Complete Works of William Morris, page 249
He spake, and his face was writhen with the coming tears, so sore his heart was stung by her sorrow: “It is indeed true that I am come to bid thee farewell for a while, and this is the manner of it.” And therewith he told her all as it was, and said withal: “Now I can do nought save to bid thee gather thy valiance to thee and not to wound my heart with the wildness of thy grief. And look thou, my dear; e’en now thou wert saying thy yearning that mine arms were round about thy body: now we are no longer altogether children, and I will tell thee that it is many a day since I have longed for this; and now I know that thou longest that our bodies might meet. Belike thou wilt deem me hard and self-seeking if I tell thee that there is more joy in me for the gain of that knowledge than there is sorrow in my heart for thy pain.”
“Nay, nay,” she said, “but for that I deem thee the dearer and the dearer.”
“See then, sweetheart,” said he, “how might it ever come about that we might meed bodily if I abode ever at Wethermel and the Dale in peace and quietness, while thou dwelt still with thy carlines on the other side of this fierce stream? Must I not take chancehap and war by the hand and follow where they lead, that I may learn the wideness of the world, and compass earth and sea till I have gone about the Sundering Flood and found thy little body somewhere in the said wide world? And maybe this is the beginning thereof.”
Now was the maiden a little comforted, and she said, smiling as well as she might: “And belike thou art for the cheaping again? Dost thou remember what a joy it was to thee to bring me those things and shoot and cast them over the water unto me? Now this time when thou comest back to the Dale I will ask thee to bring me one thing more, and then I shall be satisfied.”
“Yea, sweetheart, and what shall that be?” And sooth to say it went against the grain with him that at the very moment of their parting she should crave something, like a very child, for a fairing. But she said: “O my dear, and what should it be but thou thyself?” And therewith she could refrain her passion no longer, but brake out a-weeping sorely again, so that her eyes could no longer behold him. But she heard many caressing words come across the water, and many farewells and words of grief, and yet she could not master her tears so that she could see him clearly, neither could she speak one word in answer. But at last she looked up and saw that he was gone from before her, and dimly she saw him yet a little way gone down the water, and he turned toward her and raised his hand and waved it to her. And nought else she saw of him for that time save the gleam of his scarlet surcoat and a flash of his helm in the May sunlight.
But for Osberne, sick at heart at first he was, and he strode hurrying along if that might ease him a little, and after a while he took some deal of courage, but still hastened on leaving the waterside; and then in a while himseemed to hear the voice of a great horn afar off, and he called to mind that the Mote had been summoned; and his mind turned toward what was to do.
Chapter XXIII. Osberne Is Chosen Captain of the Dalesmen
So when he was come anigh the stead he saw the gathered folk and the glittering of weapons about a knoll a bowshot without the garth, and made the best of his way toward the Mote. And as he was drawing near, there ran toward him divers men from the skirts of the throng, and cried out for him to hasten, “For now,” cried one of them, “the Mote is dealing with thee.” So he ran on with them; and when he entered the throng, which for those parts was no small one, there went up a great shout, and they shoved him along up to the foot of the knoll, on the top whereof stood three of the best men of estate, and the Lawman of the Dale, and the captain of the men of Eastcheaping. These called him to come amongst them, and then the Lawman fell to speaking: “Osberne Wulfgrimsson,” said he, “thou art late to the Mote, and it is well-nigh done, but this is the heart of the matter, that we have ten score and six of good men pledged them to ride with these friends of of Eastcheaping; but they have craved to have a captain to them chosen from us Dalesmen. But whereas there hath been but little war or strife in the Dale since the riding of the White Champion, which is a thirty years ago, we be for the most part little skilled in battle; and we all wot that thou hast a man’s heart in thy lad’s body, and that thou hast slain a mighty man of war, a man deft in all prowess. Wherefore some of the folk have spoken of thee to be the captain of our company; and I tell thee that I shall presently call for the word of the whole Mote, and if they yeasay it, then must thou needs go as captain of these, will thou nill thou.”
Osberne was as red as fire in the face by then the Lawman was done, and he said: “Master, I pray thee consider my youth, and how I have had no schooling herein, and know nought of ordering men or arraying a battle. All this is nought like defending life and livelihood against a robber when there was none to serve at a pinch, and using one’s mother-wit in dealing with it.” The captain of the Eastcheapers smiled upon him kindly and said: “My son, he who can use his mother-wit to any purpose when the edges be aloft hath learned the more part of battle-craft. Withal it is but a few hours agone that I saw thee handling the men of thine household like to a ripe man. Fear not, my son, but that thou shalt do well enough; and moreover I promise that I will learn thee the craft all I may. And know that if thou deny this, then shalt thou take the heart out of these good fellows, who be eager enough to help the good town and be no mannikins, I warrant them. Naysay it not, my lad, naysay it not.”
Now was Osberne’s heart thumping against his ribs, what for sudden wonder, what for the hope of renown that flashed upon him as a sudden flame of strange light. But withal he thought in himself, and that all suddenly also: If the Sundering Flood is to be encompassed here is indeed the beginning of it, if this good Knight shall be my friend and shall learn me the craft of war, and thereby I become a man of might, to be desired and waged by them who have not had either the craft or the courage to fight for themselves face to face with their foemen.
