Runnymede and Lincoln Fair. John G. Edgar
and he hurried through the woodland and over the crisp ground that he might reach the hall of the Icinglas before the hour of supper, then an important meal under the roof of vanquished Saxon as well as victorious Norman, and especially in seasons of festivity. Notwithstanding the anxiety he felt about Oliver Icingla, and the disappointment he had experienced in not being allowed to accompany the young squire to the court or into captivity—just as might turn out—Wolf’s heart was not heavy, and as he neared the old house of brick and timber, and anticipated the good cheer that awaited him, he began to believe that all would come right in the end, and whistled almost joyously as his spirits rose and he thought of the good time that was coming. Suddenly a hare crossed his path. “A bad omen,” said Wolf, who had all the superstitious feelings of his race and country; and scarcely had he thus briefly soliloquised when his steps were arrested by a huge white bulldog which growled menacingly in his face, and by the voice of a man who leant against the trunk of a leafless oak.
“Wolf, boy, where is thy master?” said the man. “I have not seen him once of late, albeit he was wont to seek my company often enough.”
Wolf turned to the speaker, and, as he found his sleeve grasped, appeared somewhat more awed than was reasonable at finding himself alone with such a person and in such a place, and he would have been still more so had it been an hour after dark.
He was, so far as could be judged from his appearance, not more than thirty-five—that age which has been called “the second prime of man”—and had nothing about him to daunt or terrify a youth who, like Wolf, had been in Spain, and watched eagerly while grim warriors engaged in mortal combat. Indeed, the expression of his countenance was frank, and even kindly, and to the ordinary eye would have been prepossessing, while his figure was tall and of herculean strength, with mighty limbs, the arms long and muscular. His dress was that which might have been worn by any forester or forest outlaw, and he had a bugle-horn at his girdle, to which also was attached a heavy club of iron, which was likely, in his hands, to do terrible execution whenever necessity or inclination made him use it. But, as I have said, there was nothing in his appearance to excite alarm. Nevertheless, Wolf gazed on him with an awe that every moment increased, for he had often seen this person before, and knew him as Forest Will, or Will with the Club, whose existence was enveloped in mystery, but who was suspected of being a chief of outlaws, and by most people, particularly by Dame Isabel Icingla, deemed a dangerous man, with whom it was as impossible to hold converse without being led into mischief as to touch pitch without being defiled. Such being the case, Wolf felt almost as much alarmed as if Satan had suddenly started up in his path, and with difficulty mustered voice to say in a tremulous tone—
“I am in haste; I pray thee permit me to pass on my way.”
“Have patience and fear nothing,” said the man of the forest. “I asked thee what had become of thy master. I fain would see him.”
“May it please thee,” replied Wolf, after a pause, “my master has gone to the king’s court.”
“Gone to the king’s court! Oliver Icingla gone to the king’s court!” exclaimed the man of the forest, wonderingly. “What in the fiend’s name took him there?”
“In truth,” answered Wolf, slowly but gradually recovering his self-possession, “it was not of his own will that he went thither; but ‘needs must when the devil drives.’ He was conducted to the Tower of London as a hostage by his mother’s kinsman, the Lord Hugh de Moreville.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” cried the man of the forest, stamping his foot with anger and vexation; “I see it all. He is destined to feed the crows, if not saved by a miracle. I marvel much that a youth of his wit could be so blind as to be led by his false kinsman into such a snare. Hugh de Moreville,” he continued, speaking to himself, but still loud enough to be heard by Wolf, whose hearing was acute—“Hugh de Moreville gives Oliver Icingla to King John as a hostage for his good faith. Hugh breaks faith with the king and rises with the barons, and Oliver is hung up to punish Hugh’s perfidy, which is just what Hugh wants; and when peace is patched up between the king and the barons, and the past forgiven and forgotten, Hugh remains in undisputed possession of the castles and baronies, which otherwise he might one day have to surrender to the rightful heir at the bidding of the law. By the rood, this lord is wise in his own generation, and, doubtless, knows it; yet, had he asked my counsel, I could have shown him a less hazardous way to accomplish his wishes; for Hugh has but one daughter, who is marvellous fair to look upon; and the Icinglas, whatever their pride and prejudices as to race, are as wax in the presence of Norman women of beauty and blood. What thinkest thou the life of Master Oliver Icingla may be worth,” asked he, again addressing Wolf, “now that he is securely mewed in the Tower?”
“I know not,” said Wolf, mournfully. “I would fain hope my lady’s son is in no real danger.”
“Your lady,” continued the man of the forest, with an air of careless indifference, “relished not the thought of her son holding so much discourse as he was wont to do with one like me. Was it not so?”
Wolf hesitated.
“Nay, boy, speak, and fear not. Knowest thou not it is good to tell truth and shame the devil?”
“In good sooth, then,” replied Wolf, at length yielding to the pressure of his questioner, “I know right well that my lady did much fear that her son might be tempted into some enterprise perilous to his life.”
“Even so,” said the man of the forest; “and it is ever in this way that women err as to the quarter where danger lies; and now her noble kinsman has led her son into far greater peril than he was ever like to be exposed to in my company.”
“I grieve to hear thee speak of his danger in such terms,” said Wolf, gloomily.
“Matters may yet be remedied,” continued the man of the forest, “and I own I would do much for thy master. Would that this false step of his could have been prevented! Better far that he had taken to the greenwood or to the caves in the rocks, or roamed the sea as a pirate, than gone to the Tower as hostage for a kinsman who to treachery adds the cunning of a fox and the cruelty of a tiger.”
And, releasing Wolf’s sleeve, Forest Will, alias Will with the Club, turned on his heel, and, whistling on his dog, made for the forest, and disappeared.
Wolf, not much pleased with the interview, nor with himself for having been so confidential in his communications, pursued his way to Oakmede.
“On my faith,” said he to himself, as he came in sight of the house and breathed more freely, “that terrible man has well-nigh scared all the blood out of my body. May the saints so order it that I see his face no more!”
Wolf’s prayer, however, was not to be granted. It was not the last time that his eyes were to alight on the man of the forest; in fact, that person was to cut rather a prominent figure in the exciting scenes which were about to be enacted in England.
CHAPTER VIII
THE KING AND THE BARONS
I HAVE stated that between the Plantagenet kings of England and the Anglo-Norman barons there existed no particular sympathy; and considering who the Plantagenet kings were, and what was their origin, it need not be matter of surprise that they cherished something like an antipathy towards the feudal magnates whose ancestors fought at Hastings, and had their names blazoned on the grand roll of Battle Abbey.
It was in the ninth century, when Charles the Bald, one of the heirs of Charlemagne, reigned over France, that a brave and good man, named Torquatus, lived within the limits of the French empire, and passed his time chiefly in cultivating his lands and hunting in his woods. Torquatus had every prospect of living and dying in obscurity, without making his name known to fame. Happening, however, to be summoned to serve his sovereign in war, he gave proofs of such courage and ability that he rose high in the king’s favour, and was for his valuable