The G.A. Henty

by G. A. Henty

  This was done. Vast quantities of arrows were prepared, stones collected and carried up to the points on the wall most exposed to attack; and orders sent out, by the governor of the castle in the Percys’ absence, to the people for many miles round, that on the approach of the Scots all were to retire to refuge, the women and children taking to the hills, while the men capable of bearing arms were to hasten to the defence of the castle.

  For a time, the Scots carried all before them, wasting and devastating the country. Oswald heard that they had captured, without resistance, his father’s hold. He rejoiced at the news, for he feared that, not knowing the strength of the invading force, resistance might have been attempted; in which case all in the hold might have been put to the sword. He had no doubt, now, that his father and mother had retired with their followers to the hills, as they had always determined to do, in case of an invasion by a force too strong to resist.

  Had the Percys been at home, they might have held out, confident that the Scotch would be attacked before they could effect its capture; but as all the northern lords, with their retainers, were away in the south, it would be some time before a force could be collected that could make head against the Scots.

  A portion of the Scottish army laid siege to the castle of Wark, on the Tweed. This castle had always played a conspicuous part in the border wars. It had been besieged and captured by David of Scotland, in the reign of Stephen; and two or three years later was again besieged, but this time repulsed all attacks. David, after his defeat at the battle of the Standard, resumed the siege. It again repulsed all attacks, but at last was reduced to an extremity by famine, and capitulated.

  The castle was demolished by the Scots, but was rebuilt by Henry the Second. In 1215 it was again besieged, this time by King John, who resented the defection of the northern barons; and it was captured, and again destroyed. In 1318 it was captured and destroyed by Robert Bruce. In 1341 it was besieged by David Bruce, but held out until relieved by King Edward, himself. In 1383 it was again besieged by the Scots, and part of its fortifications demolished. On the present occasion it was again captured, and razed to the ground.

  Another portion of the Scottish army, plundering and burning, advanced along the valley of the Coquet. As they approached, the inhabitants of the district round Alnwick began to pour into the castle; but orders were issued that all the fighting men should join the force of Sir Robert Umfraville, the sheriff of the district, who was gathering a force to give the Scots battle.

  “I fear that there is small chance of the Scots making their way hither,” Oswald’s instructor said, in lugubrious tones. “Sir Robert is a stout fighter, and the Scots, laden as they must be with booty, and having hitherto met with no resistance, will be careless and like to be taken by surprise. Methinks the abbot ought to send off a contingent, to aid Sir Robert.”

  Oswald laughed.

  “I suppose he wants to keep them for more urgent work, and thinks that the Church should only fight when in desperate straits. However, Father, you may have an opportunity yet; for we cannot regard it as certain that Sir Robert will defeat the Scots.”

  Three days later, however, the news arrived that Sir Robert had attacked the Scots, at Fulhetlaw, and utterly defeated them; taking prisoner Sir Richard Rutherford and his five sons, together with Sir William Stewart, John Turnbull, a noted border reiver, and many others; and that those who had escaped were in full flight for the border.

  The Scotch incursion had made no change in Oswald’s work. He continued to study hard with the monk. As a rule, he fully satisfied his teacher; but at times, when he failed to name the letters required to make up a certain sound, the latter lost all patience with him; and, more than once, with difficulty restrained himself from striking him. Spelling in those days, however, had by no means crystallized itself into any definite form, and there was so large a latitude allowed that, if the letters used gave an approximate sound to the word, it was deemed sufficient.

  The consequence was that Oswald’s education progressed at a speed that would, in these more rigid days, be deemed impossible. He was intensely interested in the work, and even his martial exercises were, for the time, secondary to it in his thoughts. He felt so deeply grateful to his instructor that, even if he had struck him, he would have cared but little. In those days rough knocks were readily given, and the idea that there was anything objectionable, in a boy being struck, had never been entertained by anyone. Wives were beaten not uncommonly, servants frequently; and from the highest to the lowest, corporal punishment was regarded as the only way to ensure the carrying out of orders.

