No More Learning

A
waterproof cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood.
She cast about to see if there was anything else. She had almost
forgotten cartridges--and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray
brand or so into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with
an armful of snow to make it last longer, and set out toward the willows
into which he had vanished.

There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way
through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again;
and then the camping place became very still.

Trafford's trail led Marjorie through the thicket of dwarf willows and
down to the gully of the rivulet which they had called Marjorie Trickle;
it had long since become a trough of snow-covered, rotten ice. The trail
crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went on until it was clear of
shrubs and trees, and, in the windy open of the upper slopes, it crossed
a ridge and came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes of
ice and icy snow. Here Marjorie spent some time in following his loops
back on the homeward trail before she saw what was manifestly the final
trail running far away out across the snow, with the [v]spoor of the
lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She followed this
suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way
across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over
the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest
discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but
the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as
her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something
very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a
big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and
scenting something beyond.

Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed
dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly
wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of
leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve
returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of
them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?

The beast flashed round with an animal's instantaneous change of pose,
and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute
regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation.

Suppose it came toward her!

She would fire--and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the
range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of
the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the
crest.

She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford's answer. No
answer came. "Queer! " she whispered, "queer! "--and suddenly such a
horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and
floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name,
and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot.

Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the
ridge!

She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where
Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of
tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself
down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running.

Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently
disturbed snow--snow stained a dreadful color, a snow of scarlet
crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight.

She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled
attitude on a patch of snow between [v]convergent rocks, and the lynx, a
mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him.
She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them,
and discolored [v]copiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with
congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her
mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before
her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the
lynx's body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs
were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.

Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A
hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a
dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood;
he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve
across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had
fainted.

Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a
shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the
position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast's body, that he had
stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head; he must have shot and
wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons,
and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured--how, she
could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and
it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to
protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already
rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,--and the torn skin and clot upon
Trafford's face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise
him. She turned him over on his back--how heavy he seemed? --and forced
brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she poured
a little brandy on his wounds.

She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face.
Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his
hand weakly. "The blood," he said, "kept getting in my eyes. "

She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg.
Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be
done in order.

The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow,
and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night
here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four
hundred yards below there were a number of dwarfed fir trees. She had
brought an ax, so that a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp
and get the tent?

Trafford was trying to speak again. "I got--"

"Yes? "

"Got my leg in that crack. "

Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, and then perceived that
she must bind up his head and face. She knelt behind him and raised his
head on her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this she
supplemented by a band she cut and tore from her inner vest. She bound
this, still warm from her body, about him, and wrapped her dark cloak
round his shoulders. The next thing was a fire. Five yards away,
perhaps, a great mass of purple [v]gabbro hung over a patch of nearly
snowless moss. A hummock to the westward offered shelter from the bitter
wind, the icy draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always in
Labrador, if you can, you camp against a rock surface; it shelters you
from the wind, guards your back.

"Dear! " she said.

"Awful hole," said Trafford.

"What? " she cried sharply.

"Put you in an awful hole," he said. "Eh? "

"Listen," she said, and shook his shoulder. "Look! I want to get you up
against that rock. "

"Won't make much difference," replied Trafford, and opened his eyes.
"Where? " he asked.

"There. "

He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. "Listen to me," he said.
"Go back to camp. "

"Yes," she said.

"Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest
food--strenthin'--strengthrin' food--you know? " He seemed unable to
express himself.

"Yes," she said.

"Down the river. Down--down. Till you meet help. "

"Leave you? "

He nodded his head and winced.

"You're always plucky," he said. "Look facts in the face. Children.
Thought it over while you were coming. " A tear oozed from his eye.
"Don't be a fool, Madge. Kiss me good-by. Don't be a fool. I'm done.
Children. "

She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. "You old
_coward_," she said in his ear, and kissed the little patch of rough and
bloody cheek beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. "_I'm_ boss
now, old man," she said. "I want to get you to that place there under
the rock. If I drag, can you help? "

He answered obstinately: "You'd better go. "

"I'll make you comfortable first," she returned.

