose close by among the hawthorns, and immediatelyafter five or six woodmen carrying a stretcher debauched upon the lawn.A tall, lusty fellow, somewhat grizzled, and as brown as a smoked ham,walked before them with an air of some authority, his bow at his back, abright boar-spear in his hand.
"Lads!" he cried, "good fellows all, and my right merry friends, y' havesung this while on a dry whistle and lived at littl
e ease. But what saidI ever? Abide Fortune constantly; she turneth, turneth swift. And lo!here is her little firstling--even that good creature, ale!"
There was a murmur of applause as the bearers set down the stretcher anddisplayed a goodly cask.
"And now haste ye, boys," the man continued. "There is work toward. Ahandful of archers are but now come to the ferry; murrey and blue istheir wear; they are our butts--they shall all taste arrows--no man ofthem shall struggle through this wood. For, lads, we are here some fiftystrong, each man of us most foully wronged; for some they have lostlands, and some friends; and some they have been outlawed--all oppressed!Who, then, hath done this evil? Sir Daniel, by the rood! Shall he thenprofit? shall he sit snug in our houses? shall he till our fields? shallhe suck the bone he robbed us of? I trow not. He getteth him strengthat law; he gaineth cases; nay, there is one case he shall not gain--Ihave a writ here at my belt that, please the saints, shall conquer him."
Lawless the cook was by this time already at his second horn of ale. Heraised it, as if to pledge the speaker.
"Master Ellis," he said, "y' are for vengeance--well it becomethyou!--but your poor brother o' the greenwood, that had never lands tolose nor friends to think upon, looketh rather, for his poor part, to theprofit of the thing. He had liever a gold noble and a pottle of canarywine than all the vengeances in purgatory."
"Lawless," replied the other, "to reach the Moat House, Sir Daniel mustpass the forest. We shall make that passage dearer, pardy, than anybattle. Then, when he hath got to earth with such ragged handful asescapeth us--all his great friends fallen and fled away, and none to givehim aid--we shall beleaguer that old fox about, and great shall be thefall of him. 'Tis a fat buck; he will make a dinner for us all."
"Ay," returned Lawless, "I have eaten many of these dinners beforehand;but the cooking of them is hot work, good Master Ellis. And meanwhilewhat do we? We make black arrows, we write rhymes, and we drink faircold water, that discomfortable drink."
"Y' are untrue, Will Lawless. Ye still smell of the Grey Friars'buttery; greed is your undoing," answered Ellis. "We took twenty poundsfrom Appleyard. We took seven marks from the messenger last night. Aday ago we had fifty from the merchant."
"And to-day," said one of the men, "I stopped a fat pardoner riding apacefor Holywood. Here is his purse."
Ellis counted the contents.
"Five score shillings!" he grumbled. "Fool, he had more in his sandal,or stitched into his tippet. Y' are but a child, Tom Cuckow; ye havelost the fish."
But, for all that, Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance. He stoodleaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest. They, invarious attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberallywashed it down with ale. This was a good day; they were in luck; butbusiness pressed, and they were speedy in their eating. The first-comershad by this time even despatched their dinner. Some lay down upon thegrass and fell instantly asleep, like boa-constrictors; others talkedtogether, or overhauled their weapons: and one, whose humour wasparticularly gay, holding forth an ale-horn, began to sing:
"Here is no law in good green shaw, Here is no lack of meat; 'Tis merry and quiet, with deer for our diet, In summer, when all is sweet.
Come winter again, with wind and rain-- Come winter, with snow and sleet, Get home to your places, with hoods on your faces, And sit by the fire and eat."
All this while the two lads had listened and lain close; only Richard hadunslung his cross-bow, and held ready in one hand the windac, orgrappling-iron that he used to bend it. Otherwise they had not dared tostir; and this scene of forest life had gone on before their eyes like ascene upon a theatre. But now there came a strange interruption. Thetall chimney which over-topped the remainder of the ruins rose rightabove their hiding-place. There came a whistle in the air, and then asounding smack, and the fragments of a broken arrow fell about theirears. Some one from the upper quarters of the wood, perhaps the verysentinel they saw posted in the fir, had shot an arrow at thechimney-top.
Matcham could not restrain a little cry, which he instantly stifled, andeven Dick started with surprise, and dropped the windac from his fingers.But to the fellows on the lawn, this shaft was an expected signal. Theywere all afoot together, tightening their belts, testing theirbow-strings, loosening sword and dagger in the sheath. Ellis held up hishand; his face had suddenly assumed a look of savage energy; the white ofhis eyes shone in his sun-brown face.
"Lads," he said, "ye know your places. Let not one man's soul escapeyou. Appleyard was a whet before a meal; but now we go to table. I havethree men whom I will bitterly avenge--Harry Shelton, Simon Malmesbury,and"--striking his broad bosom--"and Ellis Duckworth, by the mass!"
Another man came, red with hurry, through the thorns.
"'Tis not Sir Daniel!" he panted. "They are but seven. Is the arrowgone?"
"It struck but now," replied Ellis.
"A murrain!" cried the messenger. "Methought I heard it whistle. And Igo dinnerless!"
In the space of a minute, some running, some walking sharply, accordingas their stations were nearer or farther away, the men of the Black Arrowhad all disappeared from the neighbourhood of the ruined house; and thecaldron, and the fire, which was now burning low, and the dead deer'scarcase on the hawthorn, remained alone to testify they had been there.