  Oswald was slower in learning to write down the letters than he was to read them. His hands were so accustomed to the rein, the bow, and the sword that they bungled over the work of forming letters. Nevertheless, by the time the Percys returned, three months and a half after his arrival at the castle, he could both read and write short and simple words; and as these formed a large proportion of English speech, at the time, he had made a considerable step in the path of learning, and the monk was highly pleased with his pupil.

  “I shall not be able to come tomorrow, Father,” he said to the monk, one day. “The earl and Sir Henry will be back tonight, and my uncle says that I must keep near him, tomorrow; so that, if opportunity offers, he may present me to the knight.”

  “I feared it would come to that,” the monk said. “I wish they had all stopped away, another three or four months; then you would have got over your difficulty of piecing together syllables, so as to make up a long word. ’Tis a thousand pities that you should stop altogether, just when you are getting on so well.”

  “I will come as often as I can, Father, if you will let me.”

  “No, no, lad. I know what it is, when the family are at home. It will be, ‘Here, Oswald, ride with such a message;’ or Hotspur, himself, may be going out with a train, and you will have to accompany him. There will always be something.

  “Indeed, save but for your teaching, it is high time that the Percys were back again; for there has already been a great deal of hot work, on the border, and report says that the Scots are mustering strongly, and that there is going to be a great raid into Cumberland; so you will be busy, and so shall I. The lay brothers have made but a poor hand of it, while I have been busy. I went down in the evening, yesterday, to see them drill; and it was as much as I could do to prevent myself from falling upon them, and giving them a lesson of a different sort.

  “As it was, I gave it to their instructor heartily, and was had up before the abbot on his complaint, this morning; and am to eat Lenten fare for the next ten days, which accords but ill either with my liking or needs.”

  In the evening, the courtyard was ablaze with torches as, amid the cheers of the garrison, the Earl of Northumberland and his son rode in, with a strong body of men-at-arms. The greater portion of the following with which they had met Henry of Lancaster on his landing, and escorted him to London, had long since returned to their homes; being released from service, when it was seen that no opposition was to be looked for from the adherents of Richard. The followings of the various nobles and knights of the northern counties had left the main body on the way home, and Northumberland had brought with him, to Alnwick, only the men-at-arms who formed the regular force retained under his standard.

  Oswald was greatly struck with the splendid appearance, and appointments, of the earl and the knights who attended him, and with the martial array of his followers. Hitherto, he had seen but the roughest side of war; the arms and armour carried not for show, but for use, and valued for their strength, without any reference to their appearance. On the border there was not the smallest attempt at uniformity in appearance, polished armour was regarded with disfavour, and that worn was of the roughest nature, the local armourer’s only object being to furnish breast and back pieces that would resist the strongest spear thrust. Of missiles they made little account, for the Scots had but few archers, and their bows were so inferior in
strength, to those carried by the English archers, that armour strong enough to resist a spear thrust was amply sufficient to keep out a Scottish arrow.

  There was not, even in the array of the Earl of Northumberland’s men-at-arms, any approach to the uniformity that now prevails among bodies of soldiers. The helmets, breast and back pieces, were, however, of similar form, as the men engaged for continued service were furnished with armour by the earl; but there was a great variety in the garments worn under them, these being of all colours, according to the fancy of their wearers. All, however, carried spears of the same length, while some had swords, and others heavy axes at their girdles. The helmets and armour were all brightly polished, and as the lights of the torches flashed from them and from the spearheads; Oswald, for the first time, witnessed something of the pomp of war.

  His uncle, as captain of the men-at-arms left in the castle, was invited to the banquet held after the arrival of the force. Oswald, therefore, was free to wander about among the soldiers, listening to their talk of what they had seen in London, and of the entertainments there in honour of the new king; exciting, thereby, no small amount of envy among those who had been left behind in garrison.

