CHAPTER XXIX

HUNTING A WILD BOAR

One day in autumn, about a month after Styr the Anglo-Saxon had taken counsel with his son in the stable at Oakmede, when King John was occupied with the siege of Rochester, and Hugh de Moreville was in London urging on his confederates the desperate expedient which they subsequently adopted, a gallant party of knights and squires, armed with spears and hunting-horns, and attended by huntsmen with boar-hounds, left the castle of Chas-Chateil.

Riding through the chase, the hunters penetrated into the great forest of Berkshire, which at that time stretched from Windsor right away up the vale of the Kennet to Hungerford, a distance of some forty miles as the crow flies. Their object was to hunt a wild boar, and they were headed by Sir Anthony Waledger, who rode Oliver Icingla’s black steed Ayoub, an animal to which the Norman knight had taken a decided fancy, and which he already looked on as his own property.

It has been hinted that Sir Anthony Waledger was somewhat boastful over his cups, in which he at times indulged more deeply than prudence warranted; and after a carouse, while his blood was still heated, he at times deluded himself with the idea that he was an important feudal magnate. On such occasions, and in De Moreville’s absence, the knight gave himself much greater airs than ever the lord of the castle took the trouble to do; and as he paid his vows to St. Hubert, the patron of sylvan sports, as well as to St. Martin, the patron of mediæval Bacchanalians, he was particularly fond of displaying his mightiness and getting rid of his superfluous energy by indulging in that violent sport which has been described as “the image of war.” Nay, more; Sir Anthony relished violent sport in its most violent form, and looking with contempt on hawking and hunting the deer, even by way of whet for fiercer game, devoted himself to the wolf and the wild boar. Many were the perilous adventures he had passed in the forest; but he boasted frequently that he loved danger for its own sake, and loved it all the better that it was accompanied by the excitement of the chase.

“Sirs,” he would exclaim, when the red wine of Bordeaux sparkled in his cup, and the fire began to glow in his brain, “let us leave falconry to the ladies, and damsels, and spaniels, and stag-hunting to the greyhounds and men who are women in all but the name. By the head of my namesake, St. Anthony, I prefer pressing close on the track of the bear or the wild boar, beasts that have the courage to turn to bay and rend their pursuers.”

On this occasion Sir Anthony Waledger, having washed down his breakfast with copious draughts, was particularly enthusiastic. Moreover, he was violent in proportion to his enthusiasm. He talked loudly and largely about the qualities of De Moreville’s dogs, and which was likely to hunt the best, always in a way which would have led a stranger to believe they were his own, brooking no contradiction whatever; and no sooner had the huntsmen roused a huge boar from his lair than he became highly excited, and, shouting loudly as he hounded the dogs on the game, dashed his spurs into Ayoub’s side and went off in keen pursuit. All the forenoon the chase continued, and as their horses grew weary and began to flag, the hunters gradually tailed off; but Sir Anthony never halted in the pursuit, nor did the black steed give the slightest sign of weariness, though his glossy coat was literally covered with foam. On the knight went, the dogs gradually gaining on the boar, and the boar making a circuit till he led them back to within a mile of Chas-Chateil, and turned fiercely to bay under a gigantic oak hard by the spot where the castle of Donnington was afterwards built--perhaps the oak under which, according to tradition, Geoffrey Chaucer in his last years wrote many of his poems.

And terrible was the aspect which the boar now presented; his ears erect, his shaggy hair standing in bristles, and his mouth foaming with rage, as, tearing and tossing aside the dogs with his mighty tusks, he collected all his remaining strength to spring at the horse and the rider. Nor did Sir Anthony shrink from the stern encounter. Blowing his horn till it resounded through the woods, and shouting with a ferocity which rivalled the dumb ferocity of his grisly antagonist, he, with an oath and a gesture of fiery impatience, threw down his hunting-spear, and, drawing his sword of Bordeaux steel, dashed the rowels of his spurs into Ayoub’s flank and swung aloft his weapon to deal a decisive blow.

