Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times

by G. P. R. James

"It is very clear, the whole was a trick," said the Earl. "I doubt not you are right, Alured, but still we had better spread out, and scour the whole country across. You, with part of the men, take the banks of the Trent--I, with others, will skirt the borders of the forest from Nottingham to Lindwell--and our young friend here, with his own two servants and two of ours, will, perhaps, examine the forest itself from the second turning on the road to Southwell, as far as he may judge it likely, from the time which has elapsed, that these gentry could have advanced. I will send people to meet him when I reach Lindwell, who will tell him what success we have had, and give him aid and assistance."

Alured de Ashby seemed not over well pleased at the arrangement, for his brows still continued heavy, his cheek flushed, and his proud lip quivering; but he made no objection, and after a few words more, the party separated upon the different tracks they proposed to follow, having still three or four hours of daylight before them.

Alured rode on, with his fiery temper chafing at the insult which had been offered to his family, and but the more irritable and impatient because he had no one on whom to vent his anger.

His father pursued his course more slowly, and with very different thoughts. Wrath in the bosom of the son swallowed up every sensation; but the loss of a child, which he had treated but lightly in the case of the innkeeper, now filled the Earl's breast with deep anxiety and apprehension, though certainly poor Greenly had more cause for agonizing fear and sorrow than the proud noble.

It is a curious fact, however, and one which gives a strange indication of the lawless state of the times, that no one imagined the absence of Lucy de Ashby could proceed from any ordinary accident.

CHAPTER VIII.

The sun had declined about two hours and a half from the meridian, but the day was still warm and bright. The month of May, in the olden time, indeed, was a warmer friend than at present, if we may believe the ancient tales and chronicles; and, in good sooth, the seasons of the year seem to have changed altogether, and the weather to have become chilly, whimsical, and crotchetty, as the world has grown older. There are no vineyards to be found now in Northumberland, and yet many a place in the northern counties retains the name to the present day, evidently showing to what purposes they were formerly applied. It is rarely now in England, too, that we have any title to call it the merry, merry month of May, for, very often, cold and piercing are the winds, sad the sleet and rain; and, for one of the bright and glorious days of summer, we have a multitude of the dark and shadowy ones of winter. Perhaps one cause of this change may be that which has brought about many another evil in the land,--namely, the cutting down of those magnificent old forests which sheltered the breast of England like a garment, and stopped the fierce winds in their career over the island, Indeed we know that the destruction of the woods in other countries has produced such effects; and there is every reason to believe that here also the climate has greatly suffered, though other benefits may have been obtained.

However that may be, the month of May at that time in England was indeed a merry month, replete with sunshine, bountiful in flowers, with every bird in song, and every tree in leaf, and the whole world full of the warmth and the tenderness of youth. It is true, indeed, that in the early part of the month, April would still look in with a tear in her eye to bid the earth good bye; and such had been the case on the morning of the fourth of May, in the year of which we have lately been speaking. About nine o'clock, two or three showers had swept past, though the blue eye of heaven had seldom been altogether withdrawn, but looked through the rain as through a veil, and every now and then the sun peeped out, even while the drops were coming down, and flung a rainbow over the bosom of the forest. The clouds, however, cleared off entirely before noon, and left the world but the fresher for the sprinkling, the woods looking more green, and the flowers more bright and full of perfume.

The road from Sheffield--not the high road--running through Bloodsworth, and leaving Nurstead a little to the right, at the distance of about a mile past the former place, entered the extensive woody ground, which had ceased for a space in the neighbourhood of Mansfield; but which at that time covered the whole of the rest of the country. A little farther on again, the scene changed to one of those small, open greens, common in the forest, where two or three acres of grassy turf appeared free from trees, but surrounded on all sides by the wood. Fine old oaks and beeches stood forward here and there, stretching out their long and rugged arms, covered with the soft hue of spring, and leaving the line of the little savannah wild and irregular, While a break amongst the trees on the right showed the sunshine streaming into another opening of the same kind, and gave the imagination room to sport through other groves and dells beyond.

In the midst of this green, with his arms crossed upon his chest, his eyes bent on the ground, and his brow somewhat gloomy, walked Robert of the Lees by Ely, as he had called himself, while not far off, under the shadow of a wide-spreading oak, stood a boy, holding a white horse and a bow, Robin seemed to be whiling away a time of waiting, in communing with himself of many things, with that sort of desultory meditation which woodlands gender more than any other scenes; and, ever and anon, his lips proved faithless guardians to his thoughts, muttering a word of two of what was passing in his mind, without his knowing that they did so.