Men of Iron

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MEN OF IRON

by Ernie Howard Pyle




INTRODUCTION

The year 1400 opened with more than usual peacefulness in England. Only
a few months before, Richard II--weak, wicked, and treacherous--had been
dethroned, and Henry IV declared King in his stead. But it was only a
seeming peacefulness, lasting but for a little while; for though King
Henry proved himself a just and a merciful man--as justice and mercy
went with the men of iron of those days--and though he did not care
to shed blood needlessly, there were many noble families who had been
benefited by King Richard during his reign, and who had lost somewhat of
their power and prestige from the coming in of the new King.

Among these were a number of great lords--the Dukes of Albemarle,
Surrey, and Exeter, the Marquis of Dorset, the Earl of Gloucester, and
others--who had been degraded to their former titles and estates, from
which King Richard had lifted them. These and others brewed a secret
plot to take King Henry's life, which plot might have succeeded had not
one of their own number betrayed them.

Their plan had been to fall upon the King and his adherents, and to
massacre them during a great tournament, to be held at Oxford. But Henry
did not appear at the lists; whereupon, knowing that he had been lodging
at Windsor with only a few attendants, the conspirators marched thither
against him. In the mean time the King had been warned of the plot,
so that, instead of finding him in the royal castle, they discovered
through their scouts that he had hurried to London, whence he was
even then marching against them at the head of a considerable army. So
nothing was left them but flight. Some betook themselves one way, some
another; some sought sanctuary here, some there; but one and another,
they were all of them caught and killed.

The Earl of Kent--one time Duke of Surrey--and the Earl of
Salisbury were beheaded in the market-place at Cirencester; Lord Le
Despencer--once the Earl of Gloucester--and Lord Lumley met the same
fate at Bristol; the Earl of Huntingdon was taken in the Essex fens,
carried to the castle of the Duke of Gloucester, whom he had betrayed
to his death in King Richard's time, and was there killed by the castle
people. Those few who found friends faithful and bold enough to afford
them shelter, dragged those friends down in their own ruin.

Just such a case was that of the father of the boy hero of this
story, the blind Lord Gilbert Reginald Falworth, Baron of Falworth and
Easterbridge, who, though having no part in the plot, suffered through
it ruin, utter and complete.

He had been a faithful counsellor and adviser to King Richard, and
perhaps it was this, as much and more than his roundabout connection
with the plot, that brought upon him the punishment he suffered.



CHAPTER 1

Myles Falworth was but eight years of age at that time, and it was only
afterwards, and when he grew old enough to know more of the ins and outs
of the matter, that he could remember by bits and pieces the things that
afterwards happened; how one evening a knight came clattering into the
court-yard upon a horse, red-nostrilled and smeared with the sweat and
foam of a desperate ride--Sir John Dale, a dear friend of the blind
Lord.

Even though so young, Myles knew that something very serious had
happened to make Sir John so pale and haggard, and he dimly remembered
leaning against the knight's iron-covered knees, looking up into his
gloomy face, and asking him if he was sick to look so strange. Thereupon
those who had been too troubled before to notice him, bethought
themselves of him, and sent him to bed, rebellious at having to go so
early.

He remembered how the next morning, looking out of a window high up
under the eaves, he saw a great troop of horsemen come riding into the
courtyard beneath, where a powdering of snow had whitened everything,
and of how the leader, a knight clad in black armor, dismounted and
entered the great hall door-way below, followed by several of the band.

He remembered how some of the castle women were standing in a frightened
group upon the landing of the stairs, talking together in low voices
about a matter he did not understand, excepting that the armed men who
had ridden into the courtyard had come for Sir John Dale. None of the
women paid any attention to him; so, shunning their notice, he ran off
down the winding stairs, expecting every moment to be called back again
by some one of them.

A crowd of castle people, all very serious and quiet, were gathered
in the hall, where a number of strange men-at-arms lounged upon the
benches, while two billmen in steel caps and leathern jacks stood
guarding the great door, the butts of their weapons resting upon the
ground, and the staves crossed, barring the door-way.

In the anteroom was the knight in black armor whom Myles had seen from
the window. He was sitting at the table, his great helmet lying upon
the bench beside him, and a quart beaker of spiced wine at his elbow. A
clerk sat at the other end of the same table, with inkhorn in one hand
and pen in the other, and a parchment spread in front of him.

