Clash of Arms: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

Through the copse, or fringe of chestnuts that ran parallel with the wall, he saw that there were one or two small paths which crossed each other at intervals, some following the line of the wall itself, and some running directly forward from it. Paths used doubtless by the woodmen and trappers of small game, such as hares and rabbits; and, walking carefully along one of those that ran from the wall, he finding it close to his feet, he emerged soon into an open grassy space. And here he discovered the mark that should direct him back safely to the spot outside of which the horse was tethered; namely, three small trees scarce better than saplings, yet standing out clear and distinct in the full flood of the moon's light, and casting a long shadow beneath them on to the grass.

"It will do very well," he thought. "I cannot miss these trees once I regain this glade," after which he drew his sword, carrying it henceforth naked in his hand, clasped half-way down, and, thus prepared, skirted the chestnut copse as he made his way towards where he knew the house stood.

As he progressed he noticed how intense the silence was on this still October night; so intense, indeed, that his own footsteps on the now fast falling leaves, which each breath of air brought down about him, seemed loud to his ears. Also the creeping of anything in the copse, such as a mouse, or the rustling of a disturbed bird in the branches above, could be distinctly heard. But beyond these sounds nothing else; no barking of dog nor neigh of horse. Nothing. All as still as death!

"But that I keep ever before my eyes the memory of Philip's broken life, the knowledge, which I now believe myself to possess, that this woman whom I go to rescue has been as treacherously betrayed as he, I would be on no such secret quest as this," he thought. "This midnight skulking is not to my taste. Were it not for her safety, I should be hammering at his door, calling to him to come forth and try conclusions man to man with me, smiting him before all his following. Yet, to save her, I must do it thus." And, again, stealthily and cautiously he pursued his way beneath the shadow of the trees.

And still all was as silent as before, except that now the wind rose a little more and rustled the leaves, and brought them down in bigger handfuls. A wind that blew towards the house to which he was slowly making his way.

He was near it soon, however, after having progressed for something like a quarter of an hour; already above him he could see its wooden upper portion rising higher than the trees, with, above that, the topmost slopes of the mountains. He was very near now! Then, suddenly, the woods finished, he was on the eastern side of the great open place--paved, he plainly observed, with great cobble stones that were worn very smooth by time, and also, doubtless, with the passage of many feet, both of horse and man, during the centuries. For that the great place had been the rendezvous of all the followers of the De Bois-Vallées, of those who had gone forth with them to countless wars, and those who had assembled there for merriment and rejoicing, was certain.

Now, it was empty, deserted; across its surface nothing passed but the shadow of some cloud that occasionally scurried beneath the moon; it seemed almost as if the house was deserted also.

Yet Andrew, keeping himself well within the darkness of the wood which ran close up to where the cobble-stoning of the place began, or ended, saw at once that such was not the case. In the topmost floor of wood--there being two--a light glimmered--and threw a dull glare out; a light shielded by some curtain, or hanging, which obscured the rays. "It may be hers," he thought, "nay, must. It is the position Jean spoke of. On the top, to the front. Yet the room from which it comes is unattainable from the outside at least." And again he said to himself as he had said before, "It will be from the back, from across the chasm I must reach that room--as I shall reach it. It is the only way."

For that he would reach it somehow he was resolved--that he should fail to do so he never considered. Not unless he was killed that night would he fail.

In truth, none could have attained the room in which the light burned, from the front. There was no foothold by which a cat could have climbed to it from the outside; naught but a bird could have gone straight to that small window. The lower part of the house stared out blank and unrelieved by any ornament or window-sill, or other projection by which one might mount; the huge arch, which formed the frame of the one great door, was unadorned by any moulding or decoration that would assist either foot or hand. All was bare wall, except for slits of windows no bigger, than eyelets, with sloping sills, and the door. Above, on the wooden floors, there were outstanding beams and stanchions by which an agile man might perhaps have raised himself, but those wooden floors were thirty feet from the ground and unreachable.