Wherefore now he turned to the Lawman and said: “Master, it is enough; if the Mote of the neighbours will have me captain I may not naysay it: and may my luck be enough to overcome my childish years: and if not, may I lie on the field and not come back again to hear the mothers and maids curse me for having cast away the lives of their sons and their dears.”
Then spake the Lawman, after he had smiled on Osberne and laid his hand on the lad’s shoulder: “Men of the East Dale, ye be met together to see if ye can in any wise help our friends and neighbours of Eastcheaping, and ye have told off certain men to go in arms for their avail, and will have a captain over them. Now it hath been said to me that he who seems likeliest for the said captain is the young man Osberne Wulfgrimsson of Wethermel, and if this be so, let me hear your voices saying Yea. But even then there will be time for any man of you to name another, if it seem good to him, and that name will also be put to the Mote, and a dozen others if such there be. Now first, what say ye to Osberne Wulfgrimsson?”
Straightway arose a great cheer and the clashing of weapons, and well-nigh every man as it seemed cried out Yea. But when the noise and cry was abated, the Lawman bade any man who would put forth another name. No man spake for a little while, till at last Surly John pushes forth to the front and says: “I name Erling Thomasson, a good man and true!” Brake forth then great laughter and whooping, for the said Erling was a manifest niggard, a dastard who sweated in his bed when the mouse squeaked in the wall a nighttime. But one man sang out: “Yea, Lawman, and I name Surly John.” Thereat was great laughter, and men shoved John to and fro till they had hustled him out to the skirts of the throng, and there bid him go a wolf-hunting.
But now the Lawman takes Osberne by the hand and leads him to the edge of the knoll, and stands there and says: “Men of the Dale, ye would go to the war; ye would take a captain to you; ye would have Osberne Wulfgrimsson for your captain. All this ye have done uncompelled, of your own will; therefore take not the rue if it not turn out so well as ye looked for. But now I bid all them that be going on this journey to lift up their right hands and swear to be leal and true to your captain, Osberne Wulfgrimsson, in all things for life or for death.”
Even so they did with a hearty good will: thereupon Osberne spake and said, after he had a word with [the Knight] Sir Medard, apart: “All ye my men, I have but this to say to you: I hold you trusty and valiant, and men unlike to fight soft. But this I know of you, as of all other of us Dalesmen, that ye are most wont to go each after his own will, and it is well-nigh enough to put a man off from doing a thing if another man say to him, Do it. Now this manner ye must change, since ye are become men-at-arms, and if I bid you go to the right or the left, ye need think of nought but which is your right hand and which the left; though forsooth I wot well that some of ye be so perverse that even that debate may lead you into trouble and contention. Now look to it that ye may not all be captains, and they that try it, so long as I be over you, are like to wend into wild weather. Now stouthearts, and my friends, it is now a little past high noon; and we shall abide here no longer than tomorrow morn, and at daybreak we shall be on our way to Eastcheaping, wherefore that time have yet got to see to your weapons and array, and to say farewell, such of you as be not too far off, to your kindred and wives and sweethearts. And now let all we do our best when we come among the edges, so that hereafter one man may say to another: Thou art as valiant as the Dalesmen when they fought in the war of Eastcheaping.”
Then all men gave a great shout, and were well-nigh weeping-ripe for high heart and for love of him, though a minute before their faces were all agrin, so wise and valiant and kind they deemed his words and the manner of his speaking.
Therewith the Mote brake up, and the men were busy arraying them for departure: and as for Osberne, he had his hands full of work, in giving and taking commandments, and in learning from Sir Medard the beginnings of the lore of battle; so that what hopes he had of making his way to the trysting-place once more were speedily swept aside. And the next morning betimes they set out together, the Dalesmen and the Eastcheapers, in all good fellowship, and in two days’ time came to Eastcheaping; and they were lodged full well by the crafts-masters of the good town. But Sir Medard took Osberne with him up into the Castle and guested him there, that he might the closer teach him his new craft, and an apt scholar he found. Also from the morrow after their coming, the captain, by bidding of the Porte, furnished and arrayed the Dalesmen with weapons, as long spears and good swords and bows and arrows, and jacks and sallets and shields, and they went out into the mead under the Castle to be better assured thereby, and fell to learning how best to handle their weapons. And both their captains and they themselves deemed it best that they should fight a-foot; for though they were good horsemen after their fashion, they would have to learn all in the craft of fighting a-horseback.
Chapter XXIV. A Skirmish with the Baron of Deepdale in the Marshes
Now I have nought to do to write a chronicle of the good town of Eastcheaping, or a history of this war of them of the town with the Baron of Deepdale, or else a long tale I might make of it. So here follows all that shall be told of the said war.
