Wager of Battle: A Tale of Saxon Slavery in Sherwood Forest

by Henry William Herbert

Until the last glimmer of daylight had faded out in the west, and total darkness had prevailed for several hours through the forest, Eadwulf remained a prisoner in his hollow trunk, unable to discover the whereabout of his enemies, yet well-assured that they had not returned, but had taken up some bivouac for the night, not very far in advance of his hiding-place, with the intention of again seeking for his trail on the morrow, when they judged that he would have once more taken the road. But as soon as, looking up the chimney-like aperture of his hiding-place, he discovered the foliage silvered by the moonbeams, he scaled the inside of the trunk, not without some difficulty, working his way upward with his back and knees, after the fashion of a modern chimney-sweep, and, emerging into the open air, drew a long breath, and again lowered himself as he had ascended, by the drooping-branches, and once more entered the channel of the stream. The rivulet was in this place shallow, with a hard bottom, the current which was swift and noisy, scarce rising to his knee, so that he waded down it without much difficulty, and at a tolerable speed.

After he had proceeded in this manner about two miles, he discovered a red-light in an open glade of the forest, at a short distance ahead, on the left bank of the river; and, as he came abreast of it, readily discovered his enemies, with the bloodhounds in their leashes, sitting or lying around a fire which they had kindled, ready, it was evident, to resume the search with the earliest dawn. This he was enabled to discern without quitting the bed of the stream, whose brawling ripples drowned the sound of his footsteps; and as the water deepened immediately ahead of him, he again plunged noiselessly, and swam forward at least two miles farther; when, calculating that he had given them a task of two or three hours at least before they could succeed in finding where he had quitted the water-course, if he had not entirely thrown them out, he took land on the opposite side to that, on which they were posted, and struck at his best pace across the waste.

It might have been ten o'clock in the evening when he left the oak-tree, and, though weary and hungry, he plodded forward at a steady pace, never falling short of four miles an hour, and often greatly exceeding that speed, where the ground favored his running, until perhaps an hour before daybreak. At that darkest moment of the night, after the moon had set, he paused in a little hollow of the hills, having placed, as he calculated, at least five-and-thirty miles between himself and his hunters, lighted a fire, cooked a portion of his venison, and again, just as the skies began to brighten, got under way, supposing that at about this hour his foes would resume their search, and might probably in a couple of hours get the hounds again upon his scent. Ere that, however, he should have gained another ten miles on them, and he well knew that the scent would be so cold that it would be many hours more before they could hunt it up, if they should succeed in doing so at all.

All day, until the sun was high at noon, he strode onward across the barren heath and wild moors into which the forest had now subsided, when, after catching from a hill-top a distant view of a town and castle to the northward, which he rightly judged to be Skipton, he reached an immense tract, seeming almost interminable, of green, oozy morasses, cut up by rivulets and streamlets, and often intersected by dangerous bogs, from which flowed the interlinked tributaries of the Eyre, the Ribble, and the Hodder. Through this tract, he was well aware, neither horse could follow nor bloodhound track him; and it was overgrown in so many places with dense brakes of willow and alder, that his flight could not be discovered by the eye from any of the surrounding eminences. Into this dreary region he, therefore, plunged joyously, feeling half-secure, and purposely selecting the deepest and wettest portions of the bog, and, where he could do so without losing the true line of his course, wading along the water-courses until about two in the afternoon, when he reached an elevated spot or island in the marsh, covered with thrifty underwood, and there, having fed sparingly on the provision he had cooked on the last evening, made himself a bed in the heather, and slept undisturbed, and almost lethargically, until the moon was up in the skies. Then he again cooked and ate; but, before resuming his journey, he climbed a small ash-tree, which overlooked the level swamp, and thence at once descried three watch-fires, blazing brilliantly at three several spots on the circumference of the morass, one almost directly ahead of him, and nearly at the spot where he proposed to issue on to the wild heathery moors of Bolland Forest, on the verge of the counties of York and Lancaster, and within fifty miles of the provincial capital and famous sands of the latter. By these fires he judged easily that thus far they had traced him, and found the spot where he had entered the bogs, the circuit of which they were skirting, in order once more to lay the death-hounds on his track, where ever he should again strike the firm ground.

In one hour after perceiving the position of his pursuers, he passed out of the marsh at about a mile north of the western-most watch-fire, and, in order as much as possible to baffle them, crawled for a couple of hundred yards up a shallow runnel of water, which drained down from the moorland into the miry bottom land.

Once more he had secured a start of six hours over the Normans, but with this disadvantage—that they would have little difficulty in finding his trail on the morrow, and that the country which he had to traverse was so open, that he dared not attempt to journey over it by daylight.

Forward he fared, therefore, though growing very weak and weary, for he was foot-sore and exhausted, and chilled with his long immersion in the waters, until the sun had been over the hills for about two hours, much longer than which he dared not trust himself on the moors, when he began to look about eagerly for some water-course or extensive bog, by which he might again hope to avoid the scent of the unerring hounds.

None such appeared, however, and desperately he plodded onward, almost despairing and utterly exhausted, without a hope of escaping by speed of foot, and seeing no longer a hope of concealment. Suddenly when the sun was getting high, and he began to expect, at every moment, the sounds of the death-dogs opening behind him, he crossed the brow of a round-topped heathery hill, crested with crags of gray limestone, and from its brow, at some thirty miles distance, faintly discerned the glimmering expanse of Morecambe Bay, and the great fells of Westmoreland and Cumberland looming up like blue clouds beyond them.

But through the narrow ghyll, immediately at his feet, a brawling stream rushed noisily down the steep gorge from the north, southerly. Headlong he leaped down to it, through the tall heather, which here grew rank, and overtopped his head, but before he reached it, he blundered into a knot of six or seven men, sleeping on a bare spot of greensward, round the extinct ashes of a fire, and the carcass of a deer, which they had slain, and on which they had broken their fast.

Startled by his rapid and unceremonious intrusion into their circle, the men sprang to their feet with the speed of light, each laying a cloth-yard arrow to the string of a bended long-bow, bidding him "Stand, or die."