CHAPTER XIII.

As unpleasant a moment as any in the ordinary course of life is when a

conversation with the being we love best--one of the few sweet

entrancing resting-places of the heart which fate sometimes affords us

in the midst of the ocean of cares, anxieties, sorrows, and trifles,

that surrounds us on every side--is interrupted suddenly by some one to

whom we are wholly indifferent.

The step upon the stairs, and the knock that followed it at the door,

were amongst the most ungrateful sounds that could have struck the ear

of Hugh de Monthermer and Lucy de Ashby; and there was no slight

impatience in the tone of the former, as he said, "Come in!"

The door opened slowly; but, instead of either of Lucy's maids or

pretty Cicely, who waited upon them, the ape-like face and figure of

poor Tangel, the dwarf, appeared, beckoning Hugh out of the room with

one of his strange gestures.

"What would you, boy?" said Hugh, without rising from his seat.

"I would have you get upon your walking-sticks," replied Tangel, "and

come with me."

"I must first know why," answered Hugh de Monthermer. "Go away, good

Tangel; I will come presently."

"Nay, you must come now," said the dwarf. "Robin stays for no man; and

Robin and the t'other fellow sent me for him of the purfled jerkin. He

has matter of counsel for thine ear, though well I wot that it is for

all the world like sticking a flower in a cock's tail."

"I see not the likeness, good Tangel," answered Hugh, slowly rising.

"It will soon fall out again," said Tangel. "Counsel, I mean, Sir Man

at Arms. What's the wit of giving counsel to a man in a purfled jerkin?

But you must come and have it, whether you will or not."

"It must be so, I suppose," answered Hugh. But Lucy held him for a

moment by the sleeve, saying, anxiously--

"You will come back, Hugh? You will come back?"

"Think you that I will leave you here now, Lucy?" he asked, with a

smile. "No, no, dear Lucy; as I said before, if I take you not with me,

I will remain and spend my life in the forest with you."

"Ho, ho!" cried the dwarf, as if he had made a discovery, "Ho, ho! I

were better away, methinks."

"We did not wish for you, good Tangel," answered Hugh, laughing. "Lead

on, however. Where is your master?"

The dwarf again made a sign, waving one of his long arms in the

direction of the stairs, and Hugh de Monthermer, after a word or two

more to Lucy de Ashby, in a lower tone, quitted the room, and followed

the boy down to the same chamber into which the Outlaw had led him on

his first arrival. It was now tenanted by two men--the bold forester,

and another, who was standing with his back towards the door. At the

step of the young lord, however, the latter turned round, displaying

the face of the good franklin, Ralph Harland.

Hugh de Monthermer started; for in the short space which had passed

since last he saw him on the village green, a change had taken place in

his countenance such as nothing but intense grief can work. Indeed,

mortal sickness itself but rarely produces so rapid an alteration; he

looked like one of those, whom we read of, stricken with the plague of

the fourteenth century, where the warning sign of the coming death was

read by others in the face and eyes, before the person doomed was at

all aware that the malady had even laid the lightest touch upon them.

Of poor Ralph Harland, it might indeed be said, as then of those

attacked by the pestilence, "the plague was at his heart."

Hugh de Monthermer instantly took him by the hand, exclaiming, "Good

Heaven! Ralph, what ails thee? Thou art ill, my good friend--thou art

very ill!"

"Sick in mind, my lord, and ill in spirit," replied Ralph Harland,

gloomily, "but nothing more."

"Nay, nay, Ralph," exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer, "you must not speak to

me so coldly. We have wrestled on the turf in our boyhood, we have

galloped together through the woodland in our youth; I have eaten your

good father's bread and drank his wine, and rested my head upon the

same pillow with yourself--and Hugh de Monthermer must have a brother's

answer from Ralph Harland. What is it ails thee, man? On my honour and

my knighthood, if my sword, or my voice, or my power can do you

service--But I know, I know what it is," he continued, suddenly

recollecting the events of the May-day; and though he was not fully

aware of the whole, divining more than he actually knew, by combining

one fact with another--"I remember now, Ralph; and I know what is the

serpent that has stung thee. Alas, Ralph, that is a wound I have no

balm to cure!

