The House of Walderne Part 4

"Poor child," said the prior.

"My boy, thou should say 'my lord,' when addressing a t.i.tled earl."

"I did not know, my lord. I beg pardon, my lord, if I have been rude, my lord."

"Nay, thou hast already made up the tale of 'my lords.'"

"You will not let them get me again, my lord?"

"They couldn't get in here, and tomorrow, if the storm cease, I shall take thee away with me. Fear not, my poor boy. If thou hast for a while lost a mother, thou hast found a father."

The boy sighed. Affection is not so easily transferred; and the earl quite comprehended that sigh; as a strange interest, almost unaccountable, he thought, sprang up in his manly breast for the little nestling, thrown so strangely upon his protection and care.

Brave as a lion with the proud, gentle as a lamb with the weak and defenceless, such was Simon de Montfort, an embodiment of true greatness--the union of strength with love. Both Martin and Hubert were fortunate in their new lord.

"There sounds the vesper bell. Wilt thou with me to the chapel?"

said the prior.

Thither both earl and prior proceeded. It was Wednesday evening; the psalms were then apportioned to the days of the week, not of the month, and the first this night was the one hundred and twenty-seventh:

Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but vain that build it.

Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman watcheth but in vain.

And again:

Lo, children and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and gift that cometh of the Lord.

The two boys whom he had so strangely adopted came to the mind of the earl; they were not of his blood, yet they might be "an heritage and gift of the Lord." And as the psalms rose and fell to the rugged old Gregorian tones--old even then--their words seemed to Simon de Montfort as the voice of G.o.d.

Oh! how rough, yet how grand that old psalmody was! Modern ears call its intervals harsh, its melodies crude, but it spoke to the heart with a power which our sweet modern chants often fail to exercise over us, as we chant the same sacred lays.

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Nightfall--night hung like a pall over the island, over the moat, over the silent heath and woods; the snow kept falling, falling; the fires kept blazing in the huge hearths; and the bell kept tolling until curfew time, by the prior's order, that if any were lost in the wild night they might be guided by its sound to shelter.

The earl slept soundly in his little monastic cell that night, and in the morning he perceived the light of a bright dawn through the narrow window; anon the winter's sun rose, all glorious, and the frost and snow sparkled like the sheen of diamonds in its beams.

The bell was just ringing for the Chapter Ma.s.s, the ma.s.s of obligation to all the brotherhood, and the only one sung--during the day--in contradistinction to the low, or silent, ma.s.ses--which equalled the number of the brethren in full orders, of whom there were not more than five or six.

The earl, his squire, and the two boys were there. The prior was celebrant. The manner of Hubert showed his distraction and indifference: it was like a daily lesson in school to him, and he gave it neither more nor less attention. But to Martin the mysterious soothing music of the ma.s.s, like strains from another world, so unlike earthly tunes, came like a new sense, an inspiration from an unknown realm, and brought the unbidden tears to his young eyes.

It must not be supposed that he was totally ignorant of the elements of religion; even the wild inhabitants of the forest crave some form of approach to G.o.d, and from time to time a wandering priest, an outlaw himself of English birth, ministered to the "merrie men" at a rustic altar, generally in the open air or in a well-known cavern. The ma.s.s in its simplest form, divested of its gorgeous ceremonial but preserving the general outline, was the service he rendered; and sometimes he added a little instruction in the vernacular.

What good could such a service be to men living in the constant breach of the eighth commandment? the Normans would ask. To which the outlaws replied, we are at open war with you, at least as honourable a war as you waged at Senlac.

And his mother saw that little Martin was taught the simple truths and precepts of Christianity; more she asked not; nor at his age did he need it.

But here was a soil ready for the good seed.

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The weather continued fine, so after ma.s.s the earl and his squire started for Lewes, taking the two boys with him, Hubert and Martin.

That night they were the guests of John, Earl of Warrenne {5}, who, although he did not agree with the politics of Simon de Montfort, could not refuse the rites of hospitality.

On the morrow, resuming their route, they left the towers of Lewes behind them as they pursued the northern road. Once or twice the earl turned and looked behind him, at the castle and the downs which encircled the old town, with a puzzled and serious expression of face.

"Stephen," he said to his squire; "I cannot tell what ails me, but there is an impression on my mind which I cannot shake off."

