After London; Or, Wild England
Page 32
CHAPTER XXVI
BOW AND ARROW
Three mornings the shepherds marched in the same manner, when they camein view of a range of hills so high that to Felix they appearedmountains. The home of the tribe was in these hills, and once there theywere comparatively safe from attack. In early spring when the herbage onthe downs was scarce, the flocks moved to the meadowlike lands far inthe valleys; in summer they returned to the hills; in autumn they wentto the vales again. Soon after noon on the third day the scouts reportedthat a large body of gipsies were moving in a direction which would cutoff their course to the hills on the morrow.
The chief held a council, and it was determined that a forced marchshould be made at once by another route, more to the left, and it wasthought that in this way they might reach the base of the slopes byevening. The distance was not great, and could easily have beentraversed by the men; the flocks and herds, however, could not behurried much. A messenger was despatched to the hills for assistance,and the march began. It was a tedious movement. Felix was wearied, andwalked in a drowsy state. Towards six o'clock, as he guessed, the treesbegan to thin, and the column reached the first slopes of the hills.Here about thirty shepherds joined them, a contingent from the nearestcamp. It was considered that the danger was now past, and that thegipsies would not attack them on the hill; but it was a mistake.
A large body almost immediately appeared, coming along the slope on theright, not less than two hundred; and from their open movements andnumbers it was evident that they intended battle. The flocks and herdswere driven hastily into a coombe, or narrow valley, and there left totheir fate. All the armed men formed in a circle; the women occupied thecentre. Felix took his stand outside the circle by a gnarled and decayedoak. There was just there a slight rise in the ground, which he knewwould give him some advantage in discharging his arrows, and would alsoallow him a clear view. His friends earnestly entreated him to enter thecircle, and even sought to bring him within it by force, till heexplained to them that he could not shoot if so surrounded, and promisedif the gipsies charged to rush inside.
Felix unslung his quiver, and placed it on the ground before him; asecond quiver he put beside it; four or five arrows he stuck upright inthe sward, so that he could catch hold of them quickly; two arrows heheld in his left hand, another he fitted to the string. Thus prepared,he watched the gipsies advance. They came walking their short wiryhorses to within half a mile, when they began to trot down the slope;they could not surround the shepherds because of the steep-sided coombeand some brushwood, and could advance only on two fronts. Felix rapidlybecame so excited that his sight was affected, and his head whirled. Hisheart beat with such speed that his breath seemed going. His limbstottered, and he dreaded lest he should faint.
His intensely nervous organization, strung up to its highest pitch,shook him in its grasp, and his will was powerless to control it. Hefelt that he should disgrace himself once more before these rugged butbrave shepherds, who betrayed not the slightest symptom of agitation.For one hour of Oliver's calm courage and utter absence of nervousnesshe would have given years of his life. His friends in the circleobserved his agitation, and renewed their entreaties to him to comeinside it. This only was needed to complete his discomfiture. He losthis head altogether; he saw nothing but a confused mass of yellow andred rushing towards him, for each of the gipsies wore a yellow or redscarf, some about the body, some over the shoulder, others round thehead. They were now within three hundred yards.
A murmur from the shepherd spearmen. Felix had discharged an arrow. Itstuck in the ground about twenty paces from him. He shot again; it flewwild and quivering, and dropped harmlessly. Another murmur; theyexpressed to each other their contempt for the bow. This immediatelyrestored Felix; he forgot the enemy as an enemy, he forgot himself; hethought only of his skill as an archer, now in question. Pride upheldhim. The third arrow he fitted properly to the string, he planted hisleft foot slightly in advance, and looked steadfastly at the horsemenbefore he drew his bow.
At a distance of one hundred and fifty yards they had paused, and werewidening out so as to advance in loose open rank and allow each man tothrow his javelin. They shouted; the spearmen in the circle replied, andlevelled their spears. Felix fixed his eye on one of the gipsies who wasordering and marshalling the rest, a chief. He drew the arrow swiftlybut quietly, the string hummed, the pliant yew obeyed, and the longarrow shot forward in a steady swift flight like a line of gossamerdrawn through the air. It missed the chief, but pierced the horse herode just in front of the rider's thigh. The maddened horse reared andfell backwards on his rider.