"There is none for it on earth," replied Ralph Harland.

"Ay," said Robin Hood, "but though there be none to cure, there may be

balm to allay, my lord; and yours must be the hand to give it. I will

tell you the truth; we hold here a certain fair young lady, whom, as

you see, we treat with all respect. You may ask, why we hold her--why

we have taken her from her friends? My lord, one of her noble house has

taken from a father's care, a child beloved as she can be; has broken

bonds asunder which united many a heart together--parent and child,

lover and beloved--has made a home desolate, crushed the hopes of an

honest spirit, and made a harlot of a once innocent country girl. This

is all bad enough, my lord; but still we seek not for revenge. All that

we require is, the only slight reparation that can be made by man. Let

her be sent back to her home--let her be given up to her father--let

her not be kept awhile in gaiety and evil, and then turned an outcast

upon the bitter, biting world. You, my lord, must require this at the

hands of the Earl of Ashby; he only can do that which is right, and to

you we look to induce that noble lord to do justice even to us poor

peasants."

Hugh de Monthermer paused for a moment or two in thought ere he

replied, but he then answered--"I can bear no compulsory message to the

Earl, my good friend. What you have done here is but wild justice; this

lady never injured you--her father never injured you. You take her

unwilling from her home as a hostage for the return of one who went

willingly where she did go--who stays willingly where she now is. If

she chooses to stay there, who can send her back again? I can do

nothing in this, so long as you keep this lady here. Indeed, I tell you

fairly, as you have bound me by my honour not to mention what I have

seen, I must e'en remain here, too; for my first act as a knight and a

gentleman, when I am at liberty, must be to do my endeavour to set her

free."

"And as a lover, also," added Robin Hood; "but, my lord, we will spare

you a useless trouble; for, let me tell you, that not all the men of

Monthermer, and Ashby to boot, would liberate that lady if I chose to

hold her. But there is some truth in what you say; and that truth

struck me before you uttered it. It was on that account I left you an

hour or two ago, and went to seek this much injured young man, to

confess to him what I am never ashamed to confess, when it is so, that

I have been rash--that I had no right to punish a fair and innocent

lady for the fault of a false traitor. To-morrow morning she shall

return under your good charge and guidance; but still, my lord, to you

I look to demand of the Earl of Ashby that he compel his kinsman both

to send back that light-o'-love, Kate Greenly, to her father's house,

and to make such poor reparation, in the way of her dowry to a convent,

as may at least punish the beggarly knave for the wrong he has

committed. I charge you; my lord, as a knight and gentleman, to do

this."

"And I will do it," answered Hugh de Monthermer, "since you so

willingly set the lady free, whatever be the consequences; and to me

they may be bitterer than you think. I will do what you require because

my heart tells me it is right, and my oath of chivalry binds me to

perform it."

"Ah, my lord!" said Robin Hood, "would the nobles of England

but consult the dictates of the heart, and keep that heart

unhardened--would they remember the oath of their chivalry, and act as

that oath requires, there would be less mourning in the land--there

would be more happiness in the cottage, and some reverence for men in

high station."

