Frank Cowper - The Captain of the Wight (Frank Cowper) - comprehensive, unabridged with the original illustrations - (Literary Thoughts Edition)

The free life in the fresh Hampshire air, blowing from the sea, over forest, gorse-covered common, and well-tilled fields, had given play to his thews and sinews.

It was evening. The sun was just setting over the blue hills covered with woods, interspersed with heathy patches. Far as the eye could see, there were gently-swelling undulations, with a loftier hill looming out of the grey mist which rose, film-like, behind the nearer masses of the russet forest. Here and there some larger expanse of mist looked like a lake amid the overhanging trees, while over all brooded the silence of the evening, when all nature pauses in reverence to the setting sun, broken only by the lowing of some distant kine, or the faint hum of a beetle as it went booming by.

Suddenly the boy stood up, listened attentively, then, springing through the gateway, he darted down the road in front of the house, to meet a horseman who was riding up the forest glade.

The man was singing blithely as he rode, and the refrain of each verse rang merrily in the stillness of the evening. It was the sound of this which had told the boy of the new comer's approach.

"Ringwood, my hound, with a merry taste,

All about the green wood began caste,

I took my horn and blew him a blast

With tro-ro-ro-ro! tro-ro-ro-ro!

With hey go bet! hey go bet! ho!

There he goeth, there he goeth, there he goe,

We shall have sport and game enowe,"

rang out clear over the wood, and cheerily the boy answered,--

"In sooth, Humphrey, thou'rt in fine voice to-night; but, prythee, cease thy song for a while, and give me the gerfalcon, that I may see her."

"Certes, Master Ralph, thou wilt be well pleased anon. 'Tis the veriest sweetest little bird for mounting a heron, or springing a pheasant, as ever I did see. There, stroke her cautiously; see how she manteleth and warbelleth her wings."

So saying, the serving man, or varlet, as the falconer's assistants were called, stooped down and held out his right hand, which was protected by a stout leathern glove with a large gauntlet. Two leather thongs, called lunes, were connected by two rings or tyrrits, and the lunes were then fastened to the jesses, and the ends loosely twined round the little finger, to prevent the bird from escaping.

The bird was gaily hooded, and turned its head from side to side, causing the little artificial plume of feathers on its head to shake and flutter gaily.

The boy, in his eagerness to stroke his new possession--for it was his birthday, and his father had sent to Salisbury to buy this hawk for his favourite son--put out his hand too quickly, for the hawk made a peck at it; but he drew it back in time, and with more caution and gentle words he at last succeeded in stroking her wings and back.

"Marry Humphrey, she is a fine one. She is a long hawk, and ought to fly well."

"I' faith! will she so. I got her rare cheap; for the price has risen mightily sithen the tolls have been laid on all hawks. 'Tis one shilling and eightpence, over and above the price of the bird, I had to pay to Brother Anselm for the licence of bringing her over; but I got her cheap, marry, did I! An you'll find such another in all the south of England--ay, and the north too--for ten shillings, never call me Humphrey more."

They had now reached the gateway where Master Ralph, as Humphrey called him, had been waiting for his birthday present. The groom took off the leather glove and gave it to Ralph, who put it on, and took the bird into the house to show to his father and mother, while Humphrey rode round to the stables.

The interior of the hall was a large low oak-panelled room, with a wide fireplace on one side. Antlers, spears, bows, and bills were hung or fixed all along the walls, and a few skins of red deer and other wild animals lay about on the stone floor. Ralph crossed the hall, and went down a low dark passage. He paused at a little oak door, and tapped.

"Come in," said a lady's voice, and Ralph entered joyously.

"Oh, mother, look! She's a hawk fit for the emperor. Thank thee, father, thank thee; 'tis the best gift thou couldst have chosen!" And the boy went up to the large armchair, in which an old man was sitting, clad in a long robe of fur, while opposite to him was standing his wife, the Dame Isabel de Lisle.

"Ay, my son, so thou art right joyous, art thou? Well, and that's e'en as it should be. Thou art growing a stout lad, and 'tis time to be thinking of thy after life. I would fain have ye all started in the world, before God sees fit to call me to him; and methinks 'twill not be long now."

"Why, father, what ails thee, that thou talkest thus dolefully?" said Ralph, his ardour damped by the tone of his father's remarks.

"Nay, child," said his mother, stroking the glossy, waving hair of her son, who had doffed his cap the moment he entered his parents' presence, "nay, child, 'tis naught but the old wound thy father hath gotten at Barnet grieveth him to-night."

"May-be, may-be, fair wife," said the old knight, who always called his lady "fair," although she was certainly considerably past the age when any claims to fairness might reasonably be supposed to have been surrendered; but in his eyes she was always fair. "Perchance 'tis naught; but my mind misgiveth me, and I would fain talk gravely to my sons to-night. If God wills that I should live, well and good--if not, well and good too; leastways, I shall have settled matters aright before I go hence."

"But, father, thou hast not looked at my falcon that thou gavest me. See what a long hawk it is; and what a gay lune Brother Anselm hath put on it."

"Ay, marry, fair son, 'tis a fine bird, and will spring a partridge rarely, I'll venture. Thou must fly her to-morrow--there's many a gagylling of geese, or sord of mallards, down Chute Forest way."

"Certes, father, I'll e'en try her at a heron first."

At this moment another step was heard outside, and two other boys came in; one a good deal older, and the other a year younger than Ralph.

"Well, Ralph, what hast got there?" said the elder, coming up and looking at the bird. "Marry she's a fine hawk, but I'd rather have had a falcon gentil."

"Ay, ay, and pay twenty shillings for it, let alone the toll of forty shillings in bringing of her into the kingdom."

"Nay, thou mightest have gotten one cheap from old Simon Bridle. He knows where all the best birds are to be got--all through the country side--"

"Nay, Jasper, why dost try to put the lad out of countenance with his pretty bird? Thou knowest she is a good bird, and thou wouldst be glad enough to have her thyself," said his mother.

"Now leave we this talk of the gerfalcon, and sithen you are all here, and 'tis yet half an hour to supper, let me hear what you, my sons, would wish to do after I am dead and gone. Jasper, you are the eldest, to you will fall my Bailiwick of Chute Forest, my manors of Chute, Holt, and Thruxton, and many other fair lands. Now wouldst thou go to the court, and seek to increase thy estate, as did thy great-grandfather Sir John Lisle of blessed memory, or wouldst thou stay at home, and take place and rank in thine own county?"

The eldest son took little time to answer, but replied respectfully,--

"I would fain stay at home and care for you and my lady mother, and mind the fair lands God and my ancestors have left me."

"Then, my son, as God wills it, and you have chosen, so be it, and may God's blessing and thy parents' be upon thee. Now, Ralph, my son, what willest thou?"

The young boy hesitated. He looked at his mother, and then down, and finally, raising his eyes with a keen light of joyous but rather shy determination said,--

"Noble sire, I would fain go to learn arms, and be trained in some noble prince's household, for I am of an age now when I could do some deed which might earn me knighthood."