CHAPTER XXIII.
We must now, once more, change the scene; and, leaving Ghent to proceed step by step through all the mazes of anarchy and confusion, which are sure for a time to succeed the overthrow of established authority, we must trace the events which were occurring to some of the other personages connected with this true history.
Once more, then, let us turn to the forest of Hannut, which now, in the depth of winter, offered a very different scene from that which it had displayed either in the full summer or the brown autumn. It was early in the morning of the 20th of January; and, except on the scattered beeches which, mingling here and there with the oak, and the elm, and the birch, retained their crisp brown leaves longer than any of the other trees, not a bough in the wood, but, stript of all that ornamented it in the warmer season, was encrusted with a fine white coating of glistening frost-work. Little snow, indeed, covered the ground, and that which had fallen was too hard frozen to have any tenacity, but--drifted about the forest in a fine white powder, lodged here and there amongst the withered leaves, or collected in thick sweeps upon the dingle side--it retained no form but that given to it by the wind; so that the deep footprint of the stag or boar was effaced almost as soon as made, and the only mark by which the eye of the most experienced huntsman could have traced the lair of his quarry, would have been by the hoar frost brushed off the boughs of the thickets in the animal's course through the wood.
The morning was as clear and bright as if the sun were just starting from the dark pavilion of the night, to run his race of glory through the long course of a summer's day, but the wind, whistling keenly through the woods, and tingling on the cheeks of the early forester, told that the sharp reign of winter was in the height of its power.
In a wide, open, grassy spot, about half a mile from the high road to Louvain, were collected, on the morning to which I refer, about a dozen of our good friends the green riders. One or two were on horseback; but the greater part had dismounted, and were employing themselves in all the various ways which men devise to warm themselves on a winter's morning. They were evidently waiting for some one; and though the people who are watched for by such gentry, are not generally in the most enviable situation in the world, yet, on the present occasion, the freebooters seemed to have no hostile purpose in view, and spoke of the person they expected as one of themselves.
"Cold work he will have of it, Master Matthew," said one of the adventurers, addressing the florid, white-haired old man, whom we have had occasion to notice somewhat particularly in the cavern.
"By my faith!" replied the other, "when anything disagreeable is to be done, he does not spare himself."
"Ay, but such is the leader for us," rejoined the other. "Think you he will be long? It is mighty cold, and the horses are half frozen."
"Hark!" cried his companion, "that clatter may answer your question. By the Lord! he is coming down the hill at a fearful rate, for so slippery as it is. I trust he is not pursued. Stand to your arms, my men, and be ready to mount!"
As he spoke, the sound of a horse's feet at full gallop was heard through the clear frosty air; and, in a moment after, along the little road--which wound away from the open space where the adventurers were collected over the side of a steep acclivity--was seen a man on horseback, darting down towards them, without the slightest apparent regard to the sharpness of the descent, or the slipperiness of the road. He was armed like themselves, but with the distinction, that instead of the open basinet, or round steel cap, without visor, which they wore, his head was covered by a plumed casque, the beaver of which was down.