He made an enormous effort, and then, with her quick help and with his
back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows.

"And afterward? " he asked.

"Build a fire. "

"Wood? "

"Down there. "

"Two bits of wood tied on my leg--splints. Then I can drag myself. See?
Like a blessed old walrus. "

He smiled and she kissed his bandaged face again.

"Else it hurts," he apologized, "more than I can stand. "

She stood up again, put his rifle and knife to his hand, for fear of
that lurking wolf, abandoning her own rifle with an effort, and went
striding and leaping from rock to rock toward the trees below. She made
the chips fly, and was presently towing three venerable pine dwarfs,
bumping over rock and crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down,
stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set herself to hack off
the splints he needed from the biggest stem. "Now," she said, coming to
him.

"A fool," he remarked, "would have made the splints down there.
You're--_good_, Marjorie. "

She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the natural and least
painful pose, padded it with moss and her torn handkerchief, and bound
it up. As she did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about them.
She was now braced up to every possibility. "It never rains," she said
grimly, "but it pours," and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly
weakened by pain and shock, and once he spoke to her sharply. "Sorry,"
he said a moment later.

She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the
shelter of the rock while she went for more wood.

The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the valley were already hidden by
driven rags of slaty snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier
path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined she would not
start the fire until nightfall, nor waste any time in preparing food
until then. There were dead boughs for kindling--more than enough. It
was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to him with her second
load, and a premature twilight already obscured and exaggerated the
rocks and mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to Trafford, and
gnawed some herself on her way down to the wood again. She regretted
that she had brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she might
have kept on until the cold night stopped her, and she reproached
herself bitterly because she had brought no tea. She could forgive
herself the lantern, for she had never expected to be out after dark,
but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches while she
worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze
upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. "Why
don't they teach a girl to handle an ax? " she cried.


II

When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found
Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs
between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well-husbanded
fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of
lynx-flesh, which she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy.
Then they tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with some
scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water.

The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the darkness to become flakes of
burning fire in the light of the flames, flakes that vanished magically,
but it only reached them and wetted them in occasional gusts. What did
it matter for the moment if the dim snowheaps rose and rose about them?
A glorious fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction, possessed Marjorie;
she felt that they had both done well.

"I am not afraid of to-morrow now," she said at last.

Trafford was smoking his pipe and did not speak for a moment. "Nor I,"
he said at last. "Very likely we'll get through with it. " He added after
a pause: "I thought I was done for. A man--loses heart--after a loss of
blood. "

"The leg's better? "

"Hot as fire. " His humor hadn't left him. "It's a treat," he said. "The
hottest thing in Labrador. "

Later Marjorie slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire should
fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in the half-burnt logs, and
went to sleep again. Then it seemed to her that some invisible hand was
pouring a thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and crackle and
spread north and south until they filled the heavens with a gorgeous
glow. The snowstorm was overpast, leaving the sky clear and all the
westward heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping curtains of
the [v]aurora, brighter than she had ever seen them before. Quite
clearly visible beyond the smolder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock
and snow, boulder beyond boulder, passed into a [v]dun obscurity. The
mountain to the right of them lay long and white and stiff, a shrouded
death. All earth was dead and waste, and the sky alive and coldly
marvelous, signalling and astir. She watched the changing, shifting
colors, and they made her think of the gathering banners of inhuman
hosts, the stir and marshaling of icy giants for ends stupendous and
indifferent to all the trivial impertinence of man's existence! Marjorie
felt a passionate desire to pray.

The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the
fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford's wounds, and made
another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night; the soup
nauseated him; he refused it and tried to smoke and was sick, and then
sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to
leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a
little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through
with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue
vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of
fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him,
abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face
lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence, set
out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make
out; wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her
mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving
Trafford nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep
spoor along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the
darkness.

Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction
right. As it was, she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile
above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river.
Once she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.

One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time--a
blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford.
Short of that, she believed she could get through.

Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At first she had thought
chiefly of Trafford's immediate necessities, of food and some sort of
shelter. She had got a list of things in her head--meat extract,
bandages, [v]corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of
beef, some bread, and so forth; she went over it several times to be
sure of it, and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought
she could manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig
a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford out of them and some bent
sticks. The big tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her
mind went on to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The
nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to
supplies.

She cast about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken
for runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of
smooth wood, she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to
try the side of her bunk, which she could easily get off. She would
have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the
ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going up to the steep
place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him. The idea of a
sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along the edge and
make a kind of harness for herself.

Marjorie found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had
invaded tent and hut, and that some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had
been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of
Trafford's well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of
the store-shed and clambered up to the stores. She took no account of
its [v]depredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her
supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, though she did not
like the look of the sky and she was horribly afraid of what might be
happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across
the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still
struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.

It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed
her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she
started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards
before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast,
darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and
she had to use all of her wits to determine her direction: she knew she
must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her
as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike
some recognizable vestige of her morning's trail. She had read of people
walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that
troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her
watch chain. By that she kept her direction. She wished very much she
had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she
approached the ridge.

Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across
her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not
dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast; the flakes traced
white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling
away to the southwestward and then correcting herself by the compass.
She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the
snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her
pause to think.

Marjorie felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her eyes so that
she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the ridge, she told
herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at her heels
and she perceived that she was going down hill. She consulted the
compass and found she was facing south. She turned sharply to the right
again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to sight and
mind.

The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled
under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for
a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking with
shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. "Oh God! " she cried, "Oh
God! " too stupefied for more [v]articulate prayers. She was leaden with
fatigue.

Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?

A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond
appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward
them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in
another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir,
which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had
she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way to
Trafford.

At that Marjorie began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as
she wept, she turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood.
She was too much downhill, she thought, and must bear up again.

She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was
presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to
them. She screamed with anger and twitched her sledge along. She wiped
at the snowstorm with her arm as though to wipe it away; she wanted to
stamp on the universe.

And she ached, she ached.

Suddenly something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was
exactly like a long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the
ground. Just because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As
she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a
branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the
root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow.
And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been
cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and
of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other than
herself.

She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply, close at hand.
"Oh Ragg! " she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her,
came his answering shot.

In another moment Marjorie had discovered the trail she had made
overnight and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow,
soft white trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her.
Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition
to the weight behind her, and immediately had a better idea. She would
unload and pile her stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer
to the wood. The woman looked about and saw two rocks that diverged,
with a space between. She flashed schemes. She would trample the snow
hard and flat, put her sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of
blanket overhead and behind. Finally there would be a fine, roaring
fire in front.

She tossed her provisions down and ran up the broad windings of her
pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the sledge bumping behind her.
Marjorie ran as lightly as though she had done nothing that day.

She found Trafford markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow
drifting over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight.
"Back already"--

He hesitated. "No grub? "

The wife knelt over him, gave his rough, unshaven cheek a swift kiss,
and rapidly explained her plan.

Marjorie carried it out with all of the will-power that was hers. In
three days' time, in spite of the snow, in spite of every other
obstacle, they were back in the hut, and Trafford was comfortably
settled in bed. The icy vastness of Labrador still lay around them to
infinite distances on every side, but the two might laugh at storm and
darkness now in their cosy hut, with plenty of fuel and food and light.

H. G. WELLS.


=HELPS TO STUDY=

I. Describe the location of Trafford's camp; also the coming of
winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that
befell the two.

II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical
situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you
have done in similar circumstances?


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Youth--Joseph Conrad.
Prairie Folks--Hamlin Garland.
Northern Lights--Sir Gilbert Parker.




THE BUGLE SONG

The splendor falls on castle walls
The snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

ALFRED TENNYSON.




THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE


This story is an extract from Sir Walter Scott's novel, _Ivanhoe_,
which describes life in England during the Middle Ages, something
more than a century after the Norman Conquest. The hatred between
the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons still continued,
and is graphically pictured by Scott. _Ivanhoe_ centers about the
household of one Cedric the Saxon, who was a great upholder of the
traditions of his unfortunate people. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Cedric's
son, entered the service of the Norman king of England, Richard I,
and accompanied him to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. His
father disowned the young knight for what he considered disloyalty
to his Saxon blood. Ivanhoe, returning to England, participated in
a great tournament at Ashby, in which he won fame under the
disguise of the "Disinherited Knight. " Among the other knights who
took part in the tournament were the Normans, Maurice de Bracy,
Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight
Templar. Two sides fought in the tournament, one representing the
English, the other representing the foreign element in the land. An
unknown knight, clad in black armor, brought victory to the English
side, but left the field without disclosing his identity. An
archery contest held at the tournament was won by a wonderful
bowman who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with
great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to
Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and
loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. "The
Siege of the Castle" opens with Cedric's discovery of his son's
identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the
tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was
hundreds of years ago, before the age of gunpowder.


I

When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the great
tournament at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the care of
his own attendants, but the words choked in his throat. He could not
bring himself to acknowledge, in the presence of such an assembly, the
son whom he had renounced and disinherited for his allegiance to the
Norman king of England, Richard of the Lion Heart. However, he ordered
one of the officers of his household, his cupbearer, to convey Ivanhoe
to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. But the man was anticipated
in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the wounded knight
was nowhere to be seen.

It seemed as if the fairies had conveyed Ivanhoe from the spot; and
Cedric's officer might have adopted some such theory to account for his
disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eyes on a person attired
like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant
Gurth, who had run away from his master. Anxious about Ivanhoe's fate,
Gurth was searching for him everywhere and, in so doing, he neglected
the concealment on which his own safety depended. The cupbearer deemed
it his duty to secure Gurth as a fugitive of whose fate his master was
to judge. Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, all
that the cupbearer could learn was that the knight had been raised by
certain well-attired grooms, under the direction of a veiled woman, and
placed in a litter, which had immediately transported him out of the
press. The officer, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return
to his master, carrying along with him Gurth, the swineherd, as a
deserter from Cedric's service.

The Saxon had been under intense [v]apprehensions concerning his son;
but no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful hands than
paternal anxiety gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and
resentment at what he termed Wilfred's [v]filial disobedience.

"Let him wander his way," said Cedric; "let those leech his wounds for
whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks
of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his
English ancestry with the [v]glaive and [v]brown-bill, the good old
weapons of the country. "

The old Saxon now prepared for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward,
the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding
his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the
deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext
for wreaking his anger upon some one.

"The [v]gyves! " he cried. "Dogs and villains, why leave ye this knave
unfettered? "

Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him with a
halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the
operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful look
at his master.

"To horse, and forward! " ordered Cedric.

"It is indeed full time," said the Saxon prince Athelstane, who
accompanied Cedric, "for if we ride not faster, the preparations for our
supper will be altogether spoiled. "

The travelers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent of Saint
Withold's before the apprehended evil took place. The abbot, himself of
ancient Saxon descent, received the noble Saxons with the profuse
hospitality of their nation, wherein they indulged to a late hour. They
took leave of their reverend host the next morning after they had shared
with him a [v]sumptuous breakfast, which Athelstane particularly
appreciated.

The superstitious Saxons, as they left the convent, were inspired with a
feeling of coming evil by the behavior of a large, lean black dog,
which, sitting upright, howled most piteously when the foremost riders
left the gate, and presently afterward, barking wildly and jumping to
and fro, seemed bent on attaching itself to the party.

"In my mind," said Athelstane, "we had better turn back and abide with
the abbot until the afternoon. It is unlucky to travel where your path
is crossed by a monk, a hare, or a howling dog, until you have eaten
your next meal. "

"Away! " said Cedric impatiently; "the day is already too short for our
journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave
Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master. "

So saying and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient at the
interruption of his journey, he launched his [v]javelin at poor Fangs,
who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The
javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal's shoulder and narrowly missed
pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the
enraged [v]thane. Gurth's heart swelled within him, for he felt this
attempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than
the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his
hand to his eyes, he said to Wamba, the jester, who, seeing his master's
ill humor, had prudently retreated to the rear, "I pray thee, do me the
kindness to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends
me, and these bonds will not let me help myself one way or another. "

Wamba did him the service he required, and they rode side by side for
some time, during which Gurth maintained a moody silence. At length he
could repress his feelings no longer.

