Men of Iron

by Howard Pyle

  CHAPTER 17

  The summer passed away, and the bleak fall came. Myles had long sinceaccepted his position as one set apart from the others of his kind, andhad resigned himself to the evident fact that he was never to servein the household in waiting upon the Earl. I cannot say that it nevertroubled him, but in time there came a compensation of which I shallhave presently to speak.

  And then he had so much the more time to himself. The other lads weresometimes occupied by their household duties when sports were afootin which they would liked to have taken part. Myles was always freeto enter into any matter of the kind after his daily exercise had beenperformed at the pels, the butts, or the tilting-court.

  But even though he was never called to do service in "my Lord's house,"he was not long in gaining a sort of second-hand knowledge of all thefamily. My Lady, a thin, sallow, faded dame, not yet past middle age,but looking ten years older. The Lady Anne, the daughter of the house;a tall, thin, dark-eyed, dark-haired, handsome young dame of twenty ortwenty-one years of age, hawk-nosed like her father, and silent, proud,and haughty, Myles heard the squires say. Lady Alice, the Earl ofMackworth's niece and ward, a great heiress in her own right, astrikingly pretty black-eyed girl of fourteen or fifteen.

  These composed the Earl's personal family; but besides them was LordGeorge Beaumont, his Earl's brother, and him Myles soon came to knowbetter than any of the chief people of the castle excepting Sir JamesLee.

  For since Myles's great battle in the armory, Lord George had taken alaughing sort of liking to the lad, encouraging him at times to talk ofhis adventures, and of his hopes and aspirations.

  Perhaps the Earl's younger brother--who was himself somewhat a soldierof fortune, having fought in Spain, France, and Germany--felt a certainkinship in spirit with the adventurous youngster who had his unfriendedway to make in the world. However that might have been, Lord George wasvery kind and friendly to the lad, and the willing service that Mylesrendered him reconciled him not a little to the Earl's obvious neglect.

  Besides these of the more immediate family of the Earl were a numberof knights, ladies, and gentlemen, some of them cadets, some of themretainers, of the house of Beaumont, for the princely nobles of thosedays lived in state little less royal than royalty itself.

  Most of the knights and gentlemen Myles soon came to know by sight,meeting them in Lord George's apartments in the south wing of the greathouse, and some of them, following the lead of Lord George, singled himout for friendly notice, giving him a nod or a word in passing.

  Every season has its pleasures for boys, and the constant change thatthey bring is one of the greatest delights of boyhood's days.

  All of us, as we grow older, have in our memory pictures of by-gonetimes that are somehow more than usually vivid, the colors of some notblurring by time as others do. One of which, in remembering, alwaysfilled Myles's heart in after-years with an indefinable pleasure, wasthe recollection of standing with others of his fellow squires in thecrisp brown autumn grass of the paddock, and shooting with the long-bowat wildfowl, which, when the east wind was straining, flew low overheadto pitch to the lake in the forbidden precincts of the deer park beyondthe brow of the hill. More than once a brace or two of these wildfowl,shot in their southward flight by the lads and cooked by fat,good-natured Mother Joan, graced the rude mess-table of the squires inthe long hall, and even the toughest and fishiest drake, so the fruitof their skill, had a savor that, somehow or other, the daintiest farelacked in after-years.

  Then fall passed and winter came, bleak, cold, and dreary--not winter aswe know it nowadays, with warm fires and bright lights to make the longnights sweet and cheerful with comfort, but winter with all its grimnessand sternness. In the great cold stone-walled castles of those days theonly fire and almost the only light were those from the huge blazinglogs that roared and crackled in the great open stone fireplace, aroundwhich the folks gathered, sheltering their faces as best they could fromthe scorching heat, and cloaking their shoulders from the biting cold,for at the farther end of the room, where giant shadows swayed andbowed and danced huge and black against the high walls, the white frostglistened in the moonlight on the stone pavements, and the breath wentup like smoke.

  In those days were no books to read, but at the best only rude storiesand jests, recited by some strolling mummer or minstrel to the listeningcircle, gathered around the blaze and welcoming the coarse, gross jests,and coarser, grosser songs with roars of boisterous laughter.

  Yet bleak and dreary as was the winter in those days, and cold andbiting as was the frost in the cheerless, windy halls and corridors ofthe castle, it was not without its joys to the young lads; for then, asnow, boys could find pleasure even in slushy weather, when the soddensnow is fit for nothing but to make snowballs of.

  Thrice that bitter winter the moat was frozen over, and the lads, makingthemselves skates of marrow-bones, which they bought from the hall cookat a groat a pair, went skimming over the smooth surface, red-checkedand shouting, while the crows and the jackdaws looked down at them fromthe top of the bleak gray walls.

  Then at Yule-tide, which was somewhat of a rude semblance to the MerryChristmas season of our day, a great feast was held in the hall, and allthe castle folk were fed in the presence of the Earl and the Countess.Oxen and sheep were roasted whole; huge suet puddings, made of barleymeal sweetened with honey and stuffed with plums, were boiled in greatcaldrons in the open courtyard; whole barrels of ale and malmsey werebroached, and all the folk, gentle and simple, were bidden to the feast.Afterwards the minstrels danced and played a rude play, and in theevening a miracle show was performed on a raised platform in the northhall.

