With the Black Prince

by William O. Stoddard

Guy was busy among the weapons and he made no answer. At that moment, however, there was a footfall behind him, and he sprang to his feet to make a low obeisance.

"Mother!" exclaimed Richard, "I was coming to tell thee."

But not to him was her speech, nor in Norman French, nor in the English dialect of the Warwickshire farmers. She questioned Guy in old Saxon, such as was not often heard since the edicts of the Norman kings had discouraged its use. Richard could speak it well, however, and he knew that Guy was explaining somewhat the errand before him.

"It is well," she said. "I will trust him with thee. The castle is safe. But hold him not too long, for I make myself ready to pass on to Warwick, to abide with the earl for a season."

"Right soon will he return," said Guy the Bow, "and good bows with him. The king shall be pleased with the company from Arden and Wartmont."

Small wonder was it, after all, that while all Welshmen retained their ancient tongue, and many Cornishmen, and the Manxmen all, and the Gaels of Scotland and the wild Erse of Ireland, so also many thousands—no one knew how many—in the rural districts of England, still preserved but little changed the language with which their fathers had answered to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. Hundreds of years later the traces of it lingered in Warwickshire, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and elsewhere, in a manner to confuse the ears of modernized men from the towns and from the coasts, as well as all outland men who might believe that they understood English.

Well did Guy obey the commands of both Richard and his mother; for when, after a hearty breaking of his fast, he stood by the side of his galloway, that good beast had cause to whinny as he did, as if to inquire of his master what need there might be that he should so be packed with weapons and with steel caps for the heads of men. The gallant animal that was to carry Richard, on the other hand, was fitted out and laden as if at any moment his rider might be changed from a lance-bearing man-at-arms to a bowman on foot. Other baggage there was none, and Lady Maud, from her crenelated peephole in the Wartmont keep, saw her son and his companion ride slowly away through the village.

"Heaven guard him!" she murmured. "But he can not gain too well the hearts of the old race. They be hard-headed men and slow to choose a leader, but they are strong in a fray. I would the tallest of the forest deerslayers should go shoulder to shoulder with my son into the king's battles."

So she gazed until the pair of horsemen disappeared along the road; then she descended a flight of stairs and walked to the end of a corridor. Here was a door that opened into a high vaulted chamber, at the far end of which were candles burning before an altar and a crucifix. This was the chapel of the castle, and Lady Maud's feet bore her on, more and more slowly, until she sank upon her knees at the altar rail and sobbed aloud.

Well away now, up the valley, northward, rode Richard Neville and Guy the Bow, but they were no longer in any road marked by wheels of wains. They had left the highway for a narrow bridle path that was leading them into the forest.