Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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robbers and outlaws who were abroad, and who gave no honour to
Our Lady or St Dunstan, nor to those holy men who spent life in
their service.
“The poverty of your cell, good father,” said the knight, looking
around him, and seeing nothing but a bed of leaves, a crucifix
rudely carved in oak, a missal, with a rough-hewn table and two
stools, and one or two clumsy articles of furniture---“the
poverty of your cell should seem a sufficient defence against any
risk of thieves, not to mention the aid of two trusty dogs, large
and strong enough, I think, to pull down a stag, and of course,
to match with most men.”
“The good keeper of the forest,” said the hermit, “hath allowed
me the use of these animals, to protect my solitude until the
times shall mend.”
Having said this, he fixed his torch in a twisted branch of iron
which served for a candlestick; and, placing the oaken trivet
before the embers of the fire, which he refreshed with some dry
wood, he placed a stool upon one side of the table, and beckoned
to the knight to do the same upon the other.
They sat down, and gazed with great gravity at each other, each
thinking in his heart that he had seldom seen a stronger or more
athletic figure than was placed opposite to him.
“Reverend hermit,” said the knight, after looking long and
fixedly at his host, “were it not to interrupt your devout
meditations, I would pray to know three things of your holiness;
first, where I am to put my horse?---secondly, what I can have
for supper?---thirdly, where I am to take up my couch for the
night?”
“I will reply to you,” said the hermit, “with my finger, it being
against my rule to speak by words where signs can answer the
purpose.” So saying, he pointed successively to two corners of
the hut. “Your stable,” said he, “is there---your bed there;
and,” reaching down a platter with two handfuls of parched pease
upon it from the neighbouring shelf, and placing it upon the
table, he added, “your supper is here.”
The knight shrugged his shoulders, and leaving the hut, brought
in his horse, (which in the interim he had fastened to a tree,)
unsaddled him with much attention, and spread upon the steed’s
weary back his own mantle.
The hermit was apparently somewhat moved to compassion by the
anxiety as well as address which the stranger displayed in
tending his horse; for, muttering something about provender left
for the keeper’s palfrey, he dragged out of a recess a bundle of
forage, which he spread before the knight’s charger, and
immediately afterwards shook down a quantity of dried fern in the
corner which he had assigned for the rider’s couch. The knight
returned him thanks for his courtesy; and, this duty done, both
resumed their seats by the table, whereon stood the trencher of
pease placed between them. The hermit, after a long grace, which
had once been Latin, but of which original language few traces
remained, excepting here and there the long rolling termination
of some word or phrase, set example to his guest, by modestly
putting into a very large mouth, furnished with teeth which might
have ranked with those of a boar both in sharpness and whiteness,
some three or four dried pease, a miserable grist as it seemed
for so large and able a mill.
The knight, in order to follow so laudable an example, laid aside
his helmet, his corslet, and the greater part of his armour, and
showed to the hermit a head thick-curled with yellow hair, high
features, blue eyes, remarkably bright and sparkling, a mouth
well formed, having an upper lip clothed with mustachoes darker
than his hair, and bearing altogether the look of a bold, daring,
and enterprising man, with which his strong form well
corresponded.
The hermit, as if wishing to answer to the confidence of his
guest, threw back his cowl, and showed a round bullet head
belonging to a man in the prime of life. His close-shaven crown,
surrounded by a circle of stiff curled black hair, had something
the appearance of a parish pinfold begirt by its high hedge. The
features expressed nothing of monastic austerity, or of ascetic
privations; on the contrary, it was a bold bluff countenance,
with broad black eyebrows, a well-turned forehead, and cheeks as
round and vermilion as those of a trumpeter, from which descended
a long and curly black beard. Such a visage, joined to the
brawny form of the holy man, spoke rather of sirloins and
haunches, than of pease and pulse. This incongruity did not
escape the guest. After he had with great difficulty
accomplished the mastication of a mouthful of the dried pease, he
found it absolutely necessary to request his pious entertainer to
furnish him with some liquor; who replied to his request by
placing before him a large can of the purest water from the
fountain.
“It is from the well of St Dunstan,” said he, “in which, betwixt
sun and sun, he baptized five hundred heathen Danes and Britons
---blessed be his name!” And applying his black beard to the
pitcher, he took a draught much more moderate in quantity than
his encomium seemed to warrant.
“It seems to me, reverend father,” said the knight, “that the
small morsels which you eat, together with this holy, but
somewhat thin beverage, have thriven with you marvellously. You
appear a man more fit to win the ram at a wrestling match, or the
ring at a bout at quarter-staff, or the bucklers at a sword-play,
than to linger out your time in this desolate wilderness, saying
masses, and living upon parched pease and cold water.”
“Sir Knight,” answered the hermit, “your thoughts, like those of
the ignorant laity, are according to the flesh. It has pleased
Our Lady and my patron saint to bless the pittance to which I
restrain myself, even as the pulse and water was blessed to the
children Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, who drank the same
rather than defile themselves with the wine and meats which were
appointed them by the King of the Saracens.”