"You are wrong," said Hugh de Monthermer, laying his hand upon the bold

forester's arm--"you are wrong, and give more way to common prejudice

than I had hoped or expected. There are amongst us, Robin, men who

disgrace the name of noble, whose foul deeds, like those of this

Richard de Ashby, carry misery into other orders, and disgrace into

their own. But vices and follies find ready chroniclers--virtues and

good actions are rarely written but in the book of Heaven. One bad

man's faults are remembered and talked of, and every one adds, 'He was

a noble;' but how many good deeds and kindly actions, how many

honourable feelings and fine thoughts remain without a witness and

without a record? Who is there that says, This good old lord visited my

cottage and soothed me in sickness or in sorrow? Who is there that

says, I love this baron, or that, because he defended me against wrong,

protected me against trouble, supported me in want, cheered me in

adversity? And yet there are many such. I mean not to assert that there

are not many corrupt and vicious, cruel and hard-hearted. I mean not to

contend that there are any without faults, for every man has some, be

be rich or poor. But if the merits and demerits could be fairly

weighed, I do believe that the errors of my own class would not be

found greater than those of any other, only that our rank serves to

raise us, as it were, on a pedestal, that malice may see all flaws, and

that envy may shoot at them."

Robin Hood paused, with his eyes bent down upon the ground, making no

reply; and Hugh de Monthermer went on a moment after, saying, "At

least, do us justice in one point. In this age, and in others gone

before, the nobles of England have stood forward against tyranny

wherever they found it. Have they ever failed to shed their blood in

defence of the rights of the people? Is it not their doing, that such a

thing as human bondage is disappearing from the island? We may have

vassals, followers, retainers, men who are bound, for the land they

hold, to do us service in time of need, but we have no serfs, no

theows, as in the olden time, and even villain tenure is passing away.

Again, who is it, even at the very present time, that is calling

deputies from the ranks of the people to the high parliament of the

nation; to represent the rights and interests of those classes which

had heretofore no voice in making the laws of the land? I say, it is

the nobles of England; and I am much mistaken if, in all times to come,

that body of men--though there may be, and ever will be, evildoers

amongst them--will not stand between the people and oppression and

wrong--will not prove the great bulwark of our institutions, preserving

them from all the tempests that may assail them, let the point of

attack be where it will."

"Perhaps it may be so," said Robin Hood; "but yet, my good lord, I

could wish that persons in high station would remember that, with their

advantages and privileges, with wealth, power, and dignity, greater

than their fellow-men, they have greater duties and obligations

likewise; and, as envy places them where all their faults may be

observed, it would be as well if, as a body, they were to remember that

each man who disgraces himself disgraces his whole order, and were to

punish him for that crime by withdrawing from him the countenance of

those upon whom he has brought discredit. When the virtuous associate

with the vicious, they make the fault their own; and no wonder that men

of high birth, though good men in themselves, are classed together with

the wicked of their own order when they tolerate the evildoer, and

leave him unpunished even by a frown."

"I cannot but agree with you," said Hugh de Monthermer; "but----"

"Ay, my lord, there is many a but," replied the bold outlaw, after

having waited for a moment to hear the conclusion of the young lord's

sentence; "and there ever will be a but, so long as men are men, and

have human passions and human follies. There was but one in whose life

there was no _but_, and Him they nailed upon a tree;" and the outlaw

raised his hand, and touched his bonnet, reverently, for he felt deep

reverence, however much his words might seem to want it.

Hugh de Monthermer was not inclined to pursue the conversation any

farther, and, turning to the young franklin, he said, "I fear, Ralph,

that after all the wrong you have suffered from one of my class, you

will not be inclined to allow us much merit in any respect; but,

believe me, we are not all like him."

"I know it, my lord--I know it," replied Ralph. "If I were ignorant

that, as well as the blackest vices which can degrade man, there are to

be found in your order the brightest virtues, I should not merit to

have known you.--But in good sooth, my lord, my thoughts are not of

general subjects just now. One private grief presses on me so hard that

I can think of nothing else."

"I would fain have you wean yourself from those remembrances," said his

friend. "Nay, shake not your head, I know that it can only be done by

banishing all those sights and sounds that are the watchwords of

memory, and by seeking other matter for thought. Ay, even matter that

will force your mind away from the subject that it clings to, and

occupy you whether you will or not. There are stirring times before us,

Ralph,--times when the great interests of the state,--when dangers to

our liberties and rights may well divide men's attention with private

griefs. What say you; will you come with me to the west, and take a