This was a joyful intimation to Aymer, whose nerves
were none of the strongest, and who had suffered such
agitation and alarm in the course of passing through
the dangerous bogs, that he had not yet had the curiosity
to ask his guide a single question. Finding himself
now at his ease and near shelter, his curiosity began
to awake, and he demanded of the guide who and what
he was.
“A Palmer, just returned from the Holy Land,”
was the answer.
“You had better have tarried there to fight
for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre,” said
the Templar.
“True, Reverend Sir Knight,” answered
the Palmer, to whom the appearance of the Templar
seemed perfectly familiar; “but when those who
are under oath to recover the holy city, are found
travelling at such a distance from the scene of their
duties, can you wonder that a peaceful peasant like
me should decline the task which they have abandoned?”
The Templar would have made an angry reply, but was
interrupted by the Prior, who again expressed his
astonishment, that their guide, after such long absence,
should be so perfectly acquainted with the passes
of the forest.
“I was born a native of these parts,”
answered their guide, and as he made the reply they
stood before the mansion of Cedric;—–a
low irregular building, containing several court-yards
or enclosures, extending over a considerable space
of ground, and which, though its size argued the inhabitant
to be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the
tall, turretted, and castellated buildings in which
the Norman nobility resided, and which had become
the universal style of architecture throughout England.
Rotherwood was not, however, without defences; no
habitation, in that disturbed period, could have been
so, without the risk of being plundered and burnt
before the next morning. A deep fosse, or ditch,
was drawn round the whole building, and filled with
water from a neighbouring stream. A double stockade,
or palisade, composed of pointed beams, which the
adjacent forest supplied, defended the outer and inner
bank of the trench. There was an entrance from
the west through the outer stockade, which communicated
by a drawbridge, with a similar opening in the interior
defences. Some precautions had been taken to place
those entrances under the protection of projecting
angles, by which they might be flanked in case of
need by archers or slingers.
Before this entrance the Templar wound his horn loudly;
for the rain, which had long threatened, began now
to descend with great violence.
Then (sad relief!) from the bleak coast that hears
The German Ocean roar, deep-blooming, strong,
And yellow hair’d, the blue-eyed Saxon came.
Thomson’s Liberty
