Sir Nigel, Arthur Conan Doyle [good e books to read .txt] 📗

“They crab! They crab!” cried the King, with a roar of laughter, following them with his eyes as they bustled down through the air. “Mend thy own altar-cloths, Bishop. Not a groat shall you have from me this journey. Pull them apart, falconer, lest they do each other an injury. And now, masters, let us on, for the sun sinks toward the west.”

The two hawks, which had come to the ground interlocked with clutching talons and ruffled plumes, were torn apart and brought back bleeding and panting to their perches, while the heron after its perilous adventure flapped its way heavily onward to settle safely in the heronry of Waverley. The cortege, who had scattered in the excitement of the chase, came together again, and the journey was once more resumed.

A horseman who had been riding toward them across the moor now quickened his pace and closed swiftly upon them. As he came nearer, the King and the Prince cried out joyously and waved their hands in greeting.

“It is good John Chandos!!” cried the King. “By the rood, John, I have missed your merry songs this week or more! Glad I am to see that you have your citole slung to your back. Whence come you then?”

“I come from Tilford, sire, in the hope that I should meet your majesty.”

“It was well thought of. Come, ride here between the Prince and me, and we will believe that we are back in France with our war harness on our backs once more. What is your news, Master John?”

Chandos’ quaint face quivered with suppressed amusement and his one eye twinkled like a star. “Have you had sport, my liege?”

“Poor sport, John. We flew two hawks on the same heron. They crabbed, and the bird got free. But why do you smile so?”

“Because I hope to show you better sport ere you come to Tilford.”

“For the hawk? For the hound?”

“A nobler sport than either.”

“Is this a riddle, John? What mean you?”

“Nay, to tell all would be to spoil all. I say again that there is rare sport betwixt here and Tilford, and I beg you, dear lord, to mend your pace that we make the most of the daylight.”

Thus adjured, the King set spurs to his horse, and the whole cavalcade cantered over the heath in the direction which Chandos showed. Presently as they came over a slope they saw beneath them a winding river with an old high-backed bridge across it. On the farther side was a village green with a fringe of cottages and one dark manor house upon the side of the hill.

“This is Tilford, ” said Chandos. “Yonder is the house of the Lorings.”

The King’s expectations had been aroused and his face showed his disappointment.

“Is this the sport that you have promised us, Sir John? How can you make good your words?”

“I will make them good, my liege.”

“Where then is the sport?”

“On the high crown of the bridge a rider in armor was seated, lance in hand, upon a great yellow steed. Chandos touched the King’s arm and pointed. ” That is the sport,” said he.

IX. HOW NIGEL HELD THE BRIDGE AT TILFORD

The King looked at the motionless figure, at the little crowd of hushed expectant rustics beyond the bridge, and finally at the face of Chandos, which shone with amusement.

“What is this, John?” he asked.

“You remember Sir Eustace Loring, sire?”

“Indeed I could never forget him nor the manner of his death.”

“He was a knight errant in his day.”

“That indeed he was - none better have I known.”

“So is his son Nigel, as fierce a young war-hawk as ever yearned to use beak and claws; but held fast in the mews up to now. This is his trial fight. There he stands at the bridge-head, as was the wont in our fathers’ time, ready to measure himself against all comers.”

Of all Englishmen there was no greater knight errant than the King himself, and none so steeped in every quaint usage of chivalry; so that the situation was after his own heart.

“He is not yet a knight?”

“No, sire, only a Squire.”

“Then he must bear himself bravely this day if he is to make good what he has done. Is it fitting that a young untried Squire should venture to couch his lance against the best in England?”

“He bath given me his cartel and challenge,” said Chandos, drawing a paper from his tunic. “Have I your permission, sire, to issue it?”

“Surely, John, we have no cavalier more versed in the laws of chivalry than yourself. You know this young man, and you are aware how far he is worthy of the high honor which he asks. Let us hear his defiance,”

The knights and squires of the escort, most of whom were veterans of the French war, had been gazing with interest and some surprise at the steel-clad figure in front of them. Now at a call from Sir Walter Manny they assembled round the spot where the King and Chandos had halted. Chandos cleared his throat and read from his paper

“`A tous seigneurs, chevaliers et escuyers,’ so it is headed, gentlemen. It is a message from the good Squire Nigel Loring of Tilford, son of Sir Eustace Loring, of honorable memory. Squire Loring awaits you in arms, gentlemen, yonder upon the crown of the old bridge. Thus says he: `For the great desire that I, a most humble and unworthy Squire, entertain, that I may come to the knowledge of the noble gentlemen who ride with my royal master, I now wait on the Bridge of the Way in the hope that some of them may condescend to do some small deed of arms upon me, or that I may deliver them from any vow which they may have taken. This I say out of no esteem for myself, but solely that I may witness the noble bearing of these famous cavaliers and admire their skill in the handling of arms. Therefore, with the help of Saint George, I will hold the bridge with sharpened lances against any or all who may deign to present themselves while daylight lasts.”