"My lord?"

"That yon castle and those hills, which I seem to have seen in a dream, are a.s.sociated with my future fate, for weal or woe."

Chapter 3: Kenilworth.

The chief seat of the n.o.ble Earl of Leicester, as of a far less worthy earl of that name, three centuries later, was the Castle of Kenilworth. It had been erected in the time of Henry the First by one Geoffrey de Clinton, but speedily forfeited to the Crown, by treason, real or supposed. The present Henry, third of that name, once lived there with his fair queen, and beautified it in every way, specially adorning the chapel, but also strengthening the defences, until men thought the castle impregnable.

Well they might, for our Martin and Hubert beheld on their arrival a double row of ramparts, looking over a moat half a mile round, and sometimes a quarter of that distance broad: and the old servitors still told how the sad and feeble king had built a fragile bark, with silken hangings and painted sides, wherein he and his newly-married bride oft took the air on the moat. The buildings of the castle were most extensive; the s.p.a.ce within the moat contained seven acres; the great hall could seat two hundred guests. The park extended without a break from the walls of Coventry on the northeast to the far borders of the park of the great Earl of Warwick on the southwest--a distance of several miles.

And here, in the society of a score of other boys of their own age, our Hubert and Martin were to receive their early education as pages.

Education--ah, how unlike that which falls to the lot of the schoolboy of the nineteenth century. As a rule, the care of the mother was deemed too tender and the paternal roof too indulgent for a boy after his twelfth year, so he was sent, not exactly to a boarding school, but to the castle of some eminent n.o.ble, such as the one under our observation; and here, in the company of from ten to twenty companions of his own age, he began his studies.

We have previously described this course of education in a former tale, The Rival Heirs, but for the benefit of those who have not read the afore-said story we must be pardoned a little recapitulation.

He was daily exercised in the use of all manner of weapons, beginning with such as were of simple character; he was taught to ride, not only in the saddle, but to sit a horse bare-backed, or under any conceivable circ.u.mstances which might occur. He had to bend the stout yew bow and to wield the sword, he had to couch the lance, which art he acquired with dexterity by the practice at the quintain.

He had also to do the work of a menial, but not in a menial spirit.

It was his to wait upon his lord at table, to be a graceful cup bearer, a clever carver, able to select the t.i.tbits for the ladies, and then to a.s.sign the other portions according to rank.

It was his to follow the hounds, to learn the blasts of the horn, which belonged to each detail of the field; to track the hunted animal, to rush in upon boar or stag at bay, to break up or disembowel the captured quarry.

It was his to learn how to thread the pathless forests, like that of Arden; by observing the prevalent direction of the wind, as indicated by the way in which the trees threw their thickest branches, or the side of the trunk on which the mosses grew most densely; to know the stars, and to thread the murky forest at midnight by an occasional glimpse of that bright polar star, around which Charley's Wain revolved, as it does in these latter days.

It was his to learn that wondrous devotion to the ladies, which was at the foundation of chivalry, and found at last its reductio ad absurdum in the Dulcinea of Don Quixote; but it was not a bad thing in itself, and softened the manners, nor suffered them to become utterly ferocious.

He was taught to abhor all the meaner vices, such as cowardice or lying--no gentleman could live under such an imputation and retain his claim to the name. But it must be admitted that there were higher duties practised wheresoever the obligations of chivalry were fully carried out: the duty of succouring the distressed or redressing wrong, of devotion to G.o.d and His Church, and hatred of the devil and his works.

Alas! how often one aspect of chivalry alone, and that the worst, was found to exist; the ideal was too high for fallen nature.

To Hubert the new life which opened before him was full of promise and delight; he seemed to have found a paradise far more after his own heart than Eden could ever have been: but it was otherwise with Martin.

They had not been unkindly received by their companions, although, as the other pages were nearly all the sons of n.o.bles, there was a marked restraint in the way in which they condescended to boys who had only one name {6}. Still, the earl's will was law, and since he had willed that the newcomers should share the privileges of the others, no protest could be made.

And as for Hubert there was no difficulty; he was one of nature's own gentlemen, and there was something in his brave winning ways, in which there was neither shyness nor presumption, which at once found him friends; besides, his speech was Norman French, and he was au fait in his manners.