“Holy father,” said the knight, “upon whose countenance it hath
pleased Heaven to work such a miracle, permit a sinful layman to
crave thy name?”
“Thou mayst call me,” answered the hermit, “the Clerk of
Copmanhurst, for so I am termed in these parts---They add, it is
true, the epithet holy, but I stand not upon that, as being
unworthy of such addition.---And now, valiant knight, may I pray
ye for the name of my honourable guest?”
“Truly,” said the knight, “Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst, men call me
in these parts the Black Knight,---many, sir, add to it the
epithet of Sluggard, whereby I am no way ambitious to be
distinguished.”
The hermit could scarcely forbear from smiling at his guest’s
reply.
“I see,” said he, “Sir Sluggish Knight, that thou art a man of
prudence and of counsel; and moreover, I see that my poor
monastic fare likes thee not, accustomed, perhaps, as thou hast
been, to the license of courts and of camps, and the luxuries of
cities; and now I bethink me, Sir Sluggard, that when the
charitable keeper of this forest-walk left those dogs for my
protection, and also those bundles of forage, he left me also
some food, which, being unfit for my use, the very recollection
of it had escaped me amid my more weighty meditations.”
“I dare be sworn he did so,” said the knight; “I was convinced
that there was better food in the cell, Holy Clerk, since you
first doffed your cowl.---Your keeper is ever a jovial fellow;
and none who beheld thy grinders contending with these pease, and
thy throat flooded with this ungenial element, could see thee
doomed to such horse-provender and horse-beverage,” (pointing to
the provisions upon the table,) “and refrain from mending thy
cheer. Let us see the keeper’s bounty, therefore, without
delay.”
The hermit cast a wistful look upon the knight, in which there
was a sort of comic expression of hesitation, as if uncertain how
far he should act prudently in trusting his guest. There was,
however, as much of bold frankness in the knight’s countenance
as was possible to be expressed by features. His smile, too, had
something in it irresistibly comic, and gave an assurance of
faith and loyalty, with which his host could not refrain from
sympathizing.
After exchanging a mute glance or two, the hermit went to the
further side of the hut, and opened a hutch, which was concealed
with great care and some ingenuity. Out of the recesses of a
dark closet, into which this aperture gave admittance, he brought
a large pasty, baked in a pewter platter of unusual dimensions.
This mighty dish he placed before his guest, who, using his
poniard to cut it open, lost no time in making himself acquainted
with its contents.
“How long is it since the good keeper has been here?” said the
knight to his host, after having swallowed several hasty morsels
of this reinforcement to the hermit’s good cheer.
“About two months,” answered the father hastily.
“By the true Lord,” answered the knight, “every thing in your
hermitage is miraculous, Holy Clerk! for I would have been sworn
that the fat buck which furnished this venison had been running
on foot within the week.”
The hermit was somewhat discountenanced by this observation; and,
moreover, he made but a poor figure while gazing on the
diminution of the pasty, on which his guest was making desperate
inroads; a warfare in which his previous profession of abstinence
left him no pretext for joining.
“I have been in Palestine, Sir Clerk,” said the knight, stopping
short of a sudden, “and I bethink me it is a custom there that
every host who entertains a guest shall assure him of the
wholesomeness of his food, by partaking of it along with him.
Far be it from me to suspect so holy a man of aught inhospitable;
nevertheless I will be highly bound to you would you comply with
this Eastern custom.”
“To ease your unnecessary scruples, Sir Knight, I will for once
depart from my rule,” replied the hermit. And as there were no
forks in those days, his clutches were instantly in the bowels
of the pasty.
The ice of ceremony being once broken, it seemed matter of
rivalry between the guest and the entertainer which should
display the best appetite; and although the former had probably
fasted longest, yet the hermit fairly surpassed him.
“Holy Clerk,” said the knight, when his hunger was appeased, “I
would gage my good horse yonder against a zecchin, that that same
honest keeper to whom we are obliged for the venison has left
thee a stoup of wine, or a runlet of canary, or some such trifle,
by way of ally to this noble pasty. This would be a
circumstance, doubtless, totally unworthy to dwell in the memory
of so rigid an anchorite; yet, I think, were you to search yonder
crypt once more, you would find that I am right in my
conjecture.”
The hermit only replied by a grin; and returning to the hutch, he
produced a leathern bottle, which might contain about four
quarts. He also brought forth two large drinking cups, made out
of the horn of the urus, and hooped with silver. Having made
this goodly provision for washing down the supper, he seemed to
think no farther ceremonious scruple necessary on his part; but
filling both cups, and saying, in the Saxon fashion, “‘Waes
hael’, Sir Sluggish Knight!” he emptied his own at a draught.
“‘Drink hael’, Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst!” answered the warrior,
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