Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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I confess him in haste---for his lady desires
No comfort on earth save the Barefooted Friar’s.
3.
Your monarch?---Pshaw! many a prince has been known
To barter his robes for our cowl and our gown,
But which of us e’er felt the idle desire
To exchange for a crown the grey hood of a Friar!
4.
The Friar has walk’d out, and where’er he has gone,
The land and its fatness is mark’d for his own;
He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires,
For every man’s house is the Barefooted Friar’s.
5.
He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes
May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums
For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,
Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.
6.
He’s expected at night, and the pasty’s made hot,
They broach the brown ale, and they fill the black pot,
And the goodwife would wish the goodman in the mire,
Ere he lack’d a soft pillow, the Barefooted Friar.
7.
Long flourish the sandal, the cord, and the cope,
The dread of the devil and trust of the Pope;
For to gather life’s roses, unscathed by the briar,
Is granted alone to the Barefooted Friar.
“By my troth,” said the knight, “thou hast sung well and lustily,
and in high praise of thine order. And, talking of the devil,
Holy Clerk, are you not afraid that he may pay you a visit during
some of your uncanonical pastimes?”
“I uncanonical!” answered the hermit; “I scorn the charge---I
scorn it with my heels!---I serve the duty of my chapel duly and
truly---Two masses daily, morning and evening, primes, noons, and
vespers, ‘aves, credos, paters’------”
“Excepting moonlight nights, when the venison is in season,” said
his guest.
“‘Exceptis excipiendis’” replied the hermit, “as our old abbot
taught me to say, when impertinent laymen should ask me if I kept
every punctilio of mine order.”
“True, holy father,” said the knight; “but the devil is apt to
keep an eye on such exceptions; he goes about, thou knowest, like
a roaring lion.”
“Let him roar here if he dares,” said the friar; “a touch of my
cord will make him roar as loud as the tongs of St Dunstan
himself did. I never feared man, and I as little fear the devil
and his imps. Saint Dunstan, Saint Dubric, Saint Winibald, Saint
Winifred, Saint Swibert, Saint Willick, not forgetting Saint
Thomas a Kent, and my own poor merits to speed, I defy every
devil of them, come cut and long tail.---But to let you into a
secret, I never speak upon such subjects, my friend, until after
morning vespers.”
He changed the conversation; fast and furious grew the mirth of
the parties, and many a song was exchanged betwixt them, when
their revels were interrupted by a loud knocking at the door of
the hermitage.
The occasion of this interruption we can only explain by resuming
the adventures of another set of our characters; for, like old
Ariosto, we do not pique ourselves upon continuing uniformly to
keep company with any one personage of our drama.
CHAPTER XVIII
Away! our journey lies through dell and dingle,
Where the blithe fawn trips by its timid mother,
Where the broad oak, with intercepting boughs,
Chequers the sunbeam in the green-sward alley---
Up and away!---for lovely paths are these
To tread, when the glad Sun is on his throne
Less pleasant, and less safe, when Cynthia’s lamp
With doubtful glimmer lights the dreary forest.
Ettrick Forest
When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the
lists at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the
custody and care of his own attendants, but the words choked in
his throat. He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in
presence of such an assembly, the son whom he had renounced and
disinherited. He ordered, however, Oswald to keep an eye upon
him; and directed that officer, with two of his serfs, to convey
Ivanhoe to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. Oswald,
however, was anticipated in this good office. The crowd
dispersed, indeed, but the knight was nowhere to be seen.
It was in vain that Cedric’s cupbearer looked around for his
young master---he saw the bloody spot on which he had lately sunk
down, but himself he saw no longer; it seemed as if the fairies
had conveyed him from the spot. Perhaps Oswald (for the Saxons
were very superstitious) might have adopted some such hypothesis,
to account for Ivanhoe’s disappearance, had he not suddenly cast
his eye upon a person attired like a squire, in whom he
recognised the features of his fellow-servant Gurth. Anxious
concerning his master’s fate, and in despair at his sudden
disappearance, the translated swineherd was searching for him
everywhere, and had neglected, in doing so, the concealment on
which his own safety depended. Oswald deemed it his duty to
secure Gurth, as a fugitive of whose fate his master was to
judge.
Renewing his enquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, the only
information which the cupbearer could collect from the bystanders
was, that the knight had been raised with care by certain
well-attired grooms, and placed in a litter belonging to a lady
among the spectators, which had immediately transported him out
of the press. Oswald, on receiving this intelligence, resolved
to return to his master for farther instructions, carrying along
with him Gurth, whom he considered in some sort as a deserter
from the service of Cedric.
The Saxon had been under very intense and agonizing apprehensions
concerning his son; for Nature had asserted her rights, in spite
of the patriotic stoicism which laboured to disown her. But no
sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful, and probably
in friendly hands, than the paternal anxiety which had been
excited by the dubiety of his fate, gave way anew to the feeling
of injured pride and resentment, at what he termed Wilfred’s
filial disobedience.
