Brian Fitz-Count. A. D. Crake
the dogs."
"They have tasted blood and are useless."
"Fire the reeds."
"Nay, grandfather, I must go, the reeds are dry, they will burn us all together. They may show me mercy if I own it bravely."
"Nay, they love their deer too well; they will hang thee on the nearest beech."
"Look! they have fired the reeds."
"It may be our salvation: they cannot penetrate them when burning, and see, if the smoke stifle us not, the fire will not reach us; there is too much green and dank vegetation around the brook between us and the reeds."
"Ah! the wind blows it the other way; nay, it eddies—see that tongue of flame darting amongst the dry fuel—now another: that thick smoke—there it is changed to flame. Oh, grandfather, let us get off by the other side—at once—at once."
"Thou forgettest I am a cripple; but there may be time for you and Judith to save yourselves."
"Nay," said Osric, proudly, "we live or die together."
"Judith will stay with her old master," said the poor thrall, "and with her young lord too."
They were yet "lords" in her eyes, bereft although they were of their once vast possessions.
"Perhaps we are as safe here; their patience will wear out before they can penetrate the island. See, they are firing the reeds out yonder. Normans love a conflagration," said the old man.
In fact, it was as much with that inherent love of making a blaze, which had marked the Normans and the Danes from the beginning, when church, homestead, barn, and stack, were all kindled as the fierce invaders swept through the land; that the mischievous and vindictive men-at-arms had fired the reeds, wherein they thought the slayer of the deer had taken refuge, when they found that the dogs would not enter after him. There was little fear of any further harm than the clearing of a few acres. The trees were too damp to burn, or indeed to take much harm from so hasty and brief a blaze: so they thought, if they thought at all.
But the season had been dry, the material was as tinder, and the blaze reached alarming proportions—several wild animals ran out, and were slain by the bystanders, others were heard squeaking miserably in the flames; but that little affected the hardened folk of the time, they had to learn mercy towards men, before the time came to start a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals.
"He cannot be there or he would have run out by this time."
"He has escaped the other side."
"Nay, Alain and his men have gone round there to look out."
"But they cannot cross the brook on foot, and even a horse would get stuck in the mire."
"They will do their best."
The three in the cottage saw the flames rise and crackle all round them, and the dense clouds of smoke were stifling. Osric got water from the brook and dashed it all over the roof and the more inflammable portions of their dwelling, lest a spark should kindle them, and worked hard at his self-imposed task, in the intense heat.
But the conflagration subsided almost as rapidly as it arose from sheer want of fuel, and with the cessation of the flames came the renewal of the danger of discovery.
Other voices were now heard, one loud and stern as befitted a leader:—
"What meaneth this? Who hath kindled the reeds without my order?"
"The deer-slayer lurketh within."
"What deer-slayer? Who struck the stag?"
"We know not. It could not have been many minutes before we arrived; the carcase was still warm."
"He must be caught; thou shalt not suffer a poacher to live, is the royal command, and mine too; but did you not set the dogs after him?"
"They had tasted blood, my lord."
"But if he were hidden herein, he must have come forth. If the bed of reeds were properly encircled—it seems to cover some roods of forest."
"A shame for so fine a beast to be so foully murdered."
"It was a stag of ten branches."
"And he gave us good sport."
"We will hang his slayer in his honour."
"A fine acorn for a lusty oak."
"When we catch him."
"He shall dance on nothing, and we will amuse ourselves by his grimaces."
"Nothing more laughable than the face a pendu makes with the rope round his neck."
"Has anybody got a rope?"
"Has anybody found the poacher?"
A general laugh.
"Silence, listen."
A dry old oak which had perhaps seen the Druids, and felt the keen knife bare its bosom of the hallowed mistletoe, had kindled and fallen; as it fell sending forth showers upon showers of sparks.
The fall of the tree opened a sort of vista in the flames, and revealed——
"Look," said the Baron, "I see something like the roof of a hut just beyond the opening the tree has made."
"I think so too," said Sir Milo of Gloucester.
"Very well, wait here awhile, my men; these reeds are all burnt, and the ground will soon cool, then you may go in and see what that hut contains: reserve them for my judgment. Here, Tristam, here, Raoul, hold our horses."
Two sprightly-looking boy pages took the reins, and Brian and Milo, if we may presume to call them by such familiar appellations, walked together in the glade.
Deep were their cogitations, and how much the welfare of England depended upon them, would hardly be believed by our readers. We would fain reveal what they said, but only the half can be told.
"It can be endured no longer!"
"Soon no one but he will be allowed to build a castle!"
"But to lay hands upon two anointed prelates."
"The Bishops of Sarum and Lincoln."
"Arrested just when they were trusting to his good faith."
"The one in the king's own ante-chamber, the other in his lodgings eating his dinner."
"The Bishop of Ely only escaped by the skin of his teeth."
"And he, too, was forced to surrender his castle, for the king vowed that the Bishop of Salisbury should have no food until his nephew of Ely surrendered, and led poor Roger, pale and emaciated, stretching forth his skinny hands, and entreating his nephew to save him from starvation, to and fro before the walls, until he gained his ends, and the castle was yielded."
"He is not our true king, but a foul usurper."
"Well, my good cousin, a few hours may bring us news. But, listen; can our folk have caught the deer-slayers? let us return to them."
In the absence of their leaders, the men-at-arms, confiding in the goodness of their boots and leggings, had trodden across the smoking soil in the direction where their leader had pointed out the roof of a hut amidst leafy trees, and had quickly discovered their victims, crossed the brook, and surrounded the house.
"Come forth, Osric, my son," said the old man, "whatever befalls, let us not disgrace our ancestry; let nothing become us in life more than the mode of leaving it, if die we must."
"But must we die? what have we done?"
"Broken their tyrannical laws. Judith, open the door."
A loud shout greeted the appearance of the old man, his beard descending to his waist, as he issued forth, leading Osric by the hand.
"What