"Friend Wamba," said he, "of all those who are fools enough to serve
Cedric, thou alone hast sufficient dexterity to make thy folly
acceptable to him. Go to him, therefore, and tell him that neither for
love nor fear will Gurth serve him longer. He may strike the head from
me--he may scourge me--he may load me with irons--but henceforth he
shall never compel me either to love or obey him. Go to him and tell him
that Gurth renounces his service. "

"Assuredly," replied Wamba, "fool as I am, I will not do your fool's
errand. Cedric hath another javelin stuck into his girdle, and thou
knowest he doth not always miss his mark. "

"I care not," returned Gurth, "how soon he makes a mark of me. Yesterday
he left Wilfred, my young master, in his blood. To-day he has striven to
kill the only other living creature that ever showed me kindness. By
Saint Edward, Saint Dunstan, Saint Withold, and every other saint, I
will never forgive him! "

At noon, upon the motion of Athelstane, the travelers paused in a
woodland shade by a fountain to repose their horses and partake of some
provisions with which the hospitable abbot had loaded a [v]sumpter mule.
Their repast was a pretty long one; and the interruption made it
impossible for them to hope to reach Rotherwood without traveling all
night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more
hasty pace than they had hitherto used.

The travelers had now reached the verge of the wooded country and were
about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the
number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair and
who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid
defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however,
Cedric and Athelstane accounted themselves secure, as they had in
attendance ten servants, besides Wamba and Gurth, whose aid could not be
counted upon, the one being a jester and the other a captive. It may be
added that in traveling thus late through the forest, Cedric and
Athelstane relied on their descent and character as well as their
courage. The outlaws were chiefly peasants and [v]yeomen of Saxon
descent, and were generally supposed to respect the persons and property
of their countrymen.

Before long, as the travelers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed
by repeated cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place
whence the cries came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed
on the ground. Beside it sat a very beautiful young woman richly dressed
in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him
to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures of the
deepest despair and wrung his hands.

When he began to come to himself out of his agony of terror, the old
man, named Isaac of York, explained that he had hired a bodyguard of
six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the litter of a sick
friend. This party had undertaken to escort him to Doncaster. They had
come thus far in safety; but having received information from a
wood-cutter that a strong band of outlaws was lying in wait in the woods
before them, Isaac's [v]mercenaries had not only taken to flight, but
had carried off the horses which bore the litter and left the Jew and
his daughter without the means either of defense or of retreat. Isaac
ended by imploring the Saxons to let him travel with them. Cedric and
Athelstane were somewhat in doubt as to what to do, but the matter was
settled by Rowena's intervention.

"The man is old and feeble," she said to Cedric, "the maiden young and
beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave
them in this extremity. Let the men unload two of the sumpter-mules and
put the baggage behind two of the [v]serfs. The mules may transport the
litter, and we have led-horses for the old man and his daughter. "

Cedric readily assented to what was proposed, and the change of baggage
was hastily achieved; for the single word "outlaws" rendered every one
sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more
impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the
course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord
with which his arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened,
perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba, that Gurth found no
difficulty in freeing his arms altogether, and then, gliding into the
thicket, he made his escape from the party.

His departure was hardly noticed in the apprehension of the moment. The
path upon which the party traveled was now so narrow as not to admit,
with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began to
descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook, the banks of which were
broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane,
who were at the head of their [v]retinue, saw the risk of being attacked
in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through
the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much
order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers,
when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of
armed men. The shout of a "White dragon! Saint George for merry
England! " the war cry of the Saxons, was heard on every side, and on
every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which
seemed to multiply their numbers.