A King's Comrade: A Story of Old Hereford

by Charles W. Whistler

"Well," said Sighard, looking after Gymbert as he went, "if yon thane had it in his mind to spear you, or to ride over you, or anywise to send you on the tusks of the boar, he went the right way to work. He rode straight at you from behind, as if he meant it."

"But for his man here the paladin had gone home on a litter, feet foremost, for certain," said the Mercian. "I do not know what came to Gymbert, for he knows more of woodcraft than most of us. Maybe he thought it his boar by all right, and was over hasty."

"A jealous hunter is no pleasant companion," answered Sighard, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "Well, there is no harm done, but to the poor steed yonder."

Then I thanked Erling for his promptness, for it was his hand which had swung me out of danger. Whereon he smiled, and said that he saw it coming in time and risked my wrath. But I could tell that he had more in his mind, and let the matter rest till we were alone. But Sighard and the other thane went on growling now and then over the closeness of the mishap, until the horns sounded merrily for the gathering of us all to the barrier, where was even more work for men and hounds than the kings could undertake. They had taken their fill of the sport also, and had no mind to leave their courts apart from it all.

So for a long hour or two we brought to bay boar and wolf under the forest trees or along the river banks, until I was fairly glad when it was all ended. There was hardly a chance for the quarry, and it was good when one either leaped the nets or swam the stream and was away. Maybe it is as well to have seen such a drive, but I do not care to take part in another. Better the horn calling one in the early morning, and the music of the hounds whose names one knows, and the long drawing of the cover while they work together well and keenly, and the breaking of the stag or boar from his holt, and so the air on one's face, and the swing of the gallop over the open, with friends to right and left, before or behind.

Maybe, then, one will end the day with the death of a valiant stag in some bend of the trout stream, or with the last of a warrior boar at the foot of an ancient oak; or maybe there will be naught to show for the long day's questing. But always there will have been the working of hounds and the paces of the good horse to dwell on afterward, with, over all, the sight of bird and beast under the sky with friends and freedom. Today I had not so much as breathed my horse, and had nigh met my end in a sort of foolish chance which came, as I had only reason to think, of the crush and hustle of men at the end of the drive. There was, in truth, a sort of wild excitement in the air at that time, and it brings heedlessness.

Presently they gathered the game to a wide clearing on the river banks, and such an array of lordly deer and grim boars, row on row of fallow buck, and heaps of gray wolves, I have never seen. Roe and even hares were there also, hardly accounted for in the numbering. Hunting would be fairly spoiled on the Lugg side for a season or two, maybe; but many a farmstead would be the better off for lack of the nightly harriers of field and fold.

But, most of all, men looked at the one mighty wild bull which Ethelbert himself had slain. He was the only one which had been seen, though it was said that another had escaped at the first, and the kine of the herd had been suffered to go free. Snow white he was, with black muzzle and ears and hoofs, and his short horns shone like polished ebony above the curling mane of his forehead and neck. He was a splendid beast, the like of whom my forefathers had slain in fair hunt among the Mendips long ago, until none were left for us today. The wild Welsh hills held them for Offa, as did his midland forests everywhere, as men told me.

Now at this last gathering I did not see Gymbert. I thought he had most likely gone homeward, either on business or else because he would fain hear no more of what he had done in the way of bad woodcraft. Sighard said plainly that it was just as well that he had gone, or his clumsiness would have been spoken of pretty plainly. But all those to whom he did mention it, and they were many, seemed hardly able to understand it, for the marshal's skill was well known.

I suppose it was a matter of two hours before sunset when we started for the palace from where we ended the drive, with an hour's ride before us. We straggled back somewhat, for the kings rode on together, and men followed as they listed. So it came to pass that before long Erling and I were together and almost alone; out of earshot from any one else, at all events, for Sighard was behind us with one or two more of our own party, and the Mercians whom we followed were ahead.