a dismal life for youth in sunshiny weather

When I was a child,” he said, “this was a thriving village. Bourtree was its name — Bourtree in the Bush, men called it. Half a hundred souls had their dwelling here, and it was noted over all the land for its honey. You must know that there was a miracle wrought here. Once upon a time a fellow stole a fragment of the Host that he might work magic by it, and set it by his hives to improve their yield. But the bees, the little pious ones, built round it a church all of wax, with altar and windows and steeple, to protect its holiness. You have heard the tale? Peter nodded. He had told the story to the novices at Oseney.Behold Bourtree to-day! The church is a heap of stones, most of which they have carried off to help build the new great church at Charlbury. What was once tillage and orchard is now sheep-walks for the graziers. The men and women that dwelled here are most of them under the sod, and if any still live, they are nameless folk drifting like blown leaves in the shadows. He lifted his head and looked Peter full in the face with his odd melancholy eyes. “Much of old England is gone to ground, my lord,” he said. “Keep that in your mind and ponder on it, for it may deeply concern your own business. I have brought you to a Pisgah-sight,” said Darking an hour later. The land is your own, so long as I am with you, and you are as secure as a badger in its earth. What are your commands, my lord? I can hide you so snugly till the summons comes that all the King’s armies searching daily for ten years would not find you. But that might be but a dismal life for youth in sunshiny weather. Or... He paused.
Or I can take you with me a little way underground — among the masterless folk who will soon be half our people. I ask no questions, my lord, but he at Wood Eaton warned me that you were a precious piece of goods that mattered much for the welfare of England. The gentles play their high games and the noise of them fills the world, but in the end it is the simple who decree the issue. Would you sojourn for awhile among the simple? I was bred among them, said Peter. I would first see my foster~mother, the widow Sweetbread, who lives below Leafield on the forest edge. Do you know the place? Nay, then, since you are Mother Sweetbread’s fosterling, you have already the right of entry among all the forest people. Well I know her. Her good-man, Robin Sweetbread, was my trusty comrade.” He seemed suddenly to look at Peter with changed eyes, as if a special password to his confidence had been spoken.
When they took the road again, so as to ford Evenlode and come down the Windrush side, Darking, while still wary in choosing obscure paths, was no longer silent. Friendliness now mingled with his dignity. He spoke to Peter like a respectful kinsman. He was quick to point out, here a derelict farm, there a ruined village, among the grassy spaces of the hills. Twas the little granges first, and then the hamlets, and now, if all tales be true, ’twill soon be the proud abbeys. Nought of man’s work in England is steadfast, not even the houses he has built for God. What sends an earl to the block sends a churl to the gallows’ hill, and the churl’s wife and children to eat nettles by the wayside. None is safe to-day save those who do not raise their noses above the covert, and the numbers in the covert grow fast. Are you among them? Peter asked.
Darking lifted his head proudly. No man can harm us of the old England and the older blood. Kings and nobles and priests may pass, but we remain. Ours is the fallentis semita vit?, which is beyond the ken of the great. Peter cried out in surprise: Have you the Latin? A tag or two,” and a smile wrinkled the sallow cheeks.
Mother Sweetbread welcomed Peter as one recovered from the dead. She strained him to her breast and wept over him. “They said you were drowned,” she crooned. Brother Tobias spoke a word in my ear that you still lived, but he warned me that I should never see you more. And now you come stepping like Robin Hood out of the woods, clad as a proper man and no clerk. Son Peterkin, you are now a man indeed.