Master Robert, the castle steward, stood before the knight, who every
now and then put to him a question, which the other would answer, and
the clerk write the answer down upon the parchment.

His father stood with his back to the fireplace, looking down upon the
floor with his blind eyes, his brows drawn moodily together, and the
scar of the great wound that he had received at the tournament at
York--the wound that had made him blind--showing red across his
forehead, as it always did when he was angered or troubled.

There was something about it all that frightened Myles, who crept to his
father's side, and slid his little hand into the palm that hung limp and
inert. In answer to the touch, his father grasped the hand tightly,
but did not seem otherwise to notice that he was there. Neither did
the black knight pay any attention to him, but continued putting his
questions to Master Robert.

Then, suddenly, there was a commotion in the hall without, loud voices,
and a hurrying here and there. The black knight half arose, grasping a
heavy iron mace that lay upon the bench beside him, and the next moment
Sir John Dale himself, as pale as death, walked into the antechamber. He
stopped in the very middle of the room. "I yield me to my Lord's grace
and mercy," said he to the black knight, and they were the last words he
ever uttered in this world.

The black knight shouted out some words of command, and swinging up the
iron mace in his hand, strode forward clanking towards Sir John, who
raised his arm as though to shield himself from the blow. Two or three
of those who stood in the hall without came running into the room with
drawn swords and bills, and little Myles, crying out with terror, hid
his face in his father's long gown.

The next instant came the sound of a heavy blow and of a groan, then
another blow and the sound of one falling upon the ground. Then the
clashing of steel, and in the midst Lord Falworth crying, in a dreadful
voice, "Thou traitor! thou coward! thou murderer!"

Master Robert snatched Myles away from his father, and bore him out of
the room in spite of his screams and struggles, and he remembered just
one instant's sight of Sir John lying still and silent upon his face,
and of the black knight standing above him, with the terrible mace in
his hand stained a dreadful red.

It was the next day that Lord and Lady Falworth and little Myles,
together with three of the more faithful of their people, left the
castle.

His memory of past things held a picture for Myles of old Diccon Bowman
standing over him in the silence of midnight with a lighted lamp in his
hand, and with it a recollection of being bidden to hush when he would
have spoken, and of being dressed by Diccon and one of the women,
bewildered with sleep, shuddering and chattering with cold.

He remembered being wrapped in the sheepskin that lay at the foot of
his bed, and of being carried in Diccon Bowman's arms down the silent
darkness of the winding stair-way, with the great black giant shadows
swaying and flickering upon the stone wall as the dull flame of the lamp
swayed and flickered in the cold breathing of the night air.

Below were his father and mother and two or three others. A stranger
stood warming his hands at a newly-made fire, and little Myles, as he
peeped from out the warm sheepskin, saw that he was in riding-boots and
was covered with mud. He did not know till long years afterwards that
the stranger was a messenger sent by a friend at the King's court,
bidding his father fly for safety.

They who stood there by the red blaze of the fire were all very still,
talking in whispers and walking on tiptoes, and Myles's mother hugged
him in her arms, sheepskin and all, kissing him, with the tears
streaming down her cheeks, and whispering to him, as though he could
understand their trouble, that they were about to leave their home
forever.

Then Diccon Bowman carried him out into the strangeness of the winter
midnight.

Outside, beyond the frozen moat, where the osiers, stood stark and stiff
in their winter nakedness, was a group of dark figures waiting for them
with horses. In the pallid moonlight Myles recognized the well-known
face of Father Edward, the Prior of St. Mary's.

After that came a long ride through that silent night upon the
saddle-bow in front of Diccon Bowman; then a deep, heavy sleep, that
fell upon him in spite of the galloping of the horses.

When next he woke the sun was shining, and his home and his whole life
were changed.



CHAPTER 2

From the time the family escaped from Falworth Castle that midwinter
night to the time Myles was sixteen years old he knew nothing of the
great world beyond Crosbey-Dale. A fair was held twice in a twelvemonth
at the market-town of Wisebey, and three times in the seven years old
Diccon Bowman took the lad to see the sights at that place. Beyond these
three glimpses of the outer world he lived almost as secluded a life as
one of the neighboring monks of St. Mary's Priory.