  Oswald already knew that the earl had been appointed Constable of England, for life, and now heard that the lordship of the Isle of Man had since been conferred on him.

  CHAPTER 4

  An Unequal Joust

  “You must don your best costume tomorrow, Oswald,” his uncle said, when he returned from the banquet. “Sir Henry Percy’s first question, after asking as to the health of the garrison, was:

  “‘Has this nephew of yours, of whom you were speaking to me, come yet?’

  “I told him that you had been here well-nigh four months, that you had been practising in arms with my best swordsmen, who spoke highly of you, and that the whole of your spare time had been spent at the monastery, where you had been studying to acquire the art of reading and writing, thinking that such knowledge must be useful to you in his service. I told him that brother Roger had reported that you had shown marvellous sharpness there, and could already read from a missal, barring only some of the long words.

  “‘Oh, he had the fighting monk for his master!’ Sir Henry said, laughing. ‘Truly he must have been a good pupil, if he has come out of it without having his head broken, a dozen times. The friar is a thorn in the abbot’s flesh, and more than once I have had to beg him off, or he would have been sent to the monastery of Saint John, which is a place of punishment for refractory monks. But in truth he is an honest fellow, though he has mistaken his vocation. He is a valiant man-at-arms, and the abbot’s contingent would be of small value, without him.

  “‘Well, I will see your nephew in the morning. His perseverance in learning, and his quickness in acquiring it, show him to be a youth of good parts, and intelligent; but until I see him, I cannot say what I will make of him.’”

  Accordingly, the next morning the lad accompanied his uncle to Sir Henry’s private apartment, and found the knight alone. Sir Henry, Lord Percy, was now about forty years old. He had received the order of knighthood at the coronation of Richard the Second, when his father was created earl; and, nine years later, he was made governor of Berwick and Warden of the Marches; in which office he displayed such activity in following up and punishing raiders, that the Scots gave him the name of Hotspur. He was then sent to Calais, where he showed great valour. Two years later he was made Knight of the Garter, and was then appointed to command a fleet, sent out to repel a threatened invasion by the French. Here he gained so great a success that he came to be regarded as one of the first captains of the age.

  At Otterburn, his impetuosity cost him his freedom; for, pressing forward into the midst of the Scotch army, he and his brother Ralph were taken prisoners, and carried into Scotland. He had just been appointed, by King Henry, sheriff of Northumberland, and governor of Berwick and Roxburgh, and received other marks of royal favour.

  Although of no remarkable height, his broad shoulders and long, sinewy arms testified to his remarkable personal strength. His face was pleasant and open, and showed but small sign of his impetuous and fiery disposition.

  “So this is the young springal,” he said, with a smile; as, with a quick glance, he took in every detail of Oswald’s figure and appearance. “By my troth, you have not overpraised him. He bears himself well, and is like to be a stout fighter, when he comes to his full strength. Indeed, as the son of John Forster of Yardhope, and as your nephew, good Alwyn, he could scarce be otherwise; although I have not heard that either his father, or you, ever showed any disposition for letters.”

  “No indeed, Sir Henry; nor have we, as far as I have ever seen, been any the worse for our lack of knowledge on that head. But with the lad here, it is different. Under your good patronage he may well hope to attain, by good conduct and valour, a promotion where book learning may be of use to him; and therefore, when he expressed a desire to learn, I did my best to favour his design.”

  “And you did well, Alwyn. And since he has gained so much, in so short a time, it were a pity he should not follow it up; and he shall, if it likes him, so long as he is in this castle, have two hours every morning in which he can visit the fighting monk, until he can read and write freely.

  “Now, young sir, the question is, how can we best employ you? You are too old for a lady’s bower, but not old enough, yet, for an esquire.”

