Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times

by G. P. R. James

"I shall do no such thing, sir," replied Richard de Ashby; "this good man's suspicions are false as far as they regard me, though it is not at all improbable that the knave, Keen, who has, it seems, deceived me--and is a good-looking varlet, moreover has played the fool with a buxom light-headed country wench, whose cheek I may once or twice have pinched for lack of something better to do."

"Such being the case, my Lord of Ashby," said the Earl, drily, "as your kinsman has nought to do with the affair, and as this servant of his has cheated and robbed him, injured this good man, and is suspected of being a spy--by your leave, I will send some of my people after him without farther delay. Without there! Is Blawket to be found?"

"Here, my lord," replied the man, standing forward as upright as a lance and as stiff as a collar of brawn, from amidst a group of six or seven servants, who were all discussing as vehemently on the one side of the door the events which had just taken place as their masters were on the other.

"Mount in a minute," said the Earl of Monthermer. "Take with you three of your fellows whose horses are the freshest; follow this Richard Keen, from the best information you call get, and bring him hither with all speed, together with the girl he has carried off."

"Shall I beat him, my lord?" asked the yeoman.

"Not unless he resists," replied the Earl; "but bring him dead or alive, and use all means to get information of his road."

"I will bring him, my lord," replied Blawket, and retired, followed by the host, who ceased not, till the man was in the saddle, to give him hints as to finding his daughter, mingled with lamentations over fate and praises of the house of Monthermer.

"Now," said the Earl, when they were alone, "let us speak of more important things;" but it being announced that supper was well-nigh ready, the Earl of Ashby, who had an affection for the good things of this life, proposed that any farther conversation should be put off till after that meal. The other Earl, knowing that his placability depended much upon the condition of his stomach, agreed to the suggestion; and after the ceremony of washing hands had been performed, the supper was served and passed over as such proceedings usually did in those days, with huge feeding on the part of several present, and much jesting on the part of the younger men. A good deal of wine was also drank, notwithstanding a caution from the Earl of Monthermer to be moderate. But moderation was little known at that time. Malvoisie was added to Bordeaux, and the spiced wine, then called claret, succeeded the Malvoisie; a cup of hippocras was handed round to sweeten the claret, and the Earl of Ashby fell asleep at the very moment the conference should have begun.

CHAPTER VI.

I cannot help grieving that amongst all the changes which have taken place,--amongst all the worlds, if I may so call them, which have come and gone in the lapse of time, the forest world should have altogether departed, leaving scarcely greater or more numerous vestiges of its existence than those that remain of the earth before the Flood. The green and bowery glades of the old forest, their pleasant places of sport and exercise, the haunts of the wild deer, the wolf, and the boar, the fairy-like dingles and dells, the woodcraft that they witnessed, the sciences, and the characters that were peculiar to themselves, have now, alas! passed away from most of the countries of Europe, and have left scarcely a glen where the wild stag can find shelter, or where the contemplative man can pause under the shade of old primeval trees, to reflect upon the past or speculate upon the future. The antlered monarch of the wood is now reduced to a domestic beast, in a walled park; and the man of thought, however much he may love nature's unadorned face, however much he may feel himself cribbed and confined amongst the works of human hands, must shut his prisoner fancies within the bounds of his own solitary chamber, unless he is fond to indulge them by the side of the grand but monotonous ocean. The infinite variety of the forest is no longer his: it belongs to another age, and to another class of beings.