Forest Days: A Romance of Old Times

by G. P. R. James

The following morning dawned bright and clear, and Kate Greenly's state of mind was changed. Fears and apprehensions, self-reproach and regret, had vanished with the shades of night. The stillness, the darkness, the solitude--those powerful encouragers of sad thoughts--were gone; the busy, bustling, sunshiny day was present; she heard songs coming up from the streets, she heard voices talking and laughing below; all the sounds and sights of merry life were around her; and her heart took the top of the wave, and bounded onward in the light of hope. Her only care, as she dressed herself in the morning, was, how she should meet the keen grey eye of the Friar; but that was soon resolved. She would frown upon him, she thought; she would treat him with silent contempt, and doubtless he would not dare to say another word, for fear of calling upon himself chastisement from her two attendants.

She was spared all trouble upon the subject, however, for the friar had departed before daybreak. She had sent him no answer by the hostess, and her silence was answer enough.

After a hasty meal the light-o'-love and those who accompanied her once more set out upon their way, and rode on some fifteen miles down the Wye without stopping. Not that the two serving-men would not willingly have paused, at one of the little towns they passed, to let the fair companion of their journey take some repose; but Kate herself was eager to proceed. Hope and expectation were busy at her heart--hope, that like a moth, flies on to burn itself to death in the flame of disappointment.

At length, upon a high woody bank, showing a bold craggy face towards the river--the reader who has travelled that way may know it, for a little country church now crowns the trees--appeared a small castellated tower, with one or two cottages seeking protection beneath its walls. The serving-man who rode beside her pointed forward with his hand, as they passed over a slight slope in the ground, which first presented this object to their sight, saying, "There is the castle, Madam."

Kate looked forward, and her eyes sparkled; and in a few minutes more they were entering the archway under the building.

The castle was smaller than she expected to see it. It was, in fact, merely one of those strong towers which had been built about a century before, for the protection of the Norman encroachers upon that fair portion of the island, into which the earliest known possessors of the whole land had been driven by the sword of various invaders. Many of these towers, with a small territory round them, had fallen into the possession of the younger sons of noble families; upon the mere tenure of defending them against the attacks of the enemy; and although the incursions of the Welsh upon the English lands were now much less frequent than they had been some time before, the lords of these small castles had often to hold them out against the efforts of other still more formidable assailants.

It mattered not to Kate, however, whether the place was large or small: how furnished or decorated was the same to her. It was his castle--his, to whom all her thoughts and feelings were now given; and she looked upon it but as the home of love and joy, where all the hours of the future were to be passed.

Her disappointments began almost at the threshold. An old warder who let them in, not only said in a rough tone, that Sir Richard de Ashby had not yet arrived, but gazed over the form of the female visitor with a look of harsh and somewhat sullen displeasure. He murmured something to himself too, the greater part of which she did not hear, but words that sounded like--"This new leman," caught her ear, and made her start, while a thrill of agony indescribable passed through her bosom at the thought of a name which might but too justly be applied to her. The eyes of two or three archers, however, who were hanging about the gate, were upon her, as she knew; and, fancying that the same term might be in their hearts also, she hurried on after the old warder, who said he would show her the chamber which had been prepared for her by his master's orders.

She found it convenient, and fitted up with every comfort, some of the articles being evidently new; and she concluded, with love's eager credulity, that these objects had been sent down to decorate her apartment, and make every thing look gay and cheerful in her eyes. She was well used also; but still, amongst the men who surrounded her, there was a want of that respect, which, although she knew she had fairly forfeited all claim to it, she was angry and grieved not to obtain. She had fancied, in her idle vanity, that the concubine of a man of rank would approach, in a degree at least, to the station of his wife; and she now consoled herself with believing that she could easily induce Richard de Ashby, if not to punish such want of reverence, at least to put a stop to it. But day passed by, after day, without the appearance of him for whom she had sacrificed all; and melancholy memories and vain regrets kept pouring upon her mind more and more strongly, till she could hardly bear the weight of her own thoughts.

At length, one day, towards eventide, she saw, as she wandered round the battlements, which were left unguarded, a small party of horsemen coming up over the hill; and, with impatience which would brook no restraint, she ran down to meet him who, she was convinced, was now approaching. The old warder would have prevented her from passing the gate, but she bade him stand back in so stern and peremptory a tone that he gave way: for few are the minds upon which the assumption of authority does not produce some effect.