Thine is th' adventure, thine the victory;
Well has thy fortune turned the die for thee.--Dryden.
Sir Osborne immediately turned into the forest, and, rousing his companions, called them to horse; but, however, though confessedly the hero of our story, we must leave him for a little time and follow the traveller we have just left upon the road.
For a considerable way he rode on musing, and if one might judge from his countenance, his meditations were somewhat bitter; such as might become the bosom of a king on finding the treachery of the world, the hollowness of friendship, the impossibility of securing affection, or any other of the cold lessons which the world will sometimes teach the children of prosperity. At length he paused, and, looking to the declining sun, saw the necessity of hastening his progress; whereupon, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped along the road without much heeding in what direction it led him, till, coming to one of those openings called carrefours by the French, where a great many roads met, he stopped to consider his farther route. In the midst, it is true, stood a tall post, which doubtless in days of yore pointed out to the inquisitive eye the exact destination to which each of the several paths tended; but old Time, who will be fingering everything that is nice and good, from the loveliest feature of living beauty to the grandest monument of ancient art, had not spared even so contemptible a thing as the finger-post, but, like a great mischievous baby, had scratched out the letters with his pocketknife, leaving no trace of their purport visible.
The traveller rode round it in vain, then paused and listened, as if to catch the sound of the distant hunt; but all was now silent. As a last resource, he raised his hunting-horn to his lips, and blew a long and repeated call; but all was hushed and still: even babbling Echo, in pure despite, answered not a word. He blew again, and had the same success. There was an ominous sort of quietness in the air, which, joined with the sultriness of the evening, the expecting taciturnity of the birds, and some dark heavy clouds that were beginning to roll in lurid masses over the trees, gave notice of an approaching storm.
Some road he must choose, and, calculating as nearly as he could by the position of the sun, he made his election, and spurred along it with all speed. A dropping sound amongst the green leaves, however, soon showed that the storm was begun, and once having commenced, it was not slow in following up its first attack: the rain came down in torrents, so as to render the whole scene misty, and the lightning, followed by its instant peal of thunder, flickered on every side with flash after flash, dazzling the traveller's sight, and scaring his horse by gleaming across his path, while the inky clouds overhead almost deprived them of other light. In vain he every now and then sought some place of shelter, where the trees seemed thickest; the verdant canopy of the leaves, though impervious to the summer sun, and a good defence against a passing shower, were incapable of resisting a storm like that, and wherever he turned the rain poured through in torrents, and wet him to the skin. Galloping on, then, in despair of finding any sufficient covering, he proceeded for nearly half-an-hour along the forest road, before it opened into the country; and where it did so, instead of finding any nice village to give him rest, and shelter, and food, and fire, the horseman could distinguish nothing but a wide, bare expanse of country, looking dismal and desolate in the midst of the gray deluge that was falling from the sky. About seven or eight miles farther on, he could, indeed, see faintly through the rain the spire of some little church, giving the only sign of human habitation; except where, to the left, in the midst of the heath that there bordered the forest, he perceived the miserable little hut of a charcoal-burner, with a multitude of black hillocks before the door, and a large shed for piling up what was already prepared.
To this, then, as the nearest place of shelter, the stranger took his way, very different in appearance from what he had been in the morning; his rich dress soaked and soiled, his velvet hat out of all shape or form, his high plume draggled and thin, with all the feather adhering closely to the pen; and, in short, though still bearing the inalienable look of gentleman, yet in as complete disarray of apparel as the very worst wetting can produce. Without ceremony he rode up to the door, sprang off his horse, and entered the cabin, wherein appeared a good woman of about forty, busily piling up with fresh fuel a fire of dry boughs, over which hung a large pot of soup for the evening meal. The traveller's tale was soon told, and the dame readily promised him shelter and food, in the name of her husband, who was absent, carrying charcoal to the distant village; and seeing that the storm was likely to last all night, he tied his horse under the shed, placed himself by the side of the fire, aided the good woman to raise it into a blaze, and frankly prepared to make himself as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Well pleased with his easy good-humour, the good dame soon grew familiar, gave him a spoon to skim the pot, while she fetched more wood, and bade him make himself at home. In a short time the husband himself returned, as dripping as the traveller had been, and willingly confirmed all that his wife had promised. Only casting himself, without ceremony, into the chair where the stranger had been sitting--and which, by-the-way, was the only chair in the place, all the rest of the seats being joint-stools--he addressed him familiarly, saying, "I take this place by the fire, my good gentleman, because it is the place where I always sit, and this chair, because it is mine; and you know the old proverb--
"By right and by reason, whatever betide,
A man should be master by his own fireside."[[17]]
"Faith, you are in the right," cried the traveller, laughing; "so I will content myself with this settle. But let us have something for supper; for, on the word of a--knight, my ride has taught me hunger."
"Give us the soup, dame," cried the charcoal-burner. "Well I wot, sir traveller, that you might be treated like a prince, here on the edge of the wood, did not those vile forest laws prevent a poor man from spearing a boar as well as a rich one. In truth, the king is to blame to let such laws last."
"Faith, and that is true," cried the traveller; "and heartily to blame, too, if his laws stand between me and a good supper. Now would I give a link of this gold chain for a good steak of wild boar pork upon those clear ashes."