CHAPTER 17
The summer passed away, and the bleak fall came. Myles had long
since accepted his position as one set apart from the others of
his kind, and had resigned himself to the evident fact that he
was never to serve in the household in waiting upon the Earl. I
cannot say that it never troubled him, but in time there came a
compensation of which I shall have presently to speak.
And then he had so much the more time to himself. The other lads
were sometimes occupied by their household duties when sports
were afoot in which they would liked to have taken part. Myles
was always free to enter into any matter of the kind after his
daily exercise had been performed at the pels, the butts, or the
tilting-court.
But even though he was never called to do service in "my Lord's
house," he was not long in gaining a sort of second-hand
knowledge of all the family. My Lady, a thin, sallow, faded dame,
not yet past middle age, but looking ten years older. The Lady
Anne, the daughter of the house; a tall, thin, dark-eyed,
dark-haired, handsome young dame of twenty or twenty-one years of
age, hawk-nosed like her father, and silent, proud, and haughty,
Myles heard the squires say. Lady Alice, the Earl of Mackworth's
niece and ward, a great heiress in her own right, a strikingly
pretty black-eyed girl of fourteen or fifteen.
These composed the Earl's personal family; but besides them was
Lord George Beaumont, his Earl's brother, and him Myles soon came
to know better than any of the chief people of the castle
excepting Sir James Lee.
For since Myles's great battle in the armory, Lord George had
taken a laughing sort of liking to the lad, encouraging him at
times to talk of his adventures, and of his hopes and
aspirations.
Perhaps the Earl's younger brother--who was himself somewhat a
soldier of fortune, having fought in Spain, France, and
Germany--felt a certain kinship in spirit with the adventurous
youngster who had his unfriended way to make in the world.
However that might have been, Lord George was very kind and
friendly to the lad, and the willing service that Myles rendered
him reconciled him not a little to the Earl's obvious neglect.
Besides these of the more immediate family of the Earl were a
number of knights, ladies, and gentlemen, some of them cadets,
some of them retainers, of the house of Beaumont, for the
princely nobles of those days lived in state little less royal
than royalty itself.
Most of the knights and gentlemen Myles soon came to know by
sight, meeting them in Lord George's apartments in the south wing
of the great house, and some of them, following the lead of Lord
George, singled him out for friendly notice, giving him a nod or
a word in passing.
Every season has its pleasures for boys, and the constant change
that they bring is one of the greatest delights of boyhood's
days.
All of us, as we grow older, have in our memory pictures of
by-gone times that are somehow more than usually vivid, the
colors of some not blurring by time as others do. One of which,
in remembering, always filled Myles's heart in after-years with
an indefinable pleasure, was the recollection of standing with
others of his fellow squires in the crisp brown autumn grass of
the paddock, and shooting with the long-bow at wildfowl, which,
when the east wind was straining, flew low overhead to pitch to
the lake in the forbidden precincts of the deer park beyond the
brow of the hill. More than once a brace or two of these
wildfowl, shot in their southward flight by the lads and cooked
by fat, good-natured Mother Joan, graced the rude mess-table of
the squires in the long hall, and even the toughest and fishiest
drake, so the fruit of their skill, had a savor that, somehow or
other, the daintiest fare lacked in after-years.
Then fall passed and winter came, bleak, cold, and dreary--not
winter as we know it nowadays, with warm fires and bright lights
to make the long nights sweet and cheerful with comfort, but
winter with all its grimness and sternness. In the great cold
stone-walled castles of those days the only fire and almost the
only light were those from the huge blazing logs that roared and
crackled in the great open stone fireplace, around which the
folks gathered, sheltering their faces as best they could from
the scorching heat, and cloaking their shoulders from the biting
cold, for at the farther end of the room, where giant shadows
swayed and bowed and danced huge and black against the high
walls, the white frost glistened in the moonlight on the stone
pavements, and the breath went up like smoke.
In those days were no books to read, but at the best only rude
stories and jests, recited by some strolling mummer or minstrel
to the listening circle, gathered around the blaze and welcoming
the coarse, gross jests, and coarser, grosser songs with roars of
boisterous laughter.
Yet bleak and dreary as was the winter in those days, and cold
and biting as was the frost in the cheerless, windy halls and
corridors of the castle, it was not without its joys to the young
lads; for then, as now, boys could find pleasure even in slushy
weather, when the sodden snow is fit for nothing but to make
snowballs of.
Thrice that bitter winter the moat was frozen over, and the lads,
making themselves skates of marrow-bones, which they bought from
the hall cook at a groat a pair, went skimming over the smooth
surface, red-checked and shouting, while the crows and the
jackdaws looked down at them from the top of the bleak gray
walls.
Then at Yule-tide, which was somewhat of a rude semblance to the
Merry Christmas season of our day, a great feast was held in the
hall, and all the castle folk were fed in the presence of the
Earl and the Countess. Oxen and sheep were roasted whole; huge
suet puddings, made of barley meal sweetened with honey and
stuffed with plums, were boiled in great caldrons in the open
courtyard; whole barrels of ale and malmsey were broached, and
all the folk, gentle and simple, were bidden to the feast.
Afterwards the minstrels danced and played a rude play, and in
the evening a miracle show was performed on a raised platform in
the north hall.
