CHAPTER XIV

A HEROINE IN DANGER

It must not be supposed that the England of King John bore much more resemblance to the England of Queen Victoria than the London of Constantine Fitzarnulph to the London of our own day. It was a country with much waste land, immense and widely-extending forests, chiefly of beech and oak trees, in whose branches the hawk built, and from whose branches dropped acorns, on which herds of swine daily fed; and the forests were frequented by the bear, the wild boar, the wolf, and the wild bull, and not seldom tenanted by men without the pale of the law, and at war with society. Of course the aspect of the country was picturesque. Here was a Norman castle, there a Saxon hall; here a flourishing walled town, there a poor hamlet; here a rich monastery, there the cell of some hermit--the entire population not exceeding two millions. In fact, the eastern counties, from Lincoln to Sussex, were dreary swamps, almost undrained: and the whole of that once wealthy and great province beyond the Humber, known as “Northumbria,” though gradually recovering, still bore terrible traces of the devastation wrought by the Conqueror.

It was, however, through the more fertile and less rugged part of England that William de Collingham and Oliver Icingla took their way, and for days rode on through bridle-roads which are now railways, and through forests which are now corn-fields, and past castle-protected hamlets which are now considerable towns. Nor were there many signs either in the appearance of the country or in the manner of the inhabitants to indicate that national affairs had reached a crisis which made civil war too probable. The herdsman drove out his cattle, the shepherd his sheep, and the swineherd his grunting herd; the charcoal-burner his cart, the waggoner his team of oxen; and the peasantry, in their smock-frocks, girt round the loins, and barely reaching to the knee, and their heads covered with a kind of hood--some of them with shoes and stockings, others with bare feet--went about their usual occupations as if peace had smiled on the land. Once the knight and squire met a pilgrim from the Holy Land carrying a palm-branch to deposit on the altar of his parish church, and other wayfarers whose errands, to judge by their looks, were equally peaceful.

“Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, An abbot on an ambling pad; Sometimes a curly shepherd lad, Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad.”

But it seemed as if the mandate sent throughout the land to lords and warriors to join the baronial standard had not been readily responded to, for hardly one band of armed men crossed their path. In fact, most people, except those who were very nearly concerned with the dispute between the king and the barons, were little disposed to involve themselves in a contest which was so problematical in its issue, and were rather inclined, so long as the contending parties left them at peace, to look quietly on, and await the result of a struggle which, they felt strongly, was too serious for them to take part in unless as a matter of necessity.

It was a warm day in the month of June, and the sun shone bright on woodland and plain, when Collingham and Oliver approached the royal palace in the forest of Savernake, where the wife of King John was then residing, and suddenly found themselves in the vicinity of a merry party of ladies, with hounds and hawks, and attended by falconers, huntsmen, and pages, and several men-at-arms to guard them from any danger that might present itself. The knight and the squire halted to survey the party and watch the sport; and, in truth, the temptation was well-nigh irresistible; for what with their rich dresses, their mettled palfreys, and their equestrian grace, the dames and demoiselles, whoever they might be, were somewhat fascinating to the eye of chevaliers. But one among them arrested Collingham’s whole attention, and also, though a moment later, that of Oliver. She was a woman of thirty or thereabouts, with a fair and delicate complexion, an oval face, features of singular regularity and majesty, and a figure which, for grace and symmetry, might have compared to advantage with the finest creations of the sculptor. She wore a green habit which much became her, and a bonnet decked with plumes; and she rode, not a palfrey but a steed which, so far as spirit was concerned, seemed much fitter to have carried a warrior to battle-field than to amble with the fair being who was now restraining its fiery ardour with some difficulty, though evidently without trepidation.

“By the mass!” exclaimed Collingham, gazing very intently on this interesting personage, “I should know that face and figure. What if she were Queen Isabel?” asked he, laughing.

“On my faith!” exclaimed Oliver with enthusiasm, “she is fair and fascinating enough to be the Queen of Elfland. What if we approach nearer?”

“Nay, by no means,” replied Collingham in a jocular tone; “now that you take her for a being of another world, I have no heart to intrude into her presence, lest the fate of Young Tamlane or of Actæon should befall me for a lighter fault.”

“Actæon?” said Oliver, inquiringly. “I remember the story of Young Tamlane being carried away by the Queen of Faerie and her ladies into Elfland, and of his having a narrow escape of being devoured when the foul fiend visited that region to claim his tithe of the inhabitants. But,” continued Oliver, musingly, “the name of the other dwells not in my memory. I pray you, sir knight, to inform me what manner of man he was, and what wondrous adventure befell him as you hint. Name you him Actæon?” added he, inquiringly.