Crosbey-Holt, their new home, was different enough from Falworth or
Easterbridge Castle, the former baronial seats of Lord Falworth. It was
a long, low, straw-thatched farm-house, once, when the church lands were
divided into two holdings, one of the bailiff's houses. All around were
the fruitful farms of the priory, tilled by well-to-do tenant holders,
and rich with fields of waving grain, and meadow-lands where sheep and
cattle grazed in flocks and herds; for in those days the church lands
were under church rule, and were governed by church laws, and there,
when war and famine and waste and sloth blighted the outside world,
harvests flourished and were gathered, and sheep were sheared and cows
were milked in peace and quietness.

The Prior of St. Mary's owed much if not all of the church's prosperity
to the blind Lord Falworth, and now he was paying it back with a haven
of refuge from the ruin that his former patron had brought upon himself
by giving shelter to Sir John Dale.

I fancy that most boys do not love the grinding of school life--the
lessons to be conned, the close application during study hours. It is
not often pleasant to brisk, lively lads to be so cooped up. I wonder
what the boys of to-day would have thought of Myles's training. With him
that training was not only of the mind, but of the body as well, and for
seven years it was almost unremitting. "Thou hast thine own way to
make in the world, sirrah," his father said more than once when the boy
complained of the grinding hardness of his life, and to make one's way
in those days meant a thousand times more than it does now; it meant not
only a heart to feel and a brain to think, but a hand quick and strong
to strike in battle, and a body tough to endure the wounds and blows in
return. And so it was that Myles's body as well as his mind had to be
trained to meet the needs of the dark age in which he lived.

Every morning, winter or summer, rain or shine he tramped away six long
miles to the priory school, and in the evenings his mother taught him
French.

Myles, being prejudiced in the school of thought of his day, rebelled
not a little at that last branch of his studies. "Why must I learn that
vile tongue?" said he.

"Call it not vile," said the blind old Lord, grimly; "belike, when thou
art grown a man, thou'lt have to seek thy fortune in France land, for
England is haply no place for such as be of Falworth blood." And in
after-years, true to his father's prediction, the "vile tongue" served
him well.

As for his physical training, that pretty well filled up the hours
between his morning studies at the monastery and his evening studies
at home. Then it was that old Diccon Bowman took him in hand, than whom
none could be better fitted to shape his young body to strength and his
hands to skill in arms. The old bowman had served with Lord Falworth's
father under the Black Prince both in France and Spain, and in long
years of war had gained a practical knowledge of arms that few could
surpass. Besides the use of the broadsword, the short sword, the
quarter-staff, and the cudgel, he taught Myles to shoot so skilfully
with the long-bow and the cross-bow that not a lad in the country-side
was his match at the village butts. Attack and defence with the lance,
and throwing the knife and dagger were also part of his training.

Then, in addition to this more regular part of his physical training,
Myles was taught in another branch not so often included in the military
education of the day--the art of wrestling. It happened that a fellow
lived in Crosbey village, by name Ralph-the-Smith, who was the greatest
wrestler in the country-side, and had worn the champion belt for three
years. Every Sunday afternoon, in fair weather, he came to teach Myles
the art, and being wonderfully adept in bodily feats, he soon grew so
quick and active and firm-footed that he could cast any lad under twenty
years of age living within a range of five miles.

"It is main ungentle armscraft that he learneth," said Lord Falworth one
day to Prior Edward. "Saving only the broadsword, the dagger, and the
lance, there is but little that a gentleman of his strain may use.
Neth'less, he gaineth quickness and suppleness, and if he hath true
blood in his veins he will acquire knightly arts shrewdly quick when the
time cometh to learn them."

But hard and grinding as Myles's life was, it was not entirely without
pleasures. There were many boys living in Crosbey-Dale and the village;
yeomen's and farmers' sons, to be sure, but, nevertheless, lads of his
own age, and that, after all, is the main requirement for friendship in
boyhood's world. Then there was the river to bathe in; there were the
hills and valleys to roam over, and the wold and woodland, with their
wealth of nuts and birds'-nests and what not of boyhood's treasures.

Once he gained a triumph that for many a day was very sweet under the
tongue of his memory. As was said before, he had been three times to the
market-town at fair-time, and upon the last of these occasions he had
fought a bout of quarterstaff with a young fellow of twenty, and had
been the conqueror. He was then only a little over fourteen years old.