But the blow was not destined to be struck. Unaccustomed to such treatment, rendered furious by the provocation of hours, and startled by the fierce aspect of the boar, the noble animal made one plunge, reared himself high in the air, and then fell prostrate on the ground, bearing his rider with him. It was a terrible moment. Sir Anthony was, indeed, little hurt by the fall, but his sword had dropped from his hand, and he lay at the boar’s mercy.

The knight in terror bawled out for St. Anthony and St. Hubert to come to his aid.

Only two moments did the boar lose ere making the rush; they were employed in freeing himself from the dogs, already blinded by the blood from the wounds he had inflicted; and then he made his final rush--a rush that brought his very snout in contact with the prostrate knight’s person. But ere that rush took place, and ere mischief could be done, from the branches of the oak dropped something which to the knight’s swimming eyes looked like a large ball. Next moment the sword of Bordeaux steel, driven by a sure hand, penetrated the boar’s throat; and, as the monster rolled back on the grass, writhing in the agonies of death, and Sir Anthony freed himself from the steed, and the steed sprang to his feet with a bound, he found standing before him, holding Ayoub’s bridle-rein in his left hand and the Bordeaux blade in the right, a dark-haired and rather swarthy youngster, in parti-coloured garments of an outlandish cut, with a smile on his countenance. The smile was meaningless, and the boy looked marvellously innocent; nevertheless, Sir Anthony was so enraged with his mishap that he almost felt inclined to kill his preserver on the spot for that meaningless smile and that innocent look.

“Who in the fiend’s name are you?” he asked with a frowning brow and in a voice of thunder.

The boy, who had not, as it happened, parted with the sword, replied with a smile which disarmed Sir Anthony’s anger; but the answer was in a language which the knight did not understand; so he muttered a slight imprecation to rid himself of the remnant of his wrath, and, having again loudly sounded his horn, began to look more kindly on the mysterious stranger who had come to his rescue at the very moment of his extreme need, and when otherwise he must have been torn to pieces.

“By my faith,” said he in a low tone and with a thrill of superstitious awe, “I firmly believe that St. Anthony or St. Hubert has sent this youth to my aid, and it behoves me, therefore, to treat him as one whom the saints account worthy of being their messenger. One thing is lucky,” continued he: “the youth cannot speak our tongue, and therefore cannot report the unworthy spectacle I have presented.”

As Sir Anthony thus soliloquised, the huntsmen and two squires, attracted by the repeated blasts of his horn, rode up to the spot, and the knight, having given a very inadequate description of the scene that had been enacted, and consigned the boar to the huntsmen to be cut up, ordered them to take care of the boy and bring him to the castle. He then attempted to remount, but he might as well have attempted to scale the heavens. Ayoub positively resisted, and, despising both threats and caresses, stood proudly upon the dignity which had been so recently and so deeply injured. The knight was finally under the necessity of mounting the horse of one of the huntsmen, and leaving Ayoub, and the mystic boy, and the dead boar under their care, rode slowly away through the trees towards Chas-Chateil.

“Cog’s wounds! friend Martin,” said one of the huntsmen to his fellow, after examining the boy as to his proficiency in the vernacular tongue, “I can make nothing of this jackanapes. Beshrew me if I do not think he is such a creature as was of late taken in the sea on the coast of Suffolk.”

“Hubert, lad, I fail to comprehend thee,” said Martin.

“Natheless, it is true as any story ever sung by minstrel,” continued Hubert. “It was a fish in the form of a man, and they kept it alive six months on land, feeding it the whilst on raw meat; but seeing they could get no speech out of it, they cast it back into the sea.”

“I doubt thee not, Hubert, lad--I doubt thee not,” said Martin cheerily; “but, credit me, this is no such creature, but a boy from some outlandish country beyond the seas. I have heard the like of him ere now singing glees on the great bridge at London. Mark how simple and innocent he is. Even that fiend of a horse, that wouldn’t so much as look at Sir Anthony, takes kindly to the child and licks his hand.”