  “Nor could I aspire to such a position, my lord, until I have proved myself worthy of it. My uncle told me that he had suggested that I might be useful as a bearer of messages, and orders; and as I know every foot of the border, from near Berwick to Cumberland, methinks that I might serve you in that way. I ride lightly, know every morass and swamp, and every road through the fells; and have at times, when there was peace, crossed the Cheviots by several of the passes, to pay visits to my mother’s sister, who is married to one of the Armstrongs, near Jedburgh. If your lordship will deign to employ me in such service, I can promise to do so safely, and to justify my uncle’s recommendation; and shall be ready, at all times, to risk my life in carrying out your orders.”

  “Well spoken, lad. I like the tone of your voice, and your manner of speech. They are such as will do no discredit to my household, and I hereby appoint you to it; further matters I will discuss with your uncle.”

  Oswald expressed his thanks in suitable terms, and then, bowing deeply, retired.

  “A very proper lad, Alwyn. I would have done much for you, old friend, and would have taken him in some capacity, whatever he might have turned out; but, frankly, I doubted whether John Forster, valiant moss trooper as he is, would have been like to have had a son whom I could enroll in my household, where the pages and esquires are all sons of knights and men of quality. It is true that his father might have been a knight, had he chosen, since the earl offered him that honour after Otterburn; for three times he charged, at the head of a handful of his own men, right into the heart of the Scottish army, to try and rescue me; but he has always kept aloof in his own hold, going his own way and fighting for his own hand; and never once, that I can recall, has he paid a visit to us here, or at our other seats. I feared that under such a training as he would be likely to have, the lad would have been but a rough diamond. However, from his appearance and bearing, he might well have come of a noble family.”

  “’Tis his mother’s doing, methinks, Sir Henry. She is of gentle birth. Her father was Sir Walter Gillespie. He was killed by the Scots, when she was but a girl, or methinks he would scarcely have given her in marriage to my brother John. She went with a sister to live with an old aunt, who let the girls have their way, without murmur; and seeing that they had no dowry, for their father was but a poor knight, there were not many claimants for their hands; and when she chose John Forster, and her sister Adam Armstrong, she did not say them nay. She has made a good wife to him, though she must have had many an anxious hour, and doubtless it is her influence that has made the lad what
he is.”

  “How think you I had best bestow him, among the pages or the esquires?”

  “I should say, Sir Henry, as you are good enough to ask my opinion, that it were best among the esquires. It would be like putting a hunting dog among a lady’s pets, to put him with the pages. Moreover, boys think more of birth than men do. The latter judge by merit, and when they see that the lad has something in him, would take to him; whereas were he with the pages there might be quarrels, and he might fall into disgrace.”

  “I think that you are right, Alwyn. He might get a buffet or two, from the esquires, but he will be none the worse for that; while with the pages it might be bickering, and ill will. He shall take his chance with the squires. Bring him to me at twelve o’clock, and I will myself present him to them, with such words as may gain their goodwill, and make the way as easy as may be for him.”

  Accordingly, at twelve o’clock, Oswald went to Hotspur’s room, and was taken by him to the hall where the esquires, six in number, had just finished a meal. They varied in age from eighteen to forty. They all rose, as their lord entered.

  “I wish to present to you this young gentleman, my friends. He is the son of John Forster of Yardhope, whose name is familiar to you all, as one of the most valiant of the defenders of the border against the Scottish incursions. None distinguished themselves more at the battle of Otterburn, where he performed feats of prodigious valour, in his endeavours to rescue me and my brother from the hands of the Scots. The earl my father offered him knighthood, but he said bluntly that he preferred remaining, like his father, plain John Forster of Yardhope. The lad’s mother is a daughter of Sir Walter Gillespie, and he is nephew of Alwyn, captain of the men-at-arms here.

  “He knows every foot of the border, its morasses, fells, and passes; and will prove a valuable messenger, when I have occasion to send orders to the border knights and yeomen. I have attached him to my household. You will find him intelligent, and active. He comes of a fighting stock; and will, I foresee, do no discredit to them in the future. I hesitated whether I should place him with the pages or with you, and have decided that, with your goodwill, he will be far more comfortable in your society, if you consent to receive him.”