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This had certainly been the case with Editha, whose marriage with Sir
William had been one of the greatest happiness. She had lost him, three
years before the story begins, fighting in Normandy, in one of the
innumerable wars in which our first Norman kings were constantly
involved. On entering the gates of Erstwood, Cuthbert had rushed hastily
to the room where his mother was sitting with three or four of her
maidens, engaged in work.
"I want to speak to you at once, mother," he said.
"What is it now, my son?" said his mother, who was still young and very
comely. Waving her hand to the girls, they left her.
"Mother," he said, when they were alone, "I fear me that Sir Walter is
about to make a great raid upon the outlaws. Armed men have been coming
in all the morning from the castles round, and if it be not against the
Baron de Wortham that these preparations are intended, and methinks it is
not, it must needs be against the landless men."
"What would you do, Cuthbert?" his mother asked anxiously. "It will not
do for you to be found meddling in these matters. At present you stand
well in the favour of the Earl, who loves you for the sake of his
wife, to whom you are kin, and of your father, who did him good
liegeman's service."
"But, mother, I have many friends in the wood. There is Cnut, their
chief, your own first cousin, and many others of our friends, all
good men and true, though forced by the cruel Norman laws to refuge
in the woods."
"What would you do?" again his mother asked.
"I would take Ronald my pony and ride to warn them of the danger that
threatens."
"You had best go on foot, my son. Doubtless men have been set to see that
none from the Saxon homesteads carry the warning to the woods. The
distance is not beyond your reach, for you have often wandered there, and
on foot you can evade the eye of the watchers; but one thing, my son, you
must promise, and that is, that in no case, should the Earl and his bands
meet with the outlaws, will you take part in any fray or struggle."
"That will I willingly, mother," he said. "I have no cause for offence
against the castle or the forest, and my blood and my kin are with both.
I would fain save shedding of blood in a quarrel like this. I hope that
the time may come when Saxon and Norman may fight side by side, and I
maybe there to see."
A few minutes later, having changed his blue doublet for one of more
sober and less noticeable colour, Cuthbert started for the great forest,
which then stretched to within a mile of Erstwood. In those days a large
part of the country was covered with forest, and the policy of the
Normans in preserving these woods for the chase, tended to prevent the
increase of cultivation.
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