by A. D. Crake
Chapter 3: Kenilworth.
The chief seat of the noble Earl of Leicester, as of a far lessworthy earl of that name, three centuries later, was the Castle ofKenilworth. It had been erected in the time of Henry the First byone Geoffrey de Clinton, but speedily forfeited to the Crown, bytreason, real or supposed. The present Henry, third of that name,once lived there with his fair queen, and beautified it in everyway, specially adorning the chapel, but also strengthening thedefences, until men thought the castle impregnable.
Well they might, for our Martin and Hubert beheld on their arrivala double row of ramparts, looking over a moat half a mile round,and sometimes a quarter of that distance broad: and the oldservitors still told how the sad and feeble king had built afragile bark, with silken hangings and painted sides, wherein heand his newly-married bride oft took the air on the moat. Thebuildings of the castle were most extensive; the space within themoat contained seven acres; the great hall could seat two hundredguests. The park extended without a break from the walls ofCoventry on the northeast to the far borders of the park of thegreat Earl of Warwick on the southwest--a distance of severalmiles.
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 aspages.
Education--ah, how unlike that which falls to the lot of theschoolboy of the nineteenth century. As a rule, the care of themother was deemed too tender and the paternal roof too indulgentfor a boy after his twelfth year, so he was sent, not exactly to aboarding school, but to the castle of some eminent noble, such asthe one under our observation; and here, in the company of from tento twenty companions of his own age, he began his studies.
We have previously described this course of education in a formertale, The Rival Heirs, but for the benefit of those who have not readthe 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 toride, not only in the saddle, but to sit a horse bare-backed, orunder any conceivable circumstances which might occur. He had tobend the stout yew bow and to wield the sword, he had to couch thelance, which art he acquired with dexterity by the practice at thequintain.
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 cupbearer, a clever carver, able to select the titbits for the ladies,and then to assign 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 huntedanimal, to rush in upon boar or stag at bay, to break up ordisembowel the captured quarry.
It was his to learn how to thread the pathless forests, like thatof Arden; by observing the prevalent direction of the wind, asindicated by the way in which the trees threw their thickestbranches, or the side of the trunk on which the mosses grew mostdensely; to know the stars, and to thread the murky forest atmidnight by an occasional glimpse of that bright polar star, aroundwhich Charley's Wain revolved, as it does in these latter days.
It was his to learn that wondrous devotion to the ladies, which wasat the foundation of chivalry, and found at last its reductio adabsurdum in the Dulcinea of Don Quixote; but it was not a bad thingin itself, and softened the manners, nor suffered them to becomeutterly ferocious.
He was taught to abhor all the meaner vices, such as cowardice orlying--no gentleman could live under such an imputation and retainhis claim to the name. But it must be admitted that there werehigher duties practised wheresoever the obligations of chivalrywere fully carried out: the duty of succouring the distressed orredressing wrong, of devotion to God and His Church, and hatred ofthe 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 promiseand delight; he seemed to have found a paradise far more after hisown heart than Eden could ever have been: but it was otherwise withMartin.
They had not been unkindly received by their companions, although,as the other pages were nearly all the sons of nobles, there was amarked restraint in the way in which they condescended to boys whohad only one name {6}. Still, the earl's will was law, andsince he had willed that the newcomers should share the privilegesof the others, no protest could be made.
And as for Hubert there was no difficulty; he was one of nature'sown gentlemen, and there was something in his brave winning ways,in which there was neither shyness nor presumption, which at oncefound him friends; besides, his speech was Norman French, and hewas au fait in his manners.
But poor little Martin--the lad from the greenwood--surely it wasa great mistake to expose him to the jeers and sarcasms of the ladsof his own age, but of another culture; every time he opened hismouth he betrayed the Englishman, and it was not until thefollowing reign that Edward the First, by himself adopting thatdesignation as the proudest he could claim, redeemed it from being,as it had been since the Conquest, a term of opprobrium andreproach.
The day always began at Kenilworth Castle with an early mass in thechapel at sunrise; then, unless it were a hunting morning, thewhole bevy of pages was handed over to the chaplain for a few briefhours of study, for the earl was himself a literary man, and wouldfain have all under him instructed in the rudiments of learning{7}.