Old Diccon, who had gone with him to the fair, had met some cronies of
his own, with whom he had sat gossiping in the ale-booth, leaving Myles
for the nonce to shift for himself. By-and-by the old man had noticed
a crowd gathered at one part of the fair-ground, and, snuffing a fight,
had gone running, ale-pot in hand. Then, peering over the shoulders of
the crowd, he had seen his young master, stripped to the waist, fighting
like a gladiator with a fellow a head taller than himself. Diccon was
about to force his way through the crowd and drag them asunder, but a
second look had showed his practised eye that Myles was not only holding
his own, but was in the way of winning the victory. So he had stood with
the others looking on, withholding himself from any interference and
whatever upbraiding might be necessary until the fight had been brought
to a triumphant close. Lord Falworth never heard directly of the
redoubtable affair, but old Diccon was not so silent with the common
folk of Crosbey-Dale, and so no doubt the father had some inkling of
what had happened. It was shortly after this notable event that Myles
was formally initiated into squirehood. His father and mother, as was
the custom, stood sponsors for him. By them, each bearing a lighted
taper, he was escorted to the altar. It was at St. Mary's Priory, and
Prior Edward blessed the sword and girded it to the lad's side. No
one was present but the four, and when the good Prior had given the
benediction and had signed the cross upon his forehead, Myles's mother
stooped and kissed his brow just where the priest's finger had drawn the
holy sign. Her eyes brimmed bright with tears as she did so. Poor
lady! perhaps she only then and for the first time realized how big her
fledgling was growing for his nest. Henceforth Myles had the right to
wear a sword.


Myles had ended his fifteenth year. He was a bonny lad, with brown face,
curling hair, a square, strong chin, and a pair of merry laughing
blue eyes; his shoulders were broad; his chest was thick of girth; his
muscles and thews were as tough as oak.

The day upon which he was sixteen years old, as he came whistling home
from the monastery school he was met by Diccon Bowman.

"Master Myles," said the old man, with a snuffle in his voice--"Master
Myles, thy father would see thee in his chamber, and bade me send thee
to him as soon as thou didst come home. Oh, Master Myles, I fear me that
belike thou art going to leave home to-morrow day."

Myles stopped short. "To leave home!" he cried.

"Aye," said old Diccon, "belike thou goest to some grand castle to
live there, and be a page there and what not, and then, haply, a
gentleman-at-arms in some great lord's pay."

"What coil is this about castles and lords and gentlemen-at-arms?" said
Myles. "What talkest thou of, Diccon? Art thou jesting?"

"Nay," said Diccon, "I am not jesting. But go to thy father, and then
thou wilt presently know all. Only this I do say, that it is like thou
leavest us to-morrow day."

And so it was as Diccon had said; Myles was to leave home the very
next morning. He found his father and mother and Prior Edward together,
waiting for his coming.

"We three have been talking it over this morning," said his father, "and
so think each one that the time hath come for thee to quit this poor
home of ours. An thou stay here ten years longer, thou'lt be no more fit
to go then than now. To-morrow I will give thee a letter to my kinsman,
the Earl of Mackworth. He has thriven in these days and I have fallen
away, but time was that he and I were true sworn companions, and
plighted together in friendship never to be sundered. Methinks, as I
remember him, he will abide by his plighted troth, and will give thee
his aid to rise in the world. So, as I said, to-morrow morning thou
shalt set forth with Diccon Bowman, and shall go to Castle Devlen, and
there deliver this letter which prayeth him to give thee a place in his
household. Thou mayst have this afternoon to thyself to make read such
things as thou shalt take with thee. And bid me Diccon to take the gray
horse to the village and have it shod."

Prior Edward had been standing looking out of the window. As Lord
Falworth ended he turned.

"And, Myles," said he, "thou wilt need some money, so I will give thee
as a loan forty shillings, which some day thou mayst return to me an
thou wilt. For this know, Myles, a man cannot do in the world without
money. Thy father hath it ready for thee in the chest, and will give it
thee to-morrow ere thou goest."

Lord Falworth had the grim strength of manhood's hard sense to upbear
him in sending his son into the world, but the poor lady mother had
nothing of that to uphold her. No doubt it was as hard then as it is
now for the mother to see the nestling thrust from the nest to shift for
itself. What tears were shed, what words of love were spoken to the only
man-child, none but the mother and the son ever knew.

