FOOTNOTES
[28] “Dastardly,” for he who had with such cruel indifference sent others to the stake, the quartering block, or the axe, lost all his own courage when a like doom impended over himself—when, without a trial, he was sentenced, by the process of a “bill of attainder,” which he had first invented. In the most abject manner he fawned on the tyrant, and besought mercy in terms which were a disgrace to his manhood. Innocent of intentional treason against Henry no doubt he was; but was he more so than many of his own victims, whom on the fifth of July, 1540, he went to meet before the bar of God?
CHAPTER II.
AN EVENTFUL RAMBLE.
“Cuthbert, my son,” said Sir Walter, “thou hast brought letters from the town.”
“Here they are, father,” said Cuthbert, producing a packet which bore the traces of a long journey, “letters from across the sea.”
The good knight, or father, whichever we may call him, perused them eagerly, and Cuthbert sat patiently gazing at a black letter martyrology to wile away the time.
“My news concerns thee, dear son,” said his adopted father. “Cuthbert, thou hast now attained years of discretion, and thy education has not been neglected; thou art a fair master of English, French, and Latin, with some knowledge of German; thy mathematics are tolerable as things go; meanwhile thou hast not neglected the divinest of studies—theology.”
“Nor, father, have I forgotten that in this world we must learn to fence, wrestle, shoot, and if need be, fight.”
“Nor hunting and hawking, alack-a-day; ‘vanitas vanitatum,’ all is vanity; but, my son, we must seriously consider now what thy future life shall be. Here I have letters from two quarters, amongst others, which concern thee; my good brother, the Abbot of Monte Casino, in far off Italy, would gladly receive thee as a neophyte, and fit thee to make thy profession in that holiest and most learned of houses, where as yet the wild boar rooteth not, neither doth the beast of the field devour.”
The old man looked eagerly on the youth, but no answering response met his gaze.
“And again,” continued he, “my friend the Baron de Courcy, descendant of an old and famous Norman house, distinguished even in the days of the Conquest,[29] offers to receive thee as an esquire and candidate for the future honour of knighthood, in the service of France, now happily at peace with England.”
Cuthbert’s face brightened now—this was the lot which he desired.
“Ah, my son, I see the world hath hold of thee; would thou could’st feel the noble ambition to die for the Church, like thy once revered preceptor.”
“Father, dear father, believe me no ingrate; for the Church I would willingly die; but let it be as a warrior, sword in hand, fighting for her rights, she needs such,—the warrior’s death if need be, but not the stake or quartering block, unless God call me to it,—and then thy child may not disobey.”
“I have ever foreboded this decision, yet it ruins my fondest hopes—but if God has not given the vocation man can do nought—and therefore I have sought the double opening for thee; thou choosest, then, the soldier’s life, under my old friend of Courcy, whom I know to be as valiant and devout a warrior as one could find, yet withal one who will not spare correction, and who can be stern at need.”
“I do choose it, since you leave it to me, yet I grieve to cross thy will.”
“Take till to-morrow to consider of it; a ship, under a captain whom I know, will leave Dartmouth shortly for France, and thou mayest go under his care. But first there is a duty to discharge; we must both go to Glastonbury, where the lapse of time will have obliterated thy remembrance from the towns folk, and destroy those papers; there is no longer any occasion for their existence.”
“When shall we travel?”
“I have engagements which detain me here for another week, then we shall set out; and now, my son, commend thyself to God, and seek His grace to guide thee at this solemn turning-point in thy life. Benedicat te Deus, et custodiat te semper, noctem quietam concedat Dominus.”
It was not till the midnight hour had passed that Cuthbert could sleep; he realised that he had come to a point in the road of life, where two ways branched off to right and left, either of which, fraught with diverse issues, he might follow, but which?
And the same figure continually haunted him in his dreams, even the two roads; sometimes the strife of battle and death in the forlorn hope, or in the deadly breach, seemed the goal of the one, and then the other appeared to lead to a desert of racks, stakes, and other appliances, too familiar to the proselytizing zeal of that era.
