Brian Fitz-Count. A. D. Crake
the downs, was filled with wood and marsh nourished by many slow and half stagnant streams, or penetrated by swiftly running brooks which still follow the same general course through the district in its cultivated state.
At length they reached a wide open moor covered with gorse or heather; gay and brilliant looked the train as it passed over the spot. The hunters generally wore a garb familiar to some of us by pictorial representations, a green hunting tunic girded by a belt with silver clasps, a hunting knife in the girdle, a horn swung round the shoulder dependent from the neck; but beneath this gay attire the great men wore suits of chain mail, so flexible that it did not impede their movements nor feel half so uncomfortable as some present suits of corduroy would feel to a modern dandy. There were archers a few, there were also spearmen who ran well and kept up with the mounted company at a steady swinging trot, then there were fine-looking dogs of enormous size, and of wondrous powers of strength and motion. The very thought of it is enough to make the modern hunter sigh for the "good old times."
Onward! onward! we fly, the moor is past, the hunting train turns to the right and follows the course of the brook towards the park of Blidberia (or Blewbery), the wood gets thicker and thicker; it is a tangled marsh, and yet a forest; tall trees rise in endless variety, oaks that might have borne mistletoes for the Druids; huge beeches with spreading foliage, beneath which Tityrus might have reclined nor complained of want of shade; willows rooted in water; decaying trunks of trees, rotting in sullen pools of stagnant mire; yet, a clear, fresh spring rushes along by the side of the track.
And at intervals the outline of the Bearroc hills, the Berkshire downs, rises above the forest, and solemnly in the distance looms the huge tree-covered barrow, where Cwichelm, the last King of Wessex, sleeps his long sleep while his subjugated descendants serve their Norman masters in the country around his hill-tomb.
And now a gallant stag is roused—a stag of ten branches. He scents the dogs as the wind blows from them to him, he shakes the dewdrops from his flanks, he listens one moment to the clamour of the noisy pack of canine foes, he shakes his head disdainfully, and rushes on his headlong course. The dogs bark and bay, the horns ring out, the voices of men and boys, cheering and shouting as they spur their willing steeds, join the discord. Hark! hark! Halloa! halloa! Whoop! whoop! and onward they fly. The timid hares and rabbits rush away or seek their burrows. The hawks and birds of prey fly wildly overhead in puzzled flight, as the wild huntsmen rush along.
But now the natural obstacles retard their flight, and the stag gains the downs first, and speeds over the upper plains. A mile after him, the hunt emerges just above the tangled maze of Blewbery. Now all is open ground, and the stag heads for Cwichelm's Hlawe.
Swiftly they sweep along; the footmen are left far behind. The wind is blowing hard, and the shadows of fleecy clouds are cast upon the downs, but the riders outstrip them, and leave the dark outlines behind them. The leaves blow from many a fading tree, but faster rush the wild huntsmen, and Brian Fitz-Count rides first.
They have left the clump on Blewbery down behind: the sacred mound on which St. Birinus once stood when he first preached the Gospel of Christ to the old English folk of Wessex, is passed unheeded. When lo! they cross a lateral valley and the stag stops to gaze, then as if mature reflection teaches him the wood and tangled marsh are safer for him, descends again to the lower ground.
What a disappointment to be checked in such a gallant run, to leave the springy turf and have again to seek the woods and abate their speed, and what is worse, when they enter the forest they find all the dogs at variance of purpose; a fox, their natural enemy, has crossed the track but recently, and nearly all the pack are after him, while the rest hesitate and rush wildly about. The huntsmen strive to restore order, but meanwhile the stag has gained upon his pursuers. The poor hunted beast, panting as though its heart would break, is safe for a while.
Let us use a tale-teller's privilege and guide the reader to another scene.
Not many furlongs from the spot where the hunters stopped perplexed, stood a lonely cot in a green islet of ground, amidst the mazy windings of a brook, which sprang from the hills and rising from the ground in copious streams, inundated the marsh and gave protection to the dwellers of this primæval habitation.
It was a large cottage for that period, divided into three rooms, the outer and larger one for living, the two inner and smaller for bedchambers. Its construction was simple and not unlike those raised by the dwellers in the wild parts of the earth now. Larches or pines, about the thickness of a man's leg, had been cut down, shaped with an axe, driven into the earth at the intervals of half a yard, willow-twigs had been twined round them, the interstices had been filled with clay, cross beams had been laid upon the level summits of the posts, a roof of bark supported on lighter timber placed upon it, slightly shelving from the ridge, and the outer fabric was complete. Then the inner partitions had been made, partly with bark, partly with skins, stretched from post to post; light doors swung on hinges of leather, small apertures covered with semitransparent skin formed the windows, and a huge aperture in the roof over a hearth, whereon rested a portable iron grate, served for chimney.
A table, roughly made, stood upon trestles, two or three seats, like milking-stools, supplied the lack of chairs—such was the furniture of the living room.
Over the fire sat the occupants of the house—whom we must particularly introduce to our readers.
The first and most conspicuous was an old man, dressed mainly in vestments of skin, but the one impression he produced upon the beholder was "fallen greatness." Such a face, such noble features, withered and wrinkled though they were by age; long masses of white hair, untouched by barber or scissors, hung down his back, and a white wavy beard reached almost to his waist.
By his side, attentive to his every word, sat a youth of about sixteen summers, and he was also worthy of notice—he seemed to combine the characteristic features of the two races, Norman and English—we will not use that misnomer "Saxon," our ancestors never called themselves by other name than English after the Heptarchy was dissolved. His hair was dark, his features shapely, but there was that one peculiarity of feature which always gives a pathetic look to the face—large blue eyes under dark eyebrows.
The third person was evidently of lower rank than the others, although this was not evident from any distinction of dress, for poverty had obliterated all such tokens, but from the general manner, the look of servitude, the air of submission which characterised one born of a race of thralls. In truth she was the sole survivor of a race of hereditary bondsmen, who had served the ancestors of him whom she now tended with affectionate fidelity amidst poverty and old age.
Let us listen to their conversation, and so introduce them to the reader.
"And so, grandfather," said the boy in a subdued voice of deep feeling, "you saw him, your father, depart for the last time—the very last?"
"I remember, as if it were but yesterday, when my father gathered his churls and thralls[5] around him at our house at Kingestun under the downs to the west: there were women and children, whose husbands and fathers were going with him to join the army of Harold at London; they were all on foot, for we had few knights in those days, but ere my father mounted his favourite horse—'Whitefoot'—he lifted me in his arms and kissed me. I was but five years old, and then he pressed my mother to his bosom, she gave one sob but strove to stifle it, as the wife of a warrior should. Then all tried to cry—'Long live Thurkill of Kingestun.'
"'Come, my men,' said my father, 'we shall beat these dainty Frenchmen, as our countrymen have beaten the Danes at Stamford, so the 'bode' here tells me. We go to fill the places of the gallant dead who fell around our Harold in the hour of victory—let there be no faint hearts amongst us, 'tis for home and hearth; good-bye, sweethearts,' and they rode away.
"They rode first to the Abbey town (Abingdon), and there made their vows before the famous 'Black Cross' of that ancient shrine; then all bent them for the long march to London town, where they arrived in time to march southward with the hero king, the last English king, and seventy-three years ago this very month of October the end came; blessed were the dead who fell that