In somewhat less than a month from their coming to Eastcheaping they had sure news that the Baron was on the way to the town with a great company of knights and men-at-arms; and thereafter it was known that he was riding with a light heart and little heed. Wherefore Sir Medard turned the matter over in his mind, and, whereas if any one knew well the roads and the fields about Eastcheaping, he, Sir Medard, knew them better, he deemed he might give this great lord a brush by the way. So he rode out a-gates with but a small company of men-at-arms, five score to wit, all in white armour, and rides with them along the causeway. But early in the night, ere he had set out, he had bidden a twelve score footmen make their way quietly in knots of five and ten and thereabout to a certain place fifteen miles as the highway led from Eastcheaping, where the said causeway, craftily made, went high raised over a marish place much beset with willow and alder, an evil place for the going of heavily-laded horses. But of these same footmen, some half had bows, and the rest spears and swords; all the Dalesmen went with these, and Osberne was the captain of the whole company, but with him was an old grey-beard, a sergeant tried in many wars, and a guileful man therein, and to him and Osberne Sir Medard showed what should be done.
So now the Baron and his came riding along the causeway, ten hundreds of men in all, lightly and in merry fashion, for they had said that they would go knock at the door of Eastcheaping and see what the carles were about there; and it was hard on noon. And first came riding an hundred or so of tall men well armed in white armour, their basnets new tinned; and they came to a certain place where on either side was abundance of thick alder bush and the ground soft between, and there was the causeway wider by a spear-length than its wont for some two score yards. Well, this hundred passed by on their way, but when they were clean out of sight, and the next company not yet come, up rise a half dozen of men from out the alders on either side, and come on to the causeway: they are clad in homespun coats and hoods, though if any had looked closely he had seen hawberks and steel hoods under the cloth. These men lay some things down on the causeway in the very midst between the narrows, and then get them back into the marsh again.
No sooner are they gone but there comes the sounds of weaponed men going, and presently there is the head of a much bigger company coming on to the wide space betwixt the narrows, three hundreds of men at least. They were armed and mounted as well as they might be, but kept not very good order. When the first of them came to the place where the marsh-lurkers had been, they found lying athwart the causeway, one on each side, two dead porkers, two dead dogs, two hares, and in the very midst a fox, these also dead. The first men wonder at this, and get off their horses and handle the carcasses; then they call others to look at them; and some deem this the work of dwarfs or fairies or such like; and others say this is a sign or token of the up-country folk to rise upon them, and that they had best send men a-foot to search the marsh; and others that they should send tidings to the rearward folk. And some say one thing, some another, and all the while their fellows are thronging into the wide place till they are all crowded together, and not a third part of them know what has befallen, and deem that something has gone amiss; and the rearward fall to drawing their swords and crying out, To it, to it! Slay, Slay! Deepdale, Deepdale! till scarce a man knew his right hand from his left.
But amidst all this turmoil a great voice (and it was Stephen the Eater) cried out from the marsh at the right hand: “Go back, ye swine, to Deepdale.” Then another sang out from the north: “If ye can, ye dead dogs.” Then Stephen again: “This time ye must run like hares.” “Learn lore of the fox next time, if ye can,” cried the northern voice. And even therewith was the twanging of bowstrings from ether side, and the whistle of shafts and spears, for the foemen were near enough, and men and horses fell huddling on the causeway, and the shafts rained on without abatement, and the Deepdale riders were in sorry case indeed; and many of them were good knights well tried in the wars.
Then some gat off their horses and entered the marsh, and found no better hap there, for they were speedily slain by axe and sword of the Eastcheapers; or they squattered in the mire and yielded them to whomsoever was before them, of whom Stephen gat a good knight full-armed. But Osberne was otherwhere. For some of the Baron’s men spared not to turn their backs and ride all they might rearward; but they went but a little way into the narrows ere they saw steel before them, and there across the causeway stood the company of the Dalesmen, even such as were not with the bowmen. Desperately they drave at them; but it was all for nought, for the first four fell, they and their horses, before the long spears of the Dalesmen, and the others were cumbered with the wounded and the slain, so that they might not come on a-horseback. Howbeit, some dismounted and fell on sword in hand. Then forth from the ranks of the Dalesmen came a slim warrior in a long hawberk and bright basnet and a shield on his arm, and he put his hand to his left side and drew, and it was as if a beam of fell blue flame flashed in the sun; and he cried out: “For the Dale! For the Dale! Hasten, fellows, and follow on, for Boardcleaver crieth for a life.” And therewith he entered among the Deepdale folk and smote right and left, and with each stroke hewed a man, and they fell back before him; and then the Dalesmen were by his side instead of the foes, and still he went forward and men fell before him, and still came on the spears of the Dalesmen; and now all they of Deepdale, whether a-foot or on horseback, turn and flee away toward the place of the first slaughter.
Then Osberne cried to his men: “Off the causeway now, all ye Dalesmen; these ye shall not chase, they shall fall in with chasing enough anon; and now must the causeway be clear of all but foemen if I know aught of Sir Medard’s mind. Ye have done well.” Therewith he gat him quietly from off the causeway, and all they followed; they went but a little way, and then about on the tussocks around the alder bushes, and turned toward the causeway and awaited new tidings.
