Chapter 11

The nocturnal adventures of Gurth were not yet concluded; indeed he himself became partly of that mind, when, after passing one or two straggling houses which stood in the outskirts of the village, he found himself in a deep lane, running between two banks overgrown with hazel and holly, while here and there a dwarf oak flung its arms altogether across the path. The lane was, moreover, much rutted and broken up by the carriages which had recently transported articles of various kinds to the tournament; and it was dark, for the banks and bushes intercepted the light of the harvest moon.

From the village were heard the distant sounds of revelry, mixed occasionally with load laughter, sometimes broken by screams, and sometimes by wild strains of distant music. All these sounds, intimating the disorderly state of the town, crowded with military nobles and their dissolute attendants, gave Gurth some uneasiness. “The Jewess was right,” he said to himself. “By Heaven and St. Dunstan, I would I were safe at my journey’s end with all this treasure! Here are such numbers, I will not say of arrant thieves, but of errant knights and errant squires, errant monks and errant minstrels, errant jugglers and errant jesters, that a man with a single merk would be in danger, much more a poor swineherd with a whole bagful of zecchins. Would I were out of the shade of these infernal bushes, that I might at least see any of St. Nicholas’s clerks before they spring on my shoulders.”

Gurth accordingly hastened his pace, in order to gain the open common to which the lane led, but was not so fortunate as to accomplish his object. Just as he had attained the upper end of the lane, where the underwood was thickest, four men sprung upon him, even as his fears anticipated, two from each side of the road, and seized him so fast, that resistance, if at first practicable, would have been now too late. “Surrender your charge,” said one of them; “we are the deliverers of the commonwealth, who ease every man of his burden.”

“You should not ease me of mine so lightly,” muttered Gurth, whose surly honesty could not be tamed even by the pressure of immediate violence—“had I it but in my power to give three strokes in its defence.”

“We shall see that presently,” said the robber; and, speaking to his companions, he added, “Bring along the knave. I see he would have his head broken, as well as his purse cut, and so be let blood in two veins at once.”

Gurth was hurried along agreeably to this mandate, and having been dragged somewhat roughly over the bank, on the left-hand side of the lane, found himself in a straggling thicket, which lay betwixt it and the open common. He was compelled to follow his rough conductors into the very depth of this cover, where they stopped unexpectedly in an irregular open space, free in a great measure from trees, and on which, therefore, the beams of the moon fell without much interruption from boughs and leaves. Here his captors were joined by two other persons, apparently belonging to the gang. They had short swords by their sides, and quarter-staves in their hands, and Gurth could now observe that all six wore visors, which rendered their occupation a matter of no question, even had their former proceedings left it in doubt.

“What money hast thou, churl?” said one of the thieves.

“Thirty zecchins of my own property,” answered Gurth doggedly.

“A forfeit—a forfeit,” shouted the robbers; “a Saxon hath thirty zecchins, and returns sober from a village! An undeniable and unredeemable forfeit of all he hath about him.”

“I hoarded it to purchase my freedom,” said Gurth.