Cedric, the Forester

by Bernard Gay Marshall

“Ha! The young eagle tries his wings,” laughed my father. “Spoken like a true Mountjoy, Dickon. Thou’lt do. Give thee but a few more years and thou’lt serve the King like all thy line.”

“And like a true Montmorency, my lord,” put in my mother. “Forget not that.”

“’Pon my soul, ’tis true,” he laughed, “Dickon hath as good blood on the distaff side as any his father can boast.—But to the matter of the castle’s defense in need. Will-o’-the-Wallfield shall stay behind also to see that stores of grain and beef are ample. He’s ever a good hand with the farmers and as sound as an oak staff.” And with a kiss for my mother and a pinch o’ the ear for me, he hurried out again to the armorers.

His spirits in good sooth were high that morning, as well might they be. It was full two years since his return from the Holy Land. I had seen him in London, riding in his shining mail with those who had helped redeem the Blessed Sepulcher, and he the bravest, finest figure of them all. Since that time he had stayed here at the castle with naught to do save to judge the suits of the countryfolk and now and again chase down and hang some forest-lurking robber. His comrades in arms and those that knew his temper and his deeds were at the Court, a hundred miles away; and many a dull day must have seemed a week in passing. Here in the West we have no tourneys and of travelers from the farther world not many. Only lately some little stir of life did we have. The Gray Wolf of Carleton from his castle at Teramore, three leagues away, had sent to us an insolent demand for tribute, claiming forsooth that the Lords of Mountjoy were but a younger line of the House of Carleton and that we held our fiefs on sufferance and at the will of them, our superiors.

Always shall I remember the language of my father’s answer. The clerkly knave who brought Lord Carleton’s message shrunk and shriveled before it like a leaf too near the fire. Just so will I meet all such threats and insolence when I have but a few more years.

“Suzerain of Mountjoy, forsooth! Let the Gray Wolf look well to Teramore, lest we of Mountjoy smoke him from his lair. Mountjoy banners will dip before those of Carleton when England pays tribute to the Saracen, and Beelzebub, thy master’s friend, sits on the throne.”

The knave slunk back to Teramore; and for some weeks the Gray Wolf’s pack had yapped and yowled. Two of Lord Carleton’s bailiffs had their heads well broken by Mountjoy tenants of whom they demanded rental; and an armed party was sent out to avenge them. These men-at-arms were even more roughly used by some of our Mountjoy cross-bowmen who spied the Carleton banner from afar as it entered the village.

Real fighting would surely have come of it, and we of Mountjoy outnumbered three to one, had not the King sent messengers to Teramore and Mountjoy also, commanding all of us to cease from any violence in the quarrel till his men could report to him the rights and wrongs of it.

Now came the King’s call to his vassals, great and small, to serve in the Scottish war; and my father was gay with the thought of service under his sovereign’s banner,—service that might place the name and fame of Mountjoy high in his master’s favor, and show what manner of man and subject it was whom the Gray Wolf would rob of his lands.

A week from that morning my mother had in hand a letter brought by a courier from the King’s army and bearing my father’s greetings. They were well on their way to the north, and believed the Scots would soon have reason to repent them of their folly. Father had been given a post in the advance guard, and was in high feather over rejoining some of his comrades of earlier years.