For a week afterwards the castle was fed upon the remains of the
good things left from that great feast, until everyone grew to
loathe fine victuals, and longed for honest beef and mustard
again.
Then at last in that constant change the winter was gone, and
even the lads who had enjoyed its passing were glad when the
winds blew warm once more, and the grass showed green in sunny
places, and the leader of the wild-fowl blew his horn, as they
who in the fall had flown to the south flew, arrow-like,
northward again; when the buds swelled and the leaves burst forth
once more, and crocuses and then daffodils gleamed in the green
grass, like sparks and flames of gold.
With the spring came the out-door sports of the season; among
others that of ball--for boys were boys, and played at ball even
in those faraway days--a game called trap-ball. Even yet in some
parts of England it is played just as it was in Myles Falworth's
day, and enjoyed just as Myles and his friends enjoyed it.
So now that the sun was warm and the weather pleasant the game of
trap-ball was in full swing every afternoon, the play-ground
being an open space between the wall that surrounded the castle
grounds and that of the privy garden--the pleasance in which the
ladies of the Earl's family took the air every day, and upon
which their apartments opened.
Now one fine breezy afternoon, when the lads were shouting and
playing at this, then their favorite game, Myles himself was at
the trap barehanded and barearmed. The wind was blowing from
behind him, and, aided perhaps by it, he had already struck three
of four balls nearly the whole length of the court--an unusual
distance-- and several of the lads had gone back almost as far as
the wall of the privy garden to catch any ball that might chance
to fly as far as that. Then once more Myles struck, throwing all
his strength into the blow. The ball shot up into the air, and
when it fell, it was to drop within the privy garden.
The shouts of the young players were instantly stilled, and
Gascoyne, who stood nearest Myles, thrust his hands into his
belt, giving a long shrill whistle.
"This time thou hast struck us all out, Myles," said he. "There
be no more play for us until we get another ball."
The outfielders came slowly trooping in until they had gathered
in a little circle around Myles.
"I could not help it," said Myles, in answer to their grumbling.
"How knew I the ball would fly so far? But if I ha' lost the
ball, I can get it again. I will climb the wall for it."
"Thou shalt do naught of the kind, Myles," said Gascoyne,
hastily. "Thou art as mad as a March hare to think of such a
venture! Wouldst get thyself shot with a bolt betwixt the ribs,
like poor Diccon Cook?"
Of all places about the castle the privy garden was perhaps the
most sacred. It was a small plot of ground, only a few rods long
and wide, and was kept absolutely private for the use of the
Countess and her family. Only a little while before Myles had
first come to Devlen, one of the cook's men had been found
climbing the wall, whereupon the soldier who saw him shot him
with his cross bow. The poor fellow dropped from the wall into
the garden, and when they found him, he still held a bunch of
flowers in his hand, which he had perhaps been gathering for his
sweetheart.
Had Myles seen him carried on a litter to the infirmary as
Gascoyne and some of the others had done, he might have thought
twice before venturing to enter the ladies' private garden. As it
was, he only shook his stubborn head, and said again, "I will
climb the wall and fetch it."
Now at the lower extremity of the court, and about twelve or
fifteen feet distant from the garden wall, there grew a
pear-tree, some of the branches of which overhung into the garden
beyond. So, first making sure that no one was looking that way,
and bidding the others keep a sharp lookout, Myles shinned up
this tree, and choosing one of the thicker limbs, climbed out
upon it for some little distance. Then lowering his body, he hung
at arm's-length, the branch bending with his weight, and slowly
let himself down hand under hand, until at last he hung directly
over the top of the wall, and perhaps a foot above it. Below him
he could see the leafy top of an arbor covered with a thick
growth of clematis, and even as he hung there he noticed the
broad smooth walks, the grassy terrace in front of the Countess's
apartments in the distance, the quaint flower-beds, the yew-trees
trimmed into odd shapes, and even the deaf old gardener working
bare-armed in the sunlight at a flower-bed in the far corner by
the tool-house.
The top of the wall was pointed like a house roof, and
immediately below him was covered by a thick growth of green
moss, and it flashed through his mind as he hung there that maybe
it would offer a very slippery foothold for one dropping upon the
steep slopes of the top. But it was too late to draw back now.
Bracing himself for a moment, he loosed his hold upon the limb
above. The branch flew back with a rush, and he dropped, striving
to grasp the sloping angle with his feet. Instantly the
treacherous slippery moss slid away from beneath him; he made a
vain clutch at the wall, his fingers sliding over the cold
stones, then, with a sharp exclamation, down he pitched bodily
into the garden beneath! A thousand thoughts flew through his
brain like a cloud of flies, and then a leafy greenness seemed to
strike up against him. A splintering crash sounded in his ears as
the lattice top of the arbor broke under him, and with one final
clutch at the empty air he fell heavily upon the ground beneath.
He heard a shrill scream that seemed to find an instant echo;
even as he fell he had a vision of faces and bright colors, and
when he sat up, dazed and bewildered, he found himself face to
face with the Lady Anne, the daughter of the house, and her
cousin, the Lady Alice, who clutching one another tightly, stood
staring at him with wide scared eyes.