Hubert did not show to advantage, for he regarded all such studiesas a degrading remnant of his life at Michelham, yet none couldread and write so well as he amongst the pages, and he had hisLatin declensions and conjugations well by heart, while he couldread and interpret in good Norman French, or indifferent English,the Gospels in the large illuminated Missal; but the silly lad wasactually ashamed of this, and would have bartered it all for theemptiest success in the tilt yard.
On the contrary, little Martin, who could not yet read a line, wasthrowing the whole deep earnestness of an active intellect into thework.
"Courage! little friend," said the chaplain, "and thou wilt do aswell as the wisest here, only be not impatient or discouraged."
And to Hubert he said one day:
"This hardly represents your best work, my son, you did better evenyesterday."
Hubert tossed his head.
"Martin cares only for books--I want to learn better things; he maybe a monk, I will be a soldier."
His literary acquirements, unusual in the time, increased hisinfluence and reputation.
"And dost thou know," said a deep voice, "what is the first duty ofa soldier?"
It was the stern figure of the earl who stood unobserved in thedoorway of the library.
Hubert hung his head.
"Obedience!"
"And know this," added the speaker, "that learning distinguishesthe man from the brute, as religion distinguishes him from thedevil."
The two medieval boys, with the story of whose lives this veraciouschronicle concerns itself, were indeed singularly unlike in theirtastes and dispositions.
Martin seemed destined by nature for the life of the cloister, thehome of learning and contemplation in those days, wherein alonewere libraries to be found, and peaceful hours to devote to theirperusal. He learned his lessons with such avidity as to surpriseand delight his teacher, his leisure hours were spent in thelibrary of the castle--for Kenilworth had a library of manuscriptsunder Simon de Montfort--a long low room on an upper floor, one endof which was boarded off as a chamber for the chaplain, who was ofcourse also librarian. And again, he evinced a joy in the servicesof the castle chapel which sufficiently marked his vocation. Theearl was both devout and musical, and the solemn tones of theGregorian Church Modes were rendered with peculiar force by thedeep voices of the men, for which they seemed chiefly designed. AsMartin listened, he became aware of sensations and ideas which hecould not express--he wept for joy, or trembled with emotion likeSaint Augustine of old {8}.
Then again, Sunday by Sun
day, the chaplain was like a living oracleto him, as to many others. The ascetic face became beautiful with abeauty not of this earth--"his pallor," said they, "became of afair shining red" when he spoke of Christ or holy things, whileanon his thunder tones awoke an echo in the heart of many as hetestified against cruelty and wrong, of which there was no lack inthose days.
Under his influence Martin was becoming moulded like pliant wax,the boy of the greenwood was losing all his rusticity, and yet,retaining his keen love of nature, was learning to look beyondnature to nature's God. At times Martin was very weary ofKenilworth, and almost wished himself back in the greenwood again,so little was he in sympathy with the companions whom he had found.
But one day the earl called him aside, and with a tenderness onecould not have expected from that great statesman and mightywarrior, broke the sad tidings to the poor boy of the death of hisill-fated mother. It had arrived from Michelham; an outlaw hadbrought the news to the priory, with the request that the monkswould send the tidings on to young Martin, wherever he might be.The death of his poor mother at last severed the ties which boundMartin to the greenwood; he longed after it no more; save that heoften had daydreams wherein, as a brother of Saint Francis, hepreached the glad tidings of the grace of God to his kindred afterthe flesh in the green glades of the Sussex woods.
One thing he had yet to subdue--his temper; like that of mostpeople of excitable temperament it would some times flash forthlike fire; his companions soon found this out, and the elder pagesliked to amuse themselves in arousing it--a sport not quite so safefor those of his own age.
Altogether of a different mould was the bright joyous son of anill-fated father; Hubert, son of Roger of Icklesham and Walderne. Aboy, a typical boy, a brave free-hearted noble one:
With his unchecked, unbidden joy,His dread of books, and love of fun.
He was rapidly acquiring ease and dexterity in all the sports ofthe tilt yard; the quintain had now no terrors for him, and he wasquite at home on horseback already. Naturally he was rising fast infavour with his fellows, the only lad who seemed to stand alooffrom him being Drogo de Harengod.
