Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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Chancellor (for to such high preferment did the wily Norman
aspire) hastened to receive the orders of the future sovereign.
CHAPTER XVI
Far in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew;
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well
Remote from man, with God he pass’d his days,
Prayer all his business---all his pleasure praise.
Parnell
The reader cannot have forgotten that the event of the tournament
was decided by the exertions of an unknown knight, whom, on
account of the passive and indifferent conduct which he had
manifested on the former part of the day, the spectators had
entitled, “Le Noir Faineant”. This knight had left the field
abruptly when the victory was achieved; and when he was called
upon to receive the reward of his valour, he was nowhere to be
found. In the meantime, while summoned by heralds and by
trumpets, the knight was holding his course northward, avoiding
all frequented paths, and taking the shortest road through the
woodlands. He paused for the night at a small hostelry lying out
of the ordinary route, where, however, he obtained from a
wandering minstrel news of the event of the tourney.
On the next morning the knight departed early, with the intention
of making a long journey; the condition of his horse, which he
had carefully spared during the preceding morning, being such as
enabled him to travel far without the necessity of much repose.
Yet his purpose was baffled by the devious paths through which he
rode, so that when evening closed upon him, he only found himself
on the frontiers of the West Riding of Yorkshire. By this time
both horse and man required refreshment, and it became necessary,
moreover, to look out for some place in which they might spend
the night, which was now fast approaching.
The place where the traveller found himself seemed unpropitious
for obtaining either shelter or refreshment, and he was likely to
be reduced to the usual expedient of knights-errant, who, on such
occasions, turned their horses to graze, and laid themselves down
to meditate on their lady-mistress, with an oak-tree for a
canopy. But the Black Knight either had no mistress to meditate
upon, or, being as indifferent in love as he seemed to be in war,
was not sufficiently occupied by passionate reflections upon her
beauty and cruelty, to be able to parry the effects of fatigue
and hunger, and suffer love to act as a substitute for the solid
comforts of a bed and supper. He felt dissatisfied, therefore,
when, looking around, he found himself deeply involved in woods,
through which indeed there were many open glades, and some paths,
but such as seemed only formed by the numerous herds of cattle
which grazed in the forest, or by the animals of chase, and the
hunters who made prey of them.
The sun, by which the knight had chiefly directed his course, had
now sunk behind the Derbyshire hills on his left, and every
effort which he might make to pursue his journey was as likely to
lead him out of his road as to advance him on his route. After
having in vain endeavoured to select the most beaten path, in
hopes it might lead to the cottage of some herdsman, or the
silvan lodge of a forester, and having repeatedly found himself
totally unable to determine on a choice, the knight resolved to
trust to the sagacity of his horse; experience having, on former
occasions, made him acquainted with the wonderful talent
possessed by these animals for extricating themselves and their
riders on such emergencies.
The good steed, grievously fatigued with so long a day’s journey
under a rider cased in mail, had no sooner found, by the
slackened reins, that he was abandoned to his own guidance, than
he seemed to assume new strength and spirit; and whereas,
formerly he had scarce replied to the spur, otherwise than by a
groan, he now, as if proud of the confidence reposed in him,
pricked up his ears, and assumed, of his own accord, a more
lively motion. The path which the animal adopted rather turned
off from the course pursued by the knight during the day; but as
the horse seemed confident in his choice, the rider abandoned
himself to his discretion.
He was justified by the event; for the footpath soon after
appeared a little wider and more worn, and the tinkle of a small
bell gave the knight to understand that he was in the vicinity
of some chapel or hermitage.
Accordingly, he soon reached an open plat of turf, on the
opposite side of which, a rock, rising abruptly from a gently
sloping plain, offered its grey and weatherbeaten front to the
traveller. Ivy mantled its sides in some places, and in others
oaks and holly bushes, whose roots found nourishment in the
cliffs of the crag, waved over the precipices below, like the
plumage of the warrior over his steel helmet, giving grace to
that whose chief expression was terror. At the bottom of the
rock, and leaning, as it were, against it, was constructed a rude
hut, built chiefly of the trunks of trees felled in the
neighbouring forest, and secured against the weather by having
its crevices stuffed with moss mingled with clay. The stem of a
young fir-tree lopped of its branches, with a piece of wood tied
across near the top, was planted upright by the door, as a rude
emblem of the holy cross. At a little distance on the right
hand, a fountain of the purest water trickled out of the rock,
and was received in a hollow stone, which labour had formed into
a rustic basin. Escaping from thence, the stream murmured down
the descent by a channel which its course had long worn, and so
wandered through the little plain to lose itself in the
neighbouring wood.
Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of
which the roof had partly fallen in. The building, when entire,
had never been above sixteen feet long by twelve feet in breadth,
and the roof, low in proportion, rested upon four concentric
arches which sprung from the four corners of the building, each
supported upon a short and heavy pillar. The ribs of two of
these arches remained, though the roof had fallen down betwixt
them; over the others it remained entire. The entrance to this
ancient place of devotion was under a very low round arch,
ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding,
resembling shark’s teeth, which appears so often in the more
ancient Saxon architecture. A belfry rose above the porch on
four small pillars, within which hung the green and weatherbeaten
bell, the feeble sounds of which had been some time before heard
by the Black Knight.
The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight
before the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of
lodging for the night; since it was a special duty of those
hermits who dwelt in the woods, to exercise hospitality towards
benighted or bewildered passengers.
Accordingly, the knight took no time to consider minutely the
particulars which we have detailed, but thanking Saint Julian
(the patron of travellers) who had sent him good harbourage, he
leaped from his horse and assailed the door of the hermitage
with the butt of his lance, in order to arouse attention and
gain admittance.
It was some time before he obtained any answer,
and the reply, when made, was unpropitious.
“Pass on, whosoever thou art,” was the answer given by a deep
hoarse voice from within the hut, “and disturb not the servant of
God and St Dunstan in his evening devotions.”
“Worthy father,” answered the knight, “here is a poor wanderer
bewildered in these woods, who gives thee the opportunity of
exercising thy charity and hospitality.”
“Good brother,” replied the inhabitant of the hermitage, “it has
pleased Our Lady and St Dunstan to destine me for the object of
those virtues, instead of the exercise thereof. I have no
provisions here which even a dog would share with me, and a horse
of any tenderness of nurture would despise my couch---pass
therefore on thy way, and God speed thee.”
“But how,” replied the knight, “is it possible for me to find my
way through such a wood as this, when darkness is coming on? I
pray you, reverend father as you are a Christian, to undo your
door, and at least point out to me my road.”
“And I pray you, good Christian brother,” replied the anchorite,
“to disturb me no more. You have already interrupted one
‘pater’, two ‘aves’, and a ‘credo’, which I, miserable sinner
that I am, should, according to my vow, have said before
moonrise.”
“The road---the road!” vociferated the knight, “give me
directions for the road, if I am to expect no more from thee.”
“The road,” replied the hermit, “is easy to hit. The path from
the wood leads to a morass, and from thence to a ford, which, as
the rains have abated, may now be passable. When thou hast
crossed the ford, thou wilt take care of thy footing up the left
bank, as it is somewhat precipitous; and the path, which hangs
over the river, has lately, as I learn, (for I seldom leave the
duties of my chapel,) given way in sundry places. Thou wilt then
keep straight forward-----”
“A broken path---a precipice---a ford, and a morass!” said the
knight interrupting him,---“Sir Hermit, if you were the holiest
that ever wore beard or told bead, you shall scarce prevail on me
to hold this road to-night. I tell thee, that thou, who livest
by the charity of the country---ill deserved, as I doubt it is
---hast no right to refuse shelter to the wayfarer when in
distress. Either open the door quickly, or, by the rood, I will
beat it down and make entry for myself.”
“Friend wayfarer,” replied the hermit, “be not importunate; if
thou puttest me to use the carnal weapon in mine own defence, it
will be e’en the worse for you.”
At this moment a distant noise of barking and growling, which the
traveller had for some time heard, became extremely loud and
furious, and made the knight suppose that the hermit, alarmed
by his threat of making forcible entry, had called the dogs who
made this clamour to aid him in his defence, out of some inner
recess in which they had been kennelled. Incensed at this
preparation on the hermit’s part for making good his inhospitable
purpose, the knight struck the door so furiously with his foot,
that posts as well as staples shook with violence.
The anchorite, not caring again to expose his door to a similar
shock, now called out aloud, “Patience, patience---spare thy
strength, good traveller, and I will presently undo the door,
though, it may be, my doing so will be little to thy pleasure.”
The door accordingly was opened; and the hermit, a large,
strong-built man, in his sackcloth gown and hood, girt with a
rope of rushes, stood before the knight. He had in one hand a
lighted torch, or link, and in the other a baton of crab-tree,
so thick and heavy, that it might well be termed a club. Two
large shaggy dogs, half greyhound half mastiff, stood ready to
rush upon the traveller as soon as the door should be opened.
But when the torch glanced upon the lofty crest and golden spurs
of the knight, who stood without, the hermit, altering probably
his original intentions, repressed the rage of his auxiliaries,
and, changing his tone to a sort of churlish courtesy, invited
the knight to enter his hut, making excuse for his unwillingness
to
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