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Updated: June 20, 2025
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.
Taken wholly by surprise by the foe, who seemed to have risen from the bowels of the earth by magic, the soldiers of the Baron of Wortham offered but a feeble resistance. Some were cast over the battlement of the keep, some driven down staircases, others cut down, and then, Cuthbert fastening a small white flag he had prepared to his quarterstaff, waved it above the battlements.
Is he bent, I wonder, on settling once and for all his quarrels with the Baron of Wortham? or can he be intending to make a clear sweep of the woods? Ah! here comes my gossip Hubert; he may tell me the meaning of this gathering." Leaping to his feet, the speaker started at a brisk walk to meet a jovial-looking personage coming down from the direction of the castle.
This would be a work of fully two days; and in the meantime Cuthbert returned to the farm. 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?"
Chavis counted among his students W.P. Mangum, afterwards United States Senator, P.H. Mangum, his brother, Archibald and John Henderson, sons of Chief Justice Henderson, Charles Manly, afterwards Governor of that commonwealth, and Dr. James L. Wortham of Oxford, North Carolina.
It may be, indeed, that this gathering is for the purpose of falling in force upon that evil-disposed and most treacherous baron, Sir John of Wortham, who has already begun to harry some of the outlying lands, and has driven off, I hear, many heads of cattle.
The main body of Sir Walter's followers were deep in the recesses of the forest, and this lay altogether out of the line for Wortham, and there would be no chance whatever of bringing them up in time to cut off the marauders on their way back. There remained only the outlaws, who by this time would be in Langholm Forest, perhaps within a mile or two of the castle itself.
There were many among the barons who considered the mildness of the Earl of Evesham towards the Saxons in his district to be a mistake, and who, although not actually approving of the tyranny and brutality of the Baron of Wortham, yet looked upon his cause to some extent as their own. The Castle of Wortham stood upon ground but very slightly elevated above the surrounding country.
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.
The drinking-cups, some of which were of silver, looking strangely out of place among the rough horn implements and platters, were bundled together, carried a short distance and dropped among some thick bushes for safety; and then the band started for Wortham. With a cordial farewell and many thanks to Cuthbert, who declined their invitations to accompany them, the retreat to Langholm commenced.
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