Cedric, the Forester

by Bernard Gay Marshall

Cedric and I watched the night out, sitting with drawn bows at the cave mouth. The stars were bright, but there was no moon and little wind; and our talk was low lest after all some of the outlaws might be near. Half in whispers he told me the story of the glen and its name. It seems that an honest yeoman, John o’ the Windle, who had been his father’s friend in his youth, had had the mischance to quarrel with a sheriff’s man, and, to save his own life, had pierced him with a cloth-yard shaft. Then John Windle had fled to the forest and become a wolf’s head, which is the name the commonalty have for outlaws, since the killing of either wolves or outlaws may bring a bounty from the Crown. For years he had lived in this very glen, with his hiding place in the cave known to but a few faithful friends. Often he was pursued to the little valley, but among its woods and streams always shook off the sheriff’s trailers and made good his ‘scape. Finally the legend grew that he was befriended by unseen powers and changed himself to a wolf whenever he crossed the little stream at the place where so many times his trail had been lost. Cedric’s father, Elbert of Pelham Wood, had once brought him to this spot to visit the outlaw after he had become old and was far gone in his last sickness; and a few days later the two foresters had buried the wolf’s head near the cave where he had lived.

Just after dawn, Cedric, sitting at watch, pierced with a cross-bow bolt a hare that was hopping through the underwood fifty paces off. Most cautiously we built a little fire within the cave and roasted the meat for our breakfast, we being of sharpest appetites through having eaten naught since the middle of the day before.

Some of the tenderest bits we offered to the stranger, and he did try to eat, but with no avail for he grew dizzy when we raised him from his couch. Cedric’s face grew grave at this, and soon he came and placed his hand upon the cheek and neck of the lad. What he found made him frown most anxiously at me. The face of the wounded youth had now lost all its paleness; ’twas flushed and something swollen and to the touch near burning hot.

“Sir Dickon,” called Cedric, suddenly, “we must move him, and quickly, to where a leech can tend him. He hath a fever, and with it his wound will not heal.”

“Can we issue from this wood by any other road than that on which we left the robbers?” I questioned. “If so be, mayhap we can reach to Mannerley Lodge.”

“There is a steep pathway higher in the glen that doth issue on Wilton Road. If we gain that, ’tis not above two leagues to Mannerley.”

“Then let us go. I wager we meet not again with the outlaws. They ever scatter and hide themselves after a fray like that of yesterday. Our steed must carry three as before. ’Twill be but an hour’s ride.”

Soon Cedric had returned from the thicket with the steed, we had lifted the stranger as gently as might be, and, mounting also, were on our way out of the forest. Now I rode in the saddle and held the boy in his place, and Cedric sat behind me with drawn cross-bow and bolt in groove.

We met none to gainsay us, and soon emerged from the wood. For a quarter hour we made such speed as we might along the road to Mannerley. Then all at once the youth’s body grew limp in my arms, and I saw that again his wound bled full sorely and that once more he yielded to a death-like fainting.

I drew rein, and we dismounted, laying the boy on the leaves by the side of a little brook. For anxious moments we knelt beside him, bathing his forehead with the cold water, listening in vain for his heart-beats, and much in fear that his eyes would never reopen.