“What say you to this, gentlemen?” asked the King, looking round with laughing eyes.

“Truly it is issued in very good form,” said the Prince. “Neither Claricieux nor Red Dragon nor any herald that ever wore tabard could better it. Did he draw it of his own hand?”

“He hath a grim old grandmother who is one of the ancient breed,” said Chandos. “I doubt not that the Dame Ermyntrude hath drawn a challenge or two before now. But hark ye, sire, I would have a word in your ear - and yours too, most noble Prince.”

Leading them aside, Chandos whispered some explanations, which ended by them all three bursting into a shout of laughter.

“By the rood! no honorable gentleman should be reduced to such straits,” said the King. “It behooves me to look to it. But how now, gentlemen? This worthy cavalier still waits his answer.”

The soldiers had all been buzzing together; but now Walter Manny turned to the King with the result of their counsel.

“If it please your majesty,” said he, “we are of opinion that this Squire hath exceeded all bounds in desiring to break a spear with a belted knight ere he has given his proofs. We do him sufficient honor if a Squire ride against him, and with your consent I have chosen my own body-squire, John Widdicombe, to clear the path for us across the bridge.”

“What you say, Walter, is right and fair,” said the King. “Master Chandos, you will tell our champion yonder what hath been arranged. You will advise him also that it is our royal will that this contest be not fought upon the bridge, since it is very clear that it must end in one or both going over into the river, but that he advance to the end of the bridge and fight upon the plain. You will tell him also that a blunted lance is sufficient for such an encounter, but that a handstroke or two with sword or mace may well be exchanged, if both riders should keep their saddles. A blast upon Raoul’s horn shall be the signal to close.”

Such ventures as these where an aspirant for fame would wait for days at a cross-road, a ford, or a bridge, until some worthy antagonist should ride that way, were very common in the old days of adventurous knight erranty, and were still familiar to the minds of all men because the stories of the romancers and the songs of the trouveres were full of such incidents. Their actual occurrence however had become rare. There was the more curiosity, not unmixed with amusement, in the thoughts of the courtiers as they watched Chandos ride down to the bridge and commented upon the somewhat singular figure of the challenger. His build was strange, and so also was his figure, for the limbs were short for so tall a man. His head also was sunk forward as if he were lost in thought or overcome with deep dejection.

“This is surely the Cavalier of the Heavy Heart,” said Manny. “What trouble has he, that he should hang his head?”

“Perchance he hath a weak neck,” said the King.

“At least he hath no weak voice,” the Prince remarked, as Nigel’s answer to Chandos came to their ears. “By our lady, he booms like a bittern.”

As Chandos rode back again to the King, Nigel exchanged the old ash spear which had been his father’s for one of the blunted tournament lances which he took from the hands of a stout archer in attendance. He then rode down to the end of the bridge where a hundred-yard stretch of greensward lay in front of him. At the same moment the Squire of Sir Walter Manny, who had been hastily armed by his comrades, spurred forward and took up his position.

The King raised his hand; there was a clang from the falconer’s horn, and the two riders, with a thrust of their heels and a shake of their bridles, dashed furiously at each other. In the center the green strip of marshy meadowland, with the water squirting from the galloping hoofs, and the two crouching men, gleaming bright in the evening sun, on one side the half circle of motionless horsemen, some in steel, some in velvet, silent and attentive, dogs, hawks, and horses all turned to stone; on the other the old peaked bridge, the blue lazy river, the group of openmouthed rustics, and the dark old manor-house with one grim face which peered from the upper window.

A good man was John Widdicombe, but he had met a better that day. Before that yellow whirlwind of a horse and that rider who was welded and riveted to his saddle his knees could not hold their grip. Nigel and Pommers were one flying missile, with all their weight and strength and energy centered on the steady end of the lance. Had Widdicombe been struck by a thunderbolt he could not have flown faster or farther from his saddle. Two full somersaults did he make, his plates clanging like cymbals, ere he lay prone upon his back.

For a moment the King looked grave at that prodigious fall. Then smiling once more as Widdicombe staggered to his feet, he clapped his hands loudly in applause. “A fair course and fairly run!” he cried. “The five scarlet roses bear themselves in peace even as I have seen them in war. How now, my good Walter? Have you another Squire or will you clear a path for us yourself?”

Manny’s choleric face had turned darker as he observed the