“Yes. Heard you never of Actæon, of whom ancient writers tell a marvellous adventure, which I lately heard my Lord Neville relate when at the Tower? Well, be it known to you that this Actæon was a brave and accomplished knight, who loved dogs and the chase above all things; and one day, being eager in pursuing a stag, he came to a large meadow, surrounded, like this before us, with high trees, in which was a fountain where the goddess of chastity, whom they call Diana, was bathing with her nymphs, and that so suddenly that he was too far to retreat ere they were aware of his approach; and the goddess, to punish him for what was his misfortune and not his fault, cried out, ‘Actæon, whoever sent thee here has no great love for thee; and for the outrage thou hast committed I will make thee perform a penance. I therefore change thee into the form of the stag thou hast this day hunted.’ And,” added Collingham, “he was instantly transformed into a stag.”

“Ah,” said Oliver, gravely, “I now remember me of having, in the days when I was being taught grammar and letters in the company of Constantine Fitzarnulph, heard or read something of this Actæon of whom you speak, and also how other goddesses besides Diana were wont to change men whom they disliked into beasts, and women into birds; and I know full well that many believe that such things may have taken place when the world was full of pagans and idolaters; but, for my part, I hold such stories as mere fables, and such as ought not to weigh with a brave man who holds the Christian faith; and as touching the dame before us--be she goddess or Queen of Elfland--I must own she is parlous handsome, and bewitching to look upon.”

“I gainsay not that,” said Collingham, gazing at the person alluded to; “but,” added he, “methinks that anyhow the fair lady has mistaken her strength of wrist and hand when she mounted a steed which peradventure Cœur de Lion had found less uneasy under him than he relished.”

“In good faith,” observed Oliver, gravely, “I cannot but deem that she is in more peril than she fancies.”

At that moment, however, the hounds gave tongue, and the eyes both of knight and squire were attracted by a heron which arose from a sedgy pool. Immediately the lady whom they had been so attentively observing let loose her falcon, and, followed by the party, went off in pursuit, every eye directed towards the soaring heron and the wheeling falcon. Sharing the excitement, Collingham and Oliver Icingla set spurs to their horses and followed, but at such a distance as not to attract the observation of the party; and, while the ladies slackened their pace and reined in their steeds in a broad, grassy plain to watch the sport, the knight and squire halted at a spot where the plain was bounded by a rivulet, with steep and precipitous banks, haunted by the eagle, and the beaver, and the otter. And exciting was the spectacle which met their eye. Ascending in circles till they became mere specks, and almost disappeared in the sky, the heron and falcon excited the interest of the spectators to the highest degree, till, locked in a death struggle, they dropped screaming, leaving a track of plumes in the sky, and came down struggling almost on the head of the fair horsewoman, the falcon striking his claws into the heron’s neck, almost under the feet of her horse. It was enough. The steed instantly became more refractory than before, bounded, plunged, and, wheeling round, broke away in spite of her efforts, and rushed wildly, with outstretched neck and tail erect, towards the most precipitous part of the bank on which Collingham and Oliver had taken their station. Both uttered a cry of horror. But the idea of rendering aid appeared so hopeless that Oliver could only mutter a prayer for Heaven to interpose. Collingham’s presence of mind, however, did not desert him. Leaping from his charger at a bound, he placed himself at the root of a tree that grew near the verge of the precipice, and the steed came on, snorting fire. One chance only intervened between the lady and destruction. It was an awful moment for all concerned. But, even in this emergency, such was Collingham’s nerve that his heart was steady and his hand firm. One bound, one grasp, one tremendous effort such as might have torn an oak-tree from the ground, and the steed, arrested in its headlong and terrible course, was thrown back on its haunches, and next moment the lady, saved from the danger which threatened her, was lifted by Oliver Icingla from its struggling limbs and laid gently on the grass, unhurt, but fainting from agitation and terror.

At this moment the pages, falconers, and demoiselles who formed the hunting party came gradually up; and, as means were taken to restore the fainting fair one to consciousness, Oliver, with much curiosity, asked a falconer--

“Who may she be?”

“Why, young gentleman,” replied the falconer, looking rather suspiciously at his questioner, “I could have sworn that was a question which thou hadst no occasion to ask. Marry, I’ll scarce credit but that thy comrade knew better when he put his life so freely in peril to save hers. Would he have done as much to save a milkmaid, thinkest thou?”

“Mayhap the knight would, and mayhap he does know somewhat of the lady he has rescued,” remarked Oliver, not without exhibiting impatience that he, albeit a young warrior who had fought in Castile and Flanders, should thus be played with. “I can answer only for myself and my own knowledge, sir falconer; and I tell thee, on my faith, that I, on my part, am ignorant who the lady is.”

“Why, then, I will tell thee, sir squire,” said the falconer, eyeing Oliver with an air of good-humoured superiority; “she is no less a person than our Lady the Queen.”