Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times

by G. P. R. James

The spot where the body had lain was plainly to be seen, marked, both by some blood which must have flowed after the fall from above, and also by a fragment of the Earl's silken pourpoint, which had been caught and torn off by a black thornbush, as he fell.

"They cannot be far off," said the peasant, "for the poor gentleman was a heavy man to carry, and there seemed nobody near when I was here."

"Pshaw!" cried Richard de Ashby, "there might have been a hundred amongst the bushes and trees without your seeing them. However," he continued, eagerly, "let us beat the ground all round. Some one, run back to the castle for horses; if we pursue quickly, we may very likely find the murderers with the corpse in their hands."

"It may be, Sir Richard," said one of the attendants, "that some of the neighbouring yeomen, or franklins, coming and going from Eastwood to Nottingham market, which falls today, may have chanced upon the body, and carried it to some house or cottage near."

"Well, we must discover it at all events," said Richard de Ashby, who feared that one-half of his purpose might be frustrated if the letter, which he had written under the name of Hugh de Monthermer, was not actually found upon the corpse. "Spread round! spread round! Let us follow up every path by which the body could be borne, shouting from time to time to each other, that we may not be altogether separated. But here come more men down from the castle; we shall have plenty now. Let six or eight stay here till the horses arrive, then mount, and pursue each horse-road and open track for some two or three miles; they cannot have gone much farther."

All efforts, however, were vain. Not a trace could be found of the body, or of those who had taken it; and, although Richard de Ashby at first had entertained no doubt that they would find it in the hands of some of the neighbouring peasantry, and only feared that the important letter might be by any chance lost or destroyed, he soon became anxious, in no ordinary degree, to know what had become of the body itself.

Had it been found, he asked himself, by those bold tenants of Sherwood, whose shrewdness, determination, and activity he well knew? and if so, might not the dagger, which Ellerby had left in the wound, and with the haft of which he himself had sealed the letter, prove, at some after period, a clue to the real murderers? His heart was ill at ease. Apprehension took possession of him again; and, towards nightfall, he returned to the castle, accompanied by a number of the men who by that time had rejoined him, with a spirit depressed and gloomy, and a heart ill at ease indeed.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The grey twilight hung over the world when Richard de Ashby re-entered the outer court of the castle at Lindwell; but still he could perceive horses saddled and dusty, attendants running hither and thither, armed men standing in knots, as if resting themselves for a moment after a journey, and every indication of the arrival of some party having taken place during his absence. His first thought was, that the corpse must have been found and brought back by some of the small bodies of Prince Edward's troops, which were moving about in all directions; but he soon saw that such an event was impossible, as he himself, or some of those about him, must have met any party which had passed near the scene of the murder. The next instant, in going by one of the little groups of soldiers we have mentioned, he recognised the face of some of the retainers of the house of Ashby, and exclaimed, "What! has the Lord Alured returned?"

"Not half an hour ago, Sir Richard," replied a soldier; and Richard de Ashby hurried like lightning into the hall. There was a coldness at his heart, indeed, as he thought of meeting the man whose father's blood was upon his hand, and against whose own life he was devising schemes as dark as those which had just been executed. But he was most anxious nevertheless to meet his cousin, ere he had conversed long with Lucy, and to give those impressions regarding the causes of the bloody deed which best suited his purposes.