Winning His Spurs | Page 3

he said.
"What is it now, my son?" said his mother, who was still young and
very comely. Waving her hand to the girls, they left her.

"Mother," he said, when they were alone, "I fear me that Sir Walter is
about to make a great raid upon the outlaws. Armed men have been
coming in all the morning from the castles round, and if it be not
against the Baron de Wortham that these preparations are intended, and
methinks it is not, it must needs be against the landless men."
"What would you do, Cuthbert?" his mother asked anxiously. "It will
not do for you to be found meddling in these matters. At present you
stand well in the favour of the Earl, who loves you for the sake of his
wife, to whom you are kin, and of your father, who did him good
liegeman's service."
"But, mother, I have many friends in the wood. There is Cnut, their
chief, your own first cousin, and many others of our friends, all good
men and true, though forced by the cruel Norman laws to refuge in the
woods."
"What would you do?" again his mother asked.
"I would take Ronald my pony and ride to warn them of the danger that
threatens."
"You had best go on foot, my son. Doubtless men have been set to see
that none from the Saxon homesteads carry the warning to the woods.
The distance is not beyond your reach, for you have often wandered
there, and on foot you can evade the eye of the watchers; but one thing,
my son, you must promise, and that is, that in no case, should the Earl
and his bands meet with the outlaws, will you take part in any fray or
struggle."
"That will I willingly, mother," he said. "I have no cause for offence
against the castle or the forest, and my blood and my kin are with both.
I would fain save shedding of blood in a quarrel like this. I hope that
the time may come when Saxon and Norman may fight side by side,
and I maybe there to see."
A few minutes later, having changed his blue doublet for one of more
sober and less noticeable colour, Cuthbert started for the great forest,

which then stretched to within a mile of Erstwood. In those days a large
part of the country was covered with forest, and the policy of the
Normans in preserving these woods for the chase, tended to prevent the
increase of cultivation.
The farms and cultivated lands were all held by Saxons, who although
nominally handed over to the nobles to whom William and his
successors had given the fiefs, saw but little of their Norman masters.
These stood, indeed, much in the position in which landlords stand to
their tenants, payment being made, for the most part, in produce. At the
edge of the wood the trees grew comparatively far apart, but as
Cuthbert proceeded farther into its recesses, the trees in the virgin
forest stood thick and close together. Here and there open glades ran
across each other, and in these his sharp eye, accustomed to the forest,
could often see the stags starting away at the sound of his footsteps.
It was a full hour's journey before Cuthbert reached the point for which
he was bound. Here, in an open space, probably cleared by a storm ages
before, and overshadowed by giant trees, was a group of men of all
ages and appearances. Some were occupied in stripping the skin off a
buck which hung from the bough of one of the trees. Others were
roasting portions of the carcass of another deer. A few sat apart, some
talking, others busy in making arrows, while a few lay asleep on the
greensward. As Cuthbert entered the clearing, several of the party rose
to their feet.
"Ah, Cuthbert," shouted a man of almost gigantic stature, who appeared
to be one of the leaders of the party, "what brings you here, lad, so
early? You are not wont to visit us till even, when you can lay your
crossbow at a stag by moonlight."
"No, no, Cousin Cnut," Cuthbert said, "thou canst not say that I have
ever broken the forest laws, though I have looked on often and often,
whilst you have done so."
"The abettor is as bad as the thief," laughed Cnut, "and if the foresters
caught us in the act, I wot they would make but little difference
whether it was the shaft of my longbow or the quarrel from thy

crossbow which brought down the quarry. But again, lad, why comest
thou here? for I see by the sweat on your face and by the heaving of
your sides that you have run