Sir Felix

: WILD ENGLAND

On a bright May morning, the sunlight, at five o'clock, was pouring into

a room which face the east at the ancestral home of the Aquilas. In this

room Felix, the eldest of the three sons of the Baron, was sleeping. The

beams passed over his head, and lit up a square space on the opposite

whitewashed wall, where, in the midst of the brilliant light, hung an

ivory cross. There were only two panes of glass in the window, each no

more than two or three inches square, the rest of the window being

closed by strong oaken shutters, thick enough to withstand the stroke of

an arrow.



In the daytime one of these at least would have been thrown open to

admit air and light. They did not quite meet, and a streak of sunshine,

in addition to that which came through the tiny panes, entered at the

chink. Only one window in the house contained more than two such panes

(it was in the Baroness's sitting-room), and most of them had none at

all. The glass left by the ancients in their dwellings had long since

been used up or broken, and the fragments that remained were too

precious to be put in ordinary rooms. When larger pieces were

discovered, they were taken for the palaces of the princes, and even

these were but sparingly supplied, so that the saying "he has glass in

his window" was equivalent to "he belongs to the upper ranks".



On the recess of the window was an inkstand, which had been recently in

use, for a quill lay beside it, and a sheet of parchment partly covered

with writing. The ink was thick and very dark, made of powdered

charcoal, leaving a slightly raised writing, which could be perceived by

the finger on rubbing it lightly over. Beneath the window on the bare

floor was an open chest, in which were several similar parchments and

books, and from which the sheet on the recess had evidently been taken.

This chest, though small, was extremely heavy and strong, being dug out

with the chisel and gouge from a solid block of oak. Except a few

parallel grooves, there was no attempt at ornamentation upon it. The

lid, which had no hinges, but lifted completely off, was tilted against

the wall. It was, too, of oak some inches thick, and fitted upon the

chest by a kind of dovetailing at the edges.



Instead of a lock, the chest was fastened by a lengthy thong of oxhide,

which now lay in a coil on the floor. Bound round and round, twisted and

intertangled, and finally tied with a special and secret knot (the ends

being concealed), the thong of leather secured the contents of the chest

from prying eyes or thievish hands. With axe or knife, of course, the

knot might easily have been severed, but no one could obtain access to

the room except the retainers of the house, and which of them, even if

unfaithful, would dare to employ such means in view of the certain

punishment that must follow? It would occupy hours to undo the knot, and

then it could not be tied again in exactly the same fashion, so that the

real use of the thong was to assure the owner that his treasures had not

been interfered with in his absence. Such locks as were made were of the

clumsiest construction. They were not so difficult to pick as the thong

to untie, and their expense, or rather the difficulty of getting a

workman who could manufacture them, confined their use to the heads of

great houses. The Baron's chest was locked, and his alone, in the

dwelling.



Besides the parchments which were nearest the top, as most in use, there

were three books, much worn and decayed, which had been preserved, more

by accident than by care, from the libraries of the ancients. One was an

abridged history of Rome, the other a similar account of English

history, the third a primer of science or knowledge; all three, indeed,

being books which, among the ancients, were used for teaching children,

and which, by the men of those days, would have been cast aside with

contempt.



Exposed for years in decaying houses, rain and mildew had spotted and

stained their pages; the covers had rotted away these hundred years, and

were now supplied by a broad sheet of limp leather with wide margins far

overlapping the edges; many of the pages were quite gone, and others

torn by careless handling. The abridgment of Roman history had been

scorched by a forest fire, and the charred edges of the leaves had

dropped away in semicircular holes. Yet, by pondering over these, Felix

had, as it were, reconstructed much of the knowledge which was the

common (and therefore unvalued) possession of all when they were

printed.



The parchments contained his annotations, and the result of his thought;

they were also full of extracts from decaying volumes lying totally

neglected in the houses of other nobles. Most of these were of extreme

antiquity, for when the ancients departed, the modern books which they

had composed being left in the decaying houses at the mercy of the

weather, rotted, or were destroyed by the frequent grass fires. But

those that had been preserved by the ancients in museums escaped for a

while, and some of these yet remained in lumber-rooms and corners,

whence they were occasionally dragged forth by the servants for greater

convenience in lighting the fires. The young nobles, entirely devoted to

the chase, to love intrigues, and war, overwhelmed Felix Aquila with

ridicule when they found him poring over these relics, and being of a

proud and susceptible spirit, they so far succeeded that he abandoned

the open pursuit of such studies, and stole his knowledge by fitful

glances when there was no one near. As among the ancients learning was

esteemed above all things, so now, by a species of contrast, it was of

all things the most despised.



Under the books, in one corner of the chest, was a leather bag

containing four golden sovereigns, such as were used by the ancients,

and eighteen pieces of modern silver money, the debased shillings of the

day, not much more than half of which was silver and the rest alloy. The

gold coins had been found while digging holes for the posts of a new

stockade, and by the law should have been delivered to the prince's

treasury. All the gold discovered, whether in the form of coin or

jewellery, was the property of the Prince, who was supposed to pay for

its value in currency.



As the actual value of the currency was only half of its nominal value

(and sometimes less), the transaction was greatly in favour of the

treasury. Such was the scarcity of gold that the law was strictly

enforced, and had there been the least suspicion of the fact, the house

would have been ransacked from the cellars to the roof. Imprisonment and

fine would have been the inevitable fate of Felix, and the family would

very probably have suffered for the fault of one of its members. But

independent and determined to the last degree, Felix ran any risk rather

than surrender that which he had found, and which he deemed his own.