  For a week afterwards the castle was fed upon the remains of the goodthings left from that great feast, until everyone grew to loathe finevictuals, and longed for honest beef and mustard again.

  Then at last in that constant change the winter was gone, and even thelads who had enjoyed its passing were glad when the winds blew warm oncemore, and the grass showed green in sunny places, and the leader of thewild-fowl blew his horn, as they who in the fall had flown to the southflew, arrow-like, northward again; when the buds swelled and the leavesburst forth once more, and crocuses and then daffodils gleamed in thegreen grass, like sparks and flames of gold.

  With the spring came the out-door sports of the season; among othersthat of ball--for boys were boys, and played at ball even in thosefaraway days--a game called trap-ball. Even yet in some parts of Englandit is played just as it was in Myles Falworth's day, and enjoyed just asMyles and his friends enjoyed it.

  So now that the sun was warm and the weather pleasant the game oftrap-ball was in full swing every afternoon, the play-ground being anopen space between the wall that surrounded the castle grounds and thatof the privy garden--the pleasance in which the ladies of the Earl'sfamily took the air every day, and upon which their apartments opened.

  Now one fine breezy afternoon, when the lads were shouting and playingat this, then their favorite game, Myles himself was at the trapbarehanded and barearmed. The wind was blowing from behind him, and,aided perhaps by it, he had already struck three of four balls nearlythe whole length of the court--an unusual distance--and several of thelads had gone back almost as far as the wall of the privy garden tocatch any ball that might chance to fly as far as that. Then once moreMyles struck, throwing all his strength into the blow. The ball shot upinto the air, and when it fell, it was to drop within the privy garden.

  The shouts of the young players were instantly stilled, and Gascoyne,who stood nearest Myles, thrust his hands into his belt, giving a longshrill whistle.

  "This time thou hast struck us all out, Myles," said he. "There be nomore play for us until we get another ball."

  The outfielders came slowly trooping in until they had gathered in alittle circle around Myles.

  "I could not help it," said Myles, in answer to their grumbling. "Howknew I the ball would fly so far? But if I ha' lost the ball, I can getit again. I w
ill climb the wall for it."

  "Thou shalt do naught of the kind, Myles," said Gascoyne, hastily."Thou art as mad as a March hare to think of such a venture! Wouldst getthyself shot with a bolt betwixt the ribs, like poor Diccon Cook?"

  Of all places about the castle the privy garden was perhaps the mostsacred. It was a small plot of ground, only a few rods long and wide,and was kept absolutely private for the use of the Countess and herfamily. Only a little while before Myles had first come to Devlen,one of the cook's men had been found climbing the wall, whereupon thesoldier who saw him shot him with his cross bow. The poor fellow droppedfrom the wall into the garden, and when they found him, he still helda bunch of flowers in his hand, which he had perhaps been gathering forhis sweetheart.

  Had Myles seen him carried on a litter to the infirmary as Gascoyneand some of the others had done, he might have thought twice beforeventuring to enter the ladies' private garden. As it was, he only shookhis stubborn head, and said again, "I will climb the wall and fetch it."

  Now at the lower extremity of the court, and about twelve or fifteenfeet distant from the garden wall, there grew a pear-tree, some of thebranches of which overhung into the garden beyond. So, first making surethat no one was looking that way, and bidding the others keep a sharplookout, Myles shinned up this tree, and choosing one of the thickerlimbs, climbed out upon it for some little distance. Then lowering hisbody, he hung at arm's-length, the branch bending with his weight, andslowly let himself down hand under hand, until at last he hung directlyover the top of the wall, and perhaps a foot above it. Below him hecould see the leafy top of an arbor covered with a thick growth ofclematis, and even as he hung there he noticed the broad smoothwalks, the grassy terrace in front of the Countess's apartments in thedistance, the quaint flower-beds, the yew-trees trimmed into odd shapes,and even the deaf old gardener working bare-armed in the sunlight at aflower-bed in the far corner by the tool-house.

  The top of the wall was pointed like a house roof, and immediately belowhim was covered by a thick growth of green moss, and it flashed throughhis mind as he hung there that maybe it would offer a very slipperyfoothold for one dropping upon the steep slopes of the top. But it wastoo late to draw back now.

  Bracing himself for a moment, he loosed his hold upon the limb above.The branch flew back with a rush, and he dropped, striving to grasp thesloping angle with his feet. Instantly the treacherous slippery mossslid away from beneath him; he made a vain clutch at the wall, hisfingers sliding over the cold stones, then, with a sharp exclamation,down he pitched bodily into the garden beneath! A thousand thoughtsflew through his brain like a cloud of flies, and then a leafy greennessseemed to strike up against him. A splintering crash sounded in hisears as the lattice top of the arbor broke under him, and with one finalclutch at the empty air he fell heavily upon the ground beneath.

  He heard a shrill scream that seemed to find an instant echo; even ashe fell he had a vision of faces and bright colors, and when he sat up,dazed and bewildered, he found himself face to face with the Lady Anne,the daughter of the house, and her cousin, the Lady Alice, who clutchingone another tightly, stood staring at him with wide scared eyes.