The spearmen shouted. Before the sound could leave their lips anotherarrow had sped; a gipsy threw up his arms with a shriek; the arrow hadgone through his body. A third, a fourth, a fifth--six gipsies rolled onthe sward. Shout upon shout rent the air from the spearmen. Utterlyunused to this mode of fighting, the gipsies fell back. Still the fatalarrows pursued them, and ere they were out of range three others fell.Now the rage of battle burned in Felix; his eyes gleamed, his lips wereopen, his nostrils wide like a horse running a race. He shouted to thespearmen to follow him, and snatching up his quiver ran forward.Gathered together in a group, the gipsy band consulted.
Felix ran at full speed; swift of foot, he left the heavy spearmenbehind. Alone he approached the horsemen; all the Aquila courage was upwithin him. He kept the higher ground as he ran, and stopped suddenly ona little knoll or tumulus. His arrow flew, a gipsy fell. Again, and athird. Their anger gave them fresh courage; to be repulsed by one only!Twenty of them started to charge and run him down. The keen arrows flewfaster than their horses' feet. Now the horse and now the man met thosesharp points. Six fell; the rest returned. The shepherds came running;Felix ordered them to charge the gipsies. His success gave himauthority; they obeyed; and as they charged, he shot nine more arrows;nine more deadly wounds. Suddenly the gipsy band turned and fled intothe brushwood on the lower slopes.
Breathless, Felix sat down on the knoll, and the spearmen swarmed aroundhim. Hardly had they begun to speak to him than there was a shout, andthey saw a body of shepherds descending the hill. There were threehundred of them; warned by the messenger, the whole country had risen torepel the gipsies. Too late to join in the fight, they had seen the lastof it. They examined the field. There were ten dead and six wounded, whowere taken prisoners; the rest escaped, though hurt. In many cases thearrow had gone clean through the body. Then, for the first time, theyunderstood the immense power of the yew bow in strong and skilful hands.
Felix was overwhelmed; they almost crushed him with their attentions;the women fell at his feet and kissed them. But the archer couldscarcely reply; his intense nervous excitement had left him weak andalmost faint; his one idea was to rest. As he walked back to the campbetween the chiefs of the shepherd spearmen, his eyes closed, his limbstottered, and they had to support him. At the camp he threw himself onthe sward, under the gnarled oak, and was instantly fast asleep.Immediately the camp was stilled, not to disturb him.
His adventures in the marshes of the buried city, his canoe, hisarchery, were talked of the livelong night. Next morning the camp setout for their home in the mountains, and he was escorted by nearly fourhundred spearmen. They had saved for him the ornaments of the gipsieswho had fallen, golden earrings and nose-rings. He gave them to thewomen, except one, a finger-ring, set with turquoise, and evidently ofancient make, which he kept for Aurora. Two marches brought them to thehome of the tribe, where the rest of the spearmen left them. The placewas called Wolfstead.
Felix saw at once how easily this spot might be fortified. There was adeep and narrow valley like a groove or green trench opening to thesouth. At the upper end of the valley rose a hill, not very high, butsteep, narrow at the ridge, and steep again on the other side. Over itwas a broad, wooded, and beautiful vale; beyond that again the highermountains. Towards the foot of the narrow ridge here, there was asuccession of chalk cliffs, so that to climb up on that side in the faceof
opposition would be extremely difficult. In the gorge of the enclosednarrow valley a spring rose. The shepherds had formed eight pools, oneafter the other, water being of great importance to them; and fartherdown, where the valley opened, there were forty or fifty acres ofirrigated meadow. The spring then ran into a considerable brook, acrosswhich was the forest.
Felix's idea was to run a palisade along the margin of the brook, and upboth sides of the valley to the ridge. There he would build a fort. Theedges of the chalk cliffs he would connect with a palisade or a wall,and so form a complete enclosure. He mentioned his scheme to theshepherds; they did not greatly care for it, as they had always beensecure without it, the rugged nature of the country not permittinghorsemen to penetrate. But they were so completely under his influencethat to please him they set about the work. He had to show them how tomake a palisade; they had never seen one, and he made the first part ofit himself. At building a wall with loose stones, without mortar, theshepherds were skilful; the wall along the verge of the cliffs was soonup, and so was the fort on the top of the ridge. The fort consistedmerely of a circular wall, breast high, with embrasures orcrenellations.
When this was finished, Felix had a sense of mastership, for in thisfort he felt as if he could rule the whole country. From day to dayshepherds came from the more distant parts to see the famous archer, andto admire the enclosure. Though the idea of it had never occurred tothem, now they saw it they fully understood its advantages, and twoother chiefs began to erect similar forts and palisades.