There were other visions, but visions of peace—of a home of rest beyond some fearful toil, some deadly peril which had preceded it in the dream.
Wakeful, but not refreshed, Cuthbert rose with the sun; the words of Sir Walter, “Take a day to consider,” rang in his mind; it should be a day of solitude.
He took a slight breakfast, and then ascended the hill above the house, crowned with the Druidical idol of a long vanished day; through furze and crag he scrambled to the summit; before him lay a land of desolation; moor after moor, swelling into hills, subsiding into valleys, tinged with light or shade as the shadows of the clouds drove over the wastes before the wind; like the restless ocean, it had a strange charm in its very boundlessness; its vastness seemed to calm one, as if an image of the illimitable eternity.
And above rose the mis-shapen token of a faith and worship long extinct; a few huge blocks of granite composed the figure, so arranged, whether by nature or art, that they looked human in outline; and before, on that flat slab of stone, many victims must have bled—human victims perhaps, in honour of the Baal-God.
That distant ridge of serrated teeth-like mountains, perpetuates the name Bel Tor; perchance Phœnicians of old, brought over the worship dear to Jezebel, and in these latter days, the name still speaks of that dread idolatry.
So man passes away like the shadows of the clouds over the moor, and yet these bare hills and rocky tors remain the same, as when the smoke from the idol sacrifice ascended.
Then Cuthbert descended; he reached the valley, climbed the opposite ridge—that strange pile so like a ruined castle which men call Hound Tor; onward again up a deep valley, then a scramble amidst rocks and heather, and the huge granite blocks which form the summit of Hey Tor, are gained.
Oh, what a variegated view of land and sea—the wild hills over the Dart, nay, over the Tavy; the huge bulk of Cawsand in the north; the estuaries of the Dart and Teign; nay, across the sea, a cloud-like vision of Portland Isle, full sixty miles away.
But our young mountaineer has seen enough, and his thoughts are ever busy; he descends the hill and enters the forests which then fringed their bases. Has he an object in view? Yes, there is one he would fain see near Ashburton, pure and fair Isabel Grey, daughter of a neighbouring squire, whose beauty had revealed to him the secrets of his own heart, and steeled him against entering the ranks of a celibate priesthood.
This is not a love story, and we shall not follow him to listen to his vows, to hear him implore his charmer to tarry till he can return crowned (he doubts not) with glory gained in the wars, and offer her the heart of a would-be bridegroom.
He returns at length by the lower road, strikes the pass he ascended, last night, at about the same hour, but the long ramble has fatigued him; he rests for one moment at the summit of the ridge.
It wants an hour to sunset, he will go to the point of Hound Tor Coombe; it is but a few steps, and is a projecting spur of the range which separates the two wooded, rock-strewn valleys, Lustleigh and Becky, just before they unite in one beautiful vale, above Bovey Tracey.
There he lies listening to the streams which babble on each side far below, and anon—shall we tell it to his shame—falls asleep.
He is awoke by the murmur of voices.
“I tell thee the old fellow is worth a mint of money, and Jack Cantfull, who is the ostler at the ‘Rose and Crown,’ says he rides all alone to Moreton, and goes through this pass, but why he takes this road instead of the other I know not, only Jack is to be his guide.”
“He will pay for knocking on the head!”
“Jack will expect his share when the deed is done.”
“Nay,” said another voice, “no throat cutting or head splitting, if it can be done without.”
“Thou hast become scrupulous, Tony; hast thou forgotten the colour of blood?”
“Nay, as I am a true Gubbing,[30] I mind it no more than ale, when called upon to shed it, but we need not make the country too hot to hold us.”
“Dead men tell no tales.”
“Well, we must be moving, he was to start at six.” And soon Cuthbert heard them climb down the slope from a cave (well known to him, but which happily he had not entered) below the summit on which he had been reposing.