“Let him wander his way,” said he---“let those leech his wounds
for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the
juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame
and honour of his English ancestry with the glaive and
brown-bill, the good old weapons of his country.”
“If to maintain the honour of ancestry,” said Rowena, who was
present, “it is sufficient to be wise in council and brave in
execution---to be boldest among the bold, and gentlest among the
gentle, I know no voice, save his father’s------”
“Be silent, Lady Rowena!---on this subject only I hear you not.
Prepare yourself for the Prince’s festival: we have been summoned
thither with unwonted circumstance of honour and of courtesy,
such as the haughty Normans have rarely used to our race since
the fatal day of Hastings. Thither will I go, were it only to
show these proud Normans how little the fate of a son, who could
defeat their bravest, can affect a Saxon.”
“Thither,” said Rowena, “do I NOT go; and I pray you to beware,
lest what you mean for courage and constancy, shall be accounted
hardness of heart.”
“Remain at home, then, ungrateful lady,” answered Cedric; “thine
is the hard heart, which can sacrifice the weal of an oppressed
people to an idle and unauthorized attachment. I seek the noble
Athelstane, and with him attend the banquet of John of Anjou.”
He went accordingly to the banquet, of which we have already
mentioned the principal events. Immediately upon retiring from
the castle, the Saxon thanes, with their attendants, took horse;
and it was during the bustle which attended their doing so, that
Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the deserter
Gurth. The noble Saxon had returned from the banquet, as we have
seen, in no very placid humour, and wanted but a pretext for
wreaking his anger upon some one.
“The gyves!” he said, “the gyves!---Oswald---Hundibert!---Dogs
and villains!---why leave ye the knave unfettered?”
Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him
with a halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted
to the operation without remonstrance, except that, darting a
reproachful look at his master, he said, “This comes of loving
your flesh and blood better than mine own.”
“To horse, and forward!” said Cedric.
“It is indeed full time,” said the noble Athelstane; “for, if we
ride not the faster, the worthy Abbot Waltheoff’s preparations
for a rere-supper*
A rere-supper was a night-meal, and sometimes signified a collation, which was given at a late hour, after the regular supper had made its appearance. L. T.will be altogether spoiled.”
The travellers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent
of St Withold’s before the apprehended evil took place. The
Abbot, himself of ancient Saxon descent, received the noble
Saxons with the profuse and exuberant hospitality of their
nation, wherein they indulged to a late, or rather an early hour;
nor did they take leave of their reverend host the next morning
until they had shared with him a sumptuous refection.
As the cavalcade left the court of the monastery, an incident
happened somewhat alarming to the Saxons, who, of all people of
Europe, were most addicted to a superstitious observance of
omens, and to whose opinions can be traced most of those notions
upon such subjects, still to be found among our popular
antiquities. For the Normans being a mixed race, and better
informed according to the information of the times, had lost most
of the superstitious prejudices which their ancestors had brought
from Scandinavia, and piqued themselves upon thinking freely on
such topics.
In the present instance, the apprehension of impending evil was
inspired by no less respectable a prophet than a large lean black
dog, which, sitting upright, howled most piteously as the
foremost riders left the gate, and presently afterwards, barking
wildly, and jumping to and fro, seemed bent upon attaching itself
to the party.
“I like not that music, father Cedric,” said Athelstane; for by
this title of respect he was accustomed to address him.
“Nor I either, uncle,” said Wamba; “I greatly fear we shall have
to pay the piper.”
“In my mind,” said Athelstane, upon whose memory the Abbot’s good
ale (for Burton was already famous for that genial liquor) had
made a favourable impression,---“in my mind we had better turn
back, and abide with the Abbot until the afternoon. It is
unlucky to travel where your path is crossed by a monk, a hare,
or a howling dog, until you have eaten your next meal.”
“Away!” said Cedric, impatiently; “the day is already too short
for our journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the
runaway slave Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master.”
So saying, and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient
at the interruption of his journey, he launched his javelin at
poor Fangs---for Fangs it was, who, having traced his master thus
far upon his stolen expedition, had here lost him, and was now,
in his uncouth way, rejoicing at his reappearance. The javelin
inflicted a wound upon the animal’s shoulder, and narrowly missed
pinning him to the earth; and Fangs fled howling from the
presence of the enraged thane. Gurth’s heart swelled within him;
for he felt this meditated slaughter of his faithful adherent in
a degree much deeper than the harsh treatment he had himself
received. Having in vain attempted to raise his hand to his
eyes, he said to Wamba, who, seeing his master’s ill humour had
prudently retreated to the rear, “I pray thee, do me the kindness
to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends
me, and these bonds will not
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