Windsor Castle (Historical Novel) - William Harrison Ainsworth

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      “Have you seen anything?” he demanded of the earl.

      “I have seen Herne the Hunter himself, or the fiend in his likeness,” replied Surrey.

      And he briefly related the vision he had beheld.

      “Ay, ay, you have seen the demon hunter, no doubt,” replied the keeper at the close of the recital. “I neither saw the light, nor heard the laughter, nor the wailing cry you speak of; but Bawsey crouched at my feet and whined, and I knew some evil thing was at hand. Heaven shield us!” he exclaimed, as the hound crouched at his feet, and directed her gaze towards the oak, uttering a low ominous whine, “she is at the same trick again.”

      The earl glanced in the same direction, and half expected to see the knotted trunk of the tree burst open and disclose the figure of the spectral hunter. But nothing was visible—at least, to him, though it would seem from the shaking limbs, fixed eyes, and ghastly visage of the keeper, that some appalling object was presented to his gaze.

      “Do you not see him?” cried the latter at length, in thrilling accents; “he is circling the tree, and blasting it. There! he passes us now—do you not see him?”

      “No,” replied Surrey; “but do not let us tarry here longer.”

      So saying he laid his hand upon the keeper’s arm. The touch seemed to rouse him to exertion: He uttered a fearful cry, and set off at a quick pace along the park, followed by Bawsey, with her tail between her legs. The earl kept up with him, and neither halted till they had left the wizard oak at a considerable distance behind them.

      “And so you did not see him?” said the keeper, in a tone of exhaustion, as he wiped the thick drops from his brow.

      “I did not,” replied Surrey.

      “That is passing strange,” rejoined the other. “I myself have seen him before, but never as he appeared to-night.”

      “You are a keeper of the forest, I presume, friend?” said Surrey. “How are you named?”

      “I am called Morgan Fenwolf,” replied the keeper; “and you?”

      “I am the Earl of Surrey;’ returned the young noble.

      “What!” exclaimed Fenwolf, making a reverence, “the son to his grace of Norfolk?”

      The earl replied in the affirmative.

      “Why, then, you must be the young nobleman whom I used to see so often with the king’s son, the Duke of Richmond, three or four years ago, at the castle?” rejoined Fenwolf “You are altogether grown out of my recollection.”

      “Not unlikely,” returned the earl. “I have been at Oxford, and have only just completed my studies. This is the first time I have been at Windsor since the period you mention.”

      “I have heard that the Duke of Richmond was at Oxford likewise,” observed Fenwolf.

      “We were at Cardinal College together,” replied Surrey. “But the duke’s term was completed before mine. He is my senior by three years.”

      “I suppose your lordship is returning to the castle?” said Fenwolf.

      “No,” replied Surrey. “My attendants are waiting for me at the Garter, and if you will accompany me thither, I will bestow a cup of good ale upon you to recruit you after the fright you have undergone.”

      Fenwolf signified his graceful acquiescence, and they walked on in silence, for the earl could not help dwelling upon the vision he had witnessed, and his companion appeared equally abstracted. In this sort they descended the hill near Henry the Eighth’s Gate, and entered Thames Street.

      2.

       Table of Contents

      Of Bryan Bowntance, the Host of the Garter—Of the Duke of Shoreditch—Of the Bold Words uttered by Mark Fytton, the Butcher, and how he was cast into the Vault of the Curfew Tower.

      Turning off on the right, the earl and his companion continued to descend the hill until they came in sight of the Garter—a snug little hostel, situated immediately beneath the Curfew Tower.

      Before the porch were grouped the earl’s attendants, most of whom had dismounted, and were holding their steeds by the bridles. At this juncture the door of the hostel opened, and a fat jolly-looking personage, with a bald head and bushy grey beard, and clad in a brown serge doublet, and hose to match, issued forth, bearing a foaming jug of ale and a horn cup. His appearance was welcomed by a joyful shout from the attendants.

      “Come, my masters!” he cried, filling the horn, “here is a cup of stout Windsor ale in which to drink the health of our jolly monarch, bluff King Hal; and there’s no harm, I trust, in calling him so.”

      “Marry, is there not, mine host;” cried the foremost attendant. “I spoke of him as such in his own hearing not long ago, and he laughed at me in right merry sort. I love the royal bully, and will drink his health gladly, and Mistress Anne Boleyn’s to boot.”

      And he emptied the horn.

      “They tell me Mistress Anne Boleyn is coming to Windsor with the king and the knights-companions tomorrow—is it so?” asked the host, again filling the horn, and handing it to another attendant.

      The person addressed nodded, but he was too much engrossed by the horn to speak.

      “Then there will be rare doings in the castle,” chuckled the host; “and many a lusty pot will be drained at the Garter. Alack-a-day! how times are changed since I, Bryan Bowntance, first stepped into my father’s shoes, and became host of the Garter. It was in 1501—twenty-eight years ago—when King Henry the Seventh, of blessed memory, ruled the land, and when his elder son, Prince Arthur, was alive likewise. In that year the young prince espoused Catherine of Arragon, our present queen, and soon afterwards died; whereupon the old king, not liking—for he loved his treasure better than his own flesh—to part with her dowry, gave her to his second son, Henry, our gracious sovereign, whom God preserve! Folks said then the match wouldn’t come to good; and now we find they spoke the truth, for it is likely to end in a divorce.”

      “Not so loud, mine host!” cried the foremost attendant; “here comes our young master, the Earl of Surrey.”

      “Well, I care not,” replied the host bluffly. “I’ve spoken no treason. I love my king; and if he wishes to have a divorce, I hope his holiness the Pope will grant him one, that’s all.”

      As he said this, a loud noise was heard within the hostel, and a man was suddenly and so forcibly driven forth, that he almost knocked down Bryan Bowntance, who was rushing in to see what was the matter. The person thus ejected, who was a powerfully-built young man, in a leathern doublet, with his muscular arms bared to the shoulder, turned his rage upon the host, and seized him by the throat with a grip that threatened him with strangulation. Indeed, but for the intervention of the earl’s attendants, who rushed to his assistance, such might have been his fate. As soon as he was liberated, Bryan cried in a voice of mingled rage and surprise to his assailant, “Why, what’s the matter, Mark Fytton?—are you gone mad, or do you mistake me for a sheep or a bullock, that you attack me in this fashion? My strong ale must have got into your addle pate with a vengeance.

      “The knave has been speaking treason of the king’s highness,” said the tall man, whose doublet and hose of the finest green cloth, as well as the how and quiverful of arrows at his back, proclaimed him an archer—“and therefore we turned him out!”

      “And you did well, Captain Barlow,” cried the host.

      “Call me rather the Duke of Shoreditch,” rejoined the tall archer; “for since his majesty conferred the title upon me, though it were but in jest, when I won this silver bugle, I shall ever claim it. I am always designated by my neighbours in Shoreditch as his grace; and I require the same attention

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