The next morning Myles and the old bowman rode away, and no doubt to
the boy himself the dark shadows of leave-taking were lost in the golden
light of hope as he rode out into the great world to seek his fortune.



CHAPTER 3

WHAT MYLES remembered of Falworth loomed great and grand and big, as
things do in the memory of childhood, but even memory could not make
Falworth the equal of Devlen Castle, when, as he and Diccon Bowman rode
out of Devlentown across the great, rude stone bridge that spanned the
river, he first saw, rising above the crowns of the trees, those
huge hoary walls, and the steep roofs and chimneys clustered thickly
together, like the roofs and chimneys of a town.

The castle was built upon a plateau-like rise of ground, which was
enclosed by the outer wall. It was surrounded on three sides by a
loop-like bend of the river, and on the fourth was protected by a deep,
broad, artificial moat, almost as wide as the stream from which it was
fed. The road from the town wound for a little distance along by the
edge of this moat. As Myles and the old bowman galloped by, with the
answering echo of their horses' hoof-beats rattling back from the smooth
stone face of the walls, the lad looked up, wondering at the height and
strength of the great ancient fortress. In his air-castle building Myles
had pictured the Earl receiving him as the son of his one-time comrade
in arms--receiving him, perhaps, with somewhat of the rustic warmth that
he knew at Crosbey-Dale; but now, as he stared at those massive walls
from below, and realized his own insignificance and the greatness of
this great Earl, he felt the first keen, helpless ache of homesickness
shoot through his breast, and his heart yearned for Crosbey-Holt again.

Then they thundered across the bridge that spanned the moat, and through
the dark shadows of the great gaping gate-way, and Diccon, bidding him
stay for a moment, rode forward to bespeak the gate-keeper.

The gate-keeper gave the two in charge of one of the men-at-arms who
were lounging upon a bench in the archway, who in turn gave them into
the care of one of the house-servants in the outer court-yard. So,
having been passed from one to another, and having answered many
questions, Myles in due time found himself in the outer waiting-room
sitting beside Diccon Bowman upon a wooden bench that stood along the
wall under the great arch of a glazed window.

For a while the poor country lad sat stupidly bewildered. He was aware
of people coming and going; he was aware of talk and laughter sounding
around him; but he thought of nothing but his aching homesickness and
the oppression of his utter littleness in the busy life of this great
castle.

Meantime old Diccon Bowman was staring about him with huge interest,
every now and then nudging his young master, calling his attention now
to this and now to that, until at last the lad began to awaken somewhat
from his despondency to the things around. Besides those servants and
others who came and went, and a knot of six or eight men-at-arms with
bills and pole-axes, who stood at the farther door-way talking together
in low tones, now and then broken by a stifled laugh, was a group of
four young squires, who lounged upon a bench beside a door-way hidden by
an arras, and upon them Myles's eyes lit with a sudden interest. Three
of the four were about his own age, one was a year or two older, and
all four were dressed in the black-and-yellow uniform of the house of
Beaumont.

Myles plucked the bowman by the sleeve. "Be they squires, Diccon?" said
he, nodding towards the door.

"Eh?" said Diccon. "Aye; they be squires."

"And will my station be with them?" asked the boy.

"Aye; an the Earl take thee to service, thou'lt haply be taken as
squire."

Myles stared at them, and then of a sudden was aware that the young men
were talking of him. He knew it by the way they eyed him askance, and
spoke now and then in one another's ears. One of the four, a gay young
fellow, with long riding-boots laced with green laces, said a few words,
the others gave a laugh, and poor Myles, knowing how ungainly he must
seem to them, felt the blood rush to his cheeks, and shyly turned his
head.

Suddenly, as though stirred by an impulse, the same lad who had just
created the laugh arose from the bench, and came directly across the
room to where Myles and the bowman sat.

"Give thee good-den," said he. "What be'st thy name and whence comest
thou, an I may make bold so to ask?"

"My name is Myles Falworth," said Myles; "and I come from Crosbey-Dale
bearing a letter to my Lord."

"Never did I hear of Crosbey-Dale," said the squire. "But what seekest
here, if so be I may ask that much?"

"I come seeking service," said Myles, "and would enter as an esquire
such as ye be in my Lord's household."