They had gone to beset the pass higher up.
So soon as the sound of their footsteps had ceased, Cuthbert descended or rather slid down the hill into the road beneath, behind the men, and in spite of his fatigue, walked rapidly back towards Bovey.
Soon he came to the junction of two roads—the one, the upper way, leading through the pass and so to Chagford, and by a circuitous route to Moreton; the other a branch road which led more directly to the latter town, which the traveller had abandoned: to take, for his own reasons, a more circuitous and difficult route under a treacherous guide.
At the point where the ways met Cuthbert waited, and shortly heard the sound of horses; he then beheld the riders—the one a tall dark looking man, evidently of rank and importance, the other a sort of stable helper from the inn at Bovey.
“Stand,” cried Cuthbert, “I would fain speak with you, sir.”
“Who is this, who cries ‘stand’ upon the King’s highway?”
“A friend, one who would save you, Sir John, if you be Sir John; danger lurks ahead; three cut-throats, ‘Gubbings,’ they call them about here, a half-gipsy brood, lie in wait at the pass, and lurk for your life.”
“How sayest thou, my lad? Look, sirrah, what sayest thou to this?”
But the treacherous groom had heard all, and rode on at full gallop, barely escaping a pistol-shot his indignant employer sent after him.
“He will bring them back in no time: take the lower road.”
“And thou, my poor lad, they will avenge themselves on thee.”
“Nay, I know every turn in the woods; I can run home.”
“Sore uneasy should I be for thee. Ah, see, the rogues appear, they heard the shot.”
About half-a-mile along the road, moving forms rapidly running towards them might be obscurely discerned as they turned a crest of the hill.
“Jump behind, thou canst ride ‘pillion.’”
Cuthbert complied, and Sir John spurred his horse and galloped along the lower road; even then, by cutting across a shoulder of the hill, the Gubbings, as Cuthbert called them, gained upon them and shot two or three useless arrows, and then they could do no more, for the road lay straight forward, and they had no further advantage.
After a little while Sir John said—
“I think we may now take our ease; thou hast saved my life, lad, and I shall not forget it. What is thy name?”
“Cuthbert Trevannion; and thine, sir?”
The rider started perceptibly as he heard the name, and Cuthbert noticed it. After a moment he said, with emphasis—
“Sir John Redfyrne, a poor knight of his sacred majesty’s household.”
Cuthbert remembered the name too well, and his earnest desire was to get away without any further revelations.
“I have lately come from Glastonbury,” said Sir John; “dost thou know the place?”
Cuthbert could not lie. “I have been there,” he said.
“There was some talk of a lad of thy name when I first knew the town, who was educated at the Abbey.”
“It may be, sir; but see, that road will take me home, and there is no danger now; may I dismount?”
“Not just yet; here is a roadside inn, thou must at least grace me with thy presence over a cup of sack.”
“But my father will be uneasy.”
“I will answer for him.”
Not to increase Sir John’s suspicions, Cuthbert dismounted at the inn, and allowed himself to be led into a private chamber. Sir John waited for a moment, and descended the stairs.
“Dost thou know that youth?” he asked of the landlord.
“The son of Sir Walter Trevannion.”
“He lives near here?”
“Yes, at Trevannion Hall.”
He returned to Cuthbert.
“My lad,” he said, “I owe thee many thanks, and grieve that I may not stay longer to repay them than suffices to discuss this sack; my road now lies to Moreton, and I shall soon have quitted these parts; perhaps I may call some future day upon thy father, who, I hear, lives near, to thank thee in his presence.”
“I may go then, sir?”
“With my best thanks; nay, wear this chain as a memento of the giver and the Gubbings; fare thee well.”
And Cuthbert hastened home.
But Sir John remained yet a little while, seated in the saddle, as he made several innocent enquiries of the landlord.
And they were all about Trevannion Hall.