This unbending independence and pride of spirit, together with scarce

concealed contempt for others, had resulted in almost isolating him from

the youth of his own age, and had caused him to be regarded with dislike

by the elders. He was rarely, if ever, asked to join the chase, and

still more rarely invited to the festivities and amusements provided in

adjacent houses, or to the grander entertainments of the higher nobles.

Too quick to take offence where none was really intended, he fancied

that many bore him ill-will who had scarcely given him a passing

thought. He could not forgive the coarse jokes uttered upon his personal

appearance by men of heavier build, who despised so slender a stripling.



He would rather be alone than join their company, and would not compete

with them in any of their sports, so that, when his absence from the

arena was noticed, it was attributed to weakness or cowardice. These

imputations stung him deeply, driving him to brood within himself. He

was never seen in the courtyards or ante-rooms at the palace, nor

following in the train of the Prince, as was the custom with the

youthful nobles. The servility of the court angered and disgusted him;

the eagerness of strong men to carry a cushion or fetch a dog annoyed

him.



There were those who observed this absence from the crowd in the

ante-rooms. In the midst of so much intrigue and continual striving for

power, designing men, on the one hand, were ever on the alert for what

they imagined would prove willing instruments; and on the other, the

Prince's councillors kept a watchful eye on the dispositions of every

one of the least consequence; so that, although but twenty-five, Felix

was already down in two lists, the one, at the palace, of persons whose

views, if not treasonable, were doubtful, and the other, in the hands of

a possible pretender, as a discontented and therefore useful man. Felix

was entirely ignorant that he had attracted so much observation. He

supposed himself simply despised and ignored; he cherished no treason,

had not the slightest sympathy with any pretender, held totally aloof

from intrigue, and his reveries, if they were ambitious, concerned only

himself.



But the most precious of the treasures in the chest were eight or ten

small sheets of parchment, each daintily rolled and fastened with a

ribbon, letters from Aurora Thyma, who had also given him the ivory

cross on the wall. It was of ancient workmanship, a relic of the old

world. A compass, a few small tools (valuable because preserved for so

many years, and not now to be obtained for any consideration), and a

magnifying glass, a relic also of the ancients, completed the contents

of the chest.



Upon a low table by the bedstead were a flint and steel and tinder, and

an earthenware oil lamp, not intended to be carried about. There, too,

lay his knife, with a buckhorn hilt, worn by everyone in the belt, and

his forester's axe, a small tool, but extremely useful in the woods,

without which, indeed, progress was often impossible. These were in the

belt, which, as he undressed, he had cast upon the table, together with

his purse, in which were about a dozen copper coins, not very regular in

shape, and stamped on one side only. The table was formed of two short

hewn planks, scarcely smoothed, raised on similar planks (on edge) at

each end, in fact, a larger form.



From a peg driven into the wall hung a disc of brass by a thin leathern

lace; this disc, polished to the last degree, answered as a mirror. The

only other piece of furniture, if so it could be called, was a block of

wood at the side of the table, used as a chair. In the corner, between

the table and the window, stood a long yew bow, and a quiver full of

arrows ready for immediate use, besides which three or four sheaves lay

on the floor. A crossbow hung on a wooden peg; the bow was of wood, and,

therefore, not very powerful; bolts and square-headed quarrels were

scattered carelessly on the floor under it.



Six or seven slender darts used for casting with the hand, as javelins,

stood in another corner by the door, and two stouter boar spears. By the

wall a heap of nets lay in apparent confusion, some used for partridges,

some of coarse twine for bush-hens, another, lying a little apart, for

fishes. Near these the component parts of two turkey-traps were strewn

about, together with a small round shield or targe, such as are used by

swordsmen, snares of wire, and, in an open box, several chisels, gouges,

and other tools.



A blowtube was fastened to three pegs, so that it might not warp, a

hunter's horn hung from another, and on the floor were a number of

arrows in various stages of manufacture, some tied to the straightening

rod, some with the feathers already attached, and some hardly shaped

from the elder or aspen log. A heap of skins filled the third corner,

and beside them were numerous stag's horns, and two of the white cow,

but none yet of the much dreaded and much desired white bull. A few

peacock's feathers were there also, rare and difficult to get, and

intended for Aurora. Round one footpost of the bed was a long coil of

thin hide, a lasso, and on another was suspended an iron cap, or

visorless helmet.



There was no sword or lance. Indeed, of all these weapons and

implements, none seemed in use, to judge by the dust that had gathered

upon them, and the rusted edges, except the bow and crossbow and one of

the boar spears. The bed itself was very low, framed of wood, thick and

solid; the clothes were of the coarsest linen and wool; there were furs

for warmth in winter, but these were not required in May. There was no

carpet, nor any substitute for it; the walls were whitewashed, ceiling

there was none, the worm-eaten rafters were visible, and the roof tree.

But on the table was a large earthenware bowl, full of meadow orchids,

blue-bells, and a bunch of may in flower.



His hat, wide in the brim, lay on the floor; his doublet was on the

wooden block or seat, with the long tight-fitting trousers, which showed

every muscle of the limb, and by them high shoes of tanned but unblacked

leather. His short cloak hung on a wooden peg against the door, which

was fastened with a broad bolt of oak. The parchment in the recess of

the window at which he had been working just before retiring was covered

with rough sketches, evidently sections of a design for a ship or galley

propelled by oars.



The square spot of light upon the wall slowly moved as the sun rose

higher, till the ivory cross was left in shadow, but still the slumberer

slept on, heedless, too, of the twittering of the swallows under the

eaves, and the call of the cuckoo not far distant.