Winning His Spurs: A Tale of the Crusades. Henty George Alfred
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backwards by the defenders, they finally succeeded in getting a footing on the wall.
Once there, the combat was virtually over.
The defenders were either cut down or taken prisoners, and in two hours after the assault began, the outwork of Wortham Castle was taken.
This, however, was but the commencement of the undertaking, and it had cost more than twenty lives to the assailants.
They were now, indeed, little nearer to capturing the castle than they had been before.
The moat was wide and deep. The drawbridge had been lifted at the instant that the first of the assailants gained a footing upon the wall. And now that the outwork was captured, a storm of arrows, stones, and other missiles was poured into it from the castle walls, and rendered it impossible for any of its new masters, to show themselves above it.
Seeing that any sudden attack was impossible, the earl now directed a strong body to cut down trees, and prepare a movable bridge to throw across the moat.
This would be a work of fully two days; and in the meantime Cuthbert returned to the farm.
CHAPTER III
Upon his return home, after relating to his mother the events of the morning's conflict, Cuthbert took his way to the cottage inhabited by an old man who had in his youth been a mason.
"Have I not heard, Gurth," he said, "that you helped to build the Castle of Wortham?"
"No, no, young sir," he said; "old as I am, I was a child when the castle was built. My father worked at it, and it cost him, and many others, his life."
"And how was that, prithee?" asked Cuthbert.
"He was, with several others, killed by the baron, the grandfather of the present man, when the work was finished."
"But why was that, Gurth?"
"We were but Saxon swine," said Gurth bitterly, "and a few of us more or less mattered not. We were then serfs of the baron. But my mother fled with me on the news of my father's death. For years we remained far away, with some friends in a forest near Oxford. Then she pined for her native air, and came back and entered the service of the franklin."
"But why should your mother have taken you away?" Cuthbert asked.
"She always believed, Master Cuthbert, that my father was killed by the baron, to prevent him giving any news of the secrets of the castle. He and some others had been kept in the walls for many months, and were engaged in the making of secret passages."
"That is just what I came to ask you, Gurth. I have heard something of this story before, and now that we are attacking Wortham Castle, and the earl has sworn to level it to the ground, it is of importance if possible to find out whether any of the secret passages lead beyond the castle, and if so, where. Almost all the castles have, I have been told, an exit by which the garrison can at will make sorties or escape; and I thought that maybe you might have heard enough to give us some clue as to the existence of such a passage at Wortham."
The old man thought for some time in silence, and then said,—
"I may be mistaken, but methinks a diligent search in the copse near the stream might find the mouth of the outlet."
"What makes you think that this is so, Gurth?"
"I had been with my mother to carry some clothes to my father on the last occasion on which I saw him. As we neared the castle I saw my father and three other of the workmen, together with the baron, coming down from the castle towards the spot. As my mother did not wish to approach while the baron was at hand, we stood within the trees at the edge of the wood, and watched what was being done. The baron came with them down to the bushes, and then they again came out, crossed the river, and one of them cut some willows, peeled them, and erected the white staves in a line towards the castle. They walked for a bit on each side, and seemed to be making calculations. Then they went back into the castle, and I never saw my father again."
"Why did you not go in at once according to your intention?"
"Because my mother said that she thought some important work was on hand, and that maybe the baron would not like that women should know aught of it, for he was of suspicious and evil mind. More than this I know not. The castle had already been finished, and most of the masons discharged. There were, however, a party of serfs kept at work, and also some masons, and rumour had it that they were engaged in making the secret passages. Whether it was so or not I cannot say, but I know that none of that party ever left the castle alive. It was given out that a bad fever had raged there, but none believed it; and the report went about, and was I doubt not true, that all had been killed, to preserve the secret of the passage."
Cuthbert lost no time in making use of the information that he had gained.
Early next morning, at daybreak, he started on his pony to Wortham.
As he did not wish the earl or his followers to know the facts that he had learned until they were proved, he made his way round the camp of the besiegers, and by means of his whistle called one of the foresters to him.
"Where is Cnut?" he asked.
"He is with a party occupied in making ladders."
"Go to him," Cuthbert said, "and tell him to withdraw quietly and make his way here. I have an important matter on which I wish to speak to him,'" Cnut arrived in a few minutes, somewhat wondering at the message. He brightened greatly when Cuthbert told him what he had learned.
"This is indeed important," he said. "We will lose no time in searching the copse you speak of. You and I, together with two of my most trusty men, with axes to clear away the brush, will do. At present a thing of this sort had best be kept between as few as may be."
They started at once and soon came down upon the stream.
It ran at this point in a little valley, some twenty or thirty feet deep. On the bank not far from the castle grew a small wood, and it was in this that Cuthbert hoped to find the passage spoken of by Gurth.
The trees and brushwood were so thick that it was apparent at once that if the passage had ever existed it had been unused for some years.
The woodmen were obliged to chop down dozens of young saplings to make their way up from the water towards the steeper part of the bank.
The wood was some fifty yards in length, and as it was uncertain at which point the passage had come out, a very minute search had to be made.
"What do you think it would be like, Cnut?" Cuthbert asked.
"Like enough to a rabbit-hole, or more likely still there would be no hole whatever. We must look for moss and greenery, for it is likely that such would have been planted, so as to conceal the door from any passer-by, while yet allowing a party from inside to cut their way through it without difficulty."
After a search of two hours, Cnut decided that the only place in the copse in which it was likely that the entrance to a passage could be hidden, was a spot where the ground was covered thickly with ivy and trailing plants.
"It looks level enough with the rest," Cuthbert said.
"Ay, lad, but we know not what lies behind this thick screen of ivy.
Thrust in that staff."
One of the woodmen began to probe with the end of a staff among the ivy. For some time he was met by the solid ground, but presently the butt of the staff went through suddenly, pitching him on his head, amidst a suppressed laugh from his comrades.
"Here it is, if anywhere," said Cnut, and with their billhooks they at once began to clear away the thickly grown creepers.
Five minutes' work was sufficient to show a narrow cut, some two feet wide, in the hill side, at the end of which stood a low door.
"Here it is," said Cnut, with triumph, "and the castle is ours. Thanks, Cuthbert, for your thought and intelligence. It has not been used lately, that is clear," he went on. "These creepers have not been moved for years. Shall we go and tell the earl of our discovery? What think you, Cuthbert?"
"I think we had better