Drogo was about a year older than Hubert, tall and dark, of ahaughty and intolerant disposition, and very "masterful," but, asthe old saw says:
Mores puerorum se detegunt inter ludendum.
So we will draw no more pen and ink sketches, but leave ourcharacters to show themselves by their deeds.
It was a pleasant evening in early autumn, and the scene was thepark of Kenilworth, some few months after the arrival of our twopages at the castle. Half a dozen of the youthful aspirants tochivalry, amongst whom were Drogo, Hubert, and Martin, gatheredunder an oak occupying an elevated site in the park: they hadevidently just left the forest, for hares and rabbits were lying onthe ground, the result of a little foray into the cover.
"What a view we have here; one can see the towers of Warwick, overthe woods."
"And there is the line of hills over Keinton and Radway {9}."
"And there Black Down Hill."
"And there the spires of Coventry."
"Yes," said Drogo, "but it is not like the view from my uncle'scastle in the Andredsweald, over a far wilder forest than this ofArden, with the great billowy downs for a southern bulwark. Therebe wolves, yea, boars, and for lesser beasts of prey wildcats,badgers, and polecats; while the deer are as plentiful as sheep."
"And where is that castle?" said Hubert.
"At Walderne; my uncle is Nicholas de Harengod, and some day thecastle will be mine."
Martin looked up with strange interest.
"What! Walderne Castle yours!"
"Yes, have you heard of it?"
"And seen it."
"Seen it?"
"Yes, afar off," said the lad dreamily, for Hubert gave him awarning look.
"Even as a cat may look at a king's palace."
"But those woods are full of outlaws," said another lad, Louis deChalgrave.
"All the better; it will be rare sport to hunt them out."
"Easier said than done," muttered Martin, but not so low that hiswords were unheard.
"What is easier said than done?" cried Drogo.
"I mean the hunting out those outlaws. Ever since you Normans came,in the days of the usurper you call the Conqueror, it has beentalked about but never done."
"Usurper we call the Conqueror, pretty words these for the park ofKenilworth," said several voices. "They suit the descendants of themen who let themselves be beaten at Hastings."
"In any place but this Kenilworth they would cost a fellow hisears."
"Yes, but Earl Simon loves the English."
"Or he wouldn't degrade us by bringing louts from the greenwoodamongst us--boys whom our fathers would have disdained to set tomind their swine," said Drogo.
"Probably your ancestor himself was a swineherd in Normandy, whilemine were Thanes in England, and their courteous manners havedescended to you," retorted Martin; whereupon Drogo laid hisbowstring about his daring junior.
Forgetting all disparity of age, the youngster flew at him, andstruck him full between the eyes with his clenched fist; the otherboys, instead of interfering, laughed heartily at the scene, andwatched its development with interest, thinking Martin would get agood switching. But they forgot one thing, or rather did not knowit. Boxing was not a knightly exercise, not taught in the tiltyard, and Drogo could only use his natural weapons as a French boyuses his now. But in the greenwood it was different, and youngMartin had been left again and again, as a part of a soundeducation, to "hold his own" against his equals in age and size, byaid of the noble art of fisticuffs; what wonder then that Drogo'seyes were speedily several shades darker than nature had designedthem to be, of which there was no obvious need, and that victorywould probably have decked the brows of the younger combatant hadnot the elders interfered.
"This is no work for a gentleman."
"If fight you must, run a course against each other with bluntedspears, since they won't grant us sharp ones, more's the pity."
"The youngster should learn to govern his temper."
"Nay, he did not begin it."
The last speaker was Hubert.
Martin had walked away into the wood, as if he neither expected norasked justice from his companions, and Hubert followed him.
"There they go together."
"Two boys, each without a second name."
"But after all," said Louis, 'I like Hubert better for standing upfor his friend."
"They are queer friends, as unlike as light and darkness," saidDrogo.
"Talking of darkness reminds one of your eyes, they are--"
"Hold your tongue."
And a new quarrel commenced, which we will not stop to behold, butfollow the two into the woods; "older, deeper, grayer," with oaksthat the Druids might have worshipped beneath.