Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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rifle, and ransom, and make prisoners, in these forests?”
“You may look at their cassocks close by,” said Wamba, “and see
whether they be thy children’s coats or no---for they are as like
thine own, as one green pea-cod is to another.”
“I will learn that presently,” answered Locksley; “and I charge
ye, on peril of your lives, not to stir from the place where ye
stand, until I have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the
better for you and your masters.---Yet stay, I must render
myself as like these men as possible.”
So saying he unbuckled his baldric with the bugle, took a
feather from his cap, and gave them to Wamba; then drew a vizard
from his pouch, and, repeating his charges to them to stand fast,
went to execute his purposes of reconnoitring.
“Shall we stand fast, Gurth?” said Wamba; “or shall we e’en give
him leg-bail? In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a
thief too much in readiness, to be himself a true man.”
“Let him be the devil,” said Gurth, “an he will. We can be no
worse of waiting his return. If he belong to that party, he must
already have given them the alarm, and it will avail nothing
either to fight or fly. Besides, I have late experience, that
errant thieves are not the worst men in the world to have to deal
with.”
The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.
“Friend Gurth,” he said, “I have mingled among yon men, and have
learnt to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There
is, I think, no chance that they will proceed to any actual
violence against their prisoners. For three men to attempt them
at this moment, were little else than madness; for they are good
men of war, and have, as such, placed sentinels to give the alarm
when any one approaches. But I trust soon to gather such a
force, as may act in defiance of all their precautions; you are
both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants, of Cedric the
Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want
English hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me,
until I gather more aid.”
So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed
by the jester and the swineherd. It was not consistent with
Wamba’s humour to travel long in silence.
“I think,” said he, looking at the baldric and bugle which he
still carried, “that I saw the arrow shot which won this gay
prize, and that not so long since as Christmas.”
“And I,” said Gurth, “could take it on my halidome, that I have
heard the voice of the good yeoman who won it, by night as well
as by day, and that the moon is not three days older since I
did so.”
“Mine honest friends,” replied the yeoman, “who, or what I am, is
little to the present purpose; should I free your master, you
will have reason to think me the best friend you have ever had
in your lives. And whether I am known by one name or another
---or whether I can draw a bow as well or better than a
cow-keeper, or whether it is my pleasure to walk in sunshine or
by moonlight, are matters, which, as they do not concern you, so
neither need ye busy yourselves respecting them.”
“Our heads are in the lion’s mouth,” said Wamba, in a whisper to
Gurth, “get them out how we can.”
“Hush---be silent,” said Gurth. “Offend him not by thy folly,
and I trust sincerely that all will go well.”
CHAPTER XX
When autumn nights were long and drear,
And forest walks were dark and dim,
How sweetly on the pilgrim’s ear
Was wont to steal the hermit’s hymn
Devotion borrows Music’s tone,
And Music took Devotion’s wing;
And, like the bird that hails the sun,
They soar to heaven, and soaring sing.
The Hermit of St Clement’s Well
It was after three hours’ good walking that the servants of
Cedric, with their mysterious guide, arrived at a small opening
in the forest, in the centre of which grew an oak-tree of
enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted branches in every
direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay stretched
on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro in
the moonlight shade.
Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly
gave the alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent
their bows. Six arrows placed on the string were pointed
towards the quarter from which the travellers approached, when
their guide, being recognised, was welcomed with every token of
respect and attachment, and all signs and fears of a rough
reception at once subsided.
“Where is the Miller?” was his first question.
“On the road towards Rotherham.”
“With how many?” demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.
“With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please St Nicholas.”
“Devoutly spoken,” said Locksley; “and where is Allan-a-Dale?”
“Walked up towards the Watling-street, to watch for the Prior of
Jorvaulx.”
“That is well thought on also,” replied the Captain;---“and where
is the Friar?”
“In his cell.”
“Thither will I go,” said Locksley. “Disperse and seek your
companions. Collect what force you can, for there’s game afoot
that must be hunted hard, and will turn to bay. Meet me here by
daybreak.---And stay,” he added, “I have forgotten what is most
necessary of the whole---Two of you take the road quickly towards
Torquilstone, the Castle of Front-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants,
who have been masquerading in such guise as our own, are carrying
a band of prisoners thither---Watch them closely, for even if
they reach the castle before we collect our force, our honour is
concerned to punish them, and we will find means to do so. Keep
a close watch on them therefore; and dispatch one of your
comrades, the lightest of foot, to bring the news of the yeomen
thereabout.”
They promised implicit obedience, and departed with alacrity on
their different errands. In the meanwhile, their leader and his
two companions, who now looked upon him with great respect, as
well as some fear, pursued their way to the Chapel of
Copmanhurst.
When they had reached the little moonlight glade, having in front
the reverend, though ruinous chapel, and the rude hermitage, so
well suited to ascetic devotion, Wamba whispered to Gurth, “If
this be the habitation of a thief, it makes good the old proverb,
The nearer the church the farther from God.---And by my
coxcomb,” he added, “I think it be even so---Hearken but to the
black sanctus which they are singing in the hermitage!”
In fact the anchorite and his guest were performing, at the full
extent of their very powerful lungs, an old drinking song, of
which this was the burden:---
“Come, trowl the brown bowl to me,
Bully boy, bully boy,
Come, trowl the brown bowl to me:
Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave in drinking,
Come, trowl the brown bowl to me.”
“Now, that is not ill sung,” said Wamba, who had thrown in a few
of his own flourishes to help out the chorus. “But who, in the
saint’s name, ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come
from out a hermit’s cell at midnight!”
“Marry, that should I,” said Gurth, “for the jolly Clerk of
Copmanhurst is a known man, and kills half the deer that are
stolen in this walk. Men say that the keeper has complained to
his official, and that he will be stripped of his cowl and cope
altogether, if he keeps not better order.”
While they were thus speaking, Locksley’s loud and repeated
knocks had at length disturbed the anchorite and his guest.
“By my beads,” said the hermit, stopping short in a grand
flourish, “here come more benighted guests. I would not for my
cowl that they found us in this goodly exercise. All men have
their enemies, good Sir Sluggard; and there be those malignant
enough to construe the hospitable refreshment which I have been
offering to you, a weary traveller, for the matter of three short
hours, into sheer drunkenness and debauchery, vices alike alien
to my profession and my disposition.”
“Base calumniators!” replied the knight; “I would I had the
chastising of them. Nevertheless, Holy Clerk, it is true that
all have their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom
I would rather speak to through the bars of my helmet than
barefaced.”
“Get thine iron pot on thy head then, friend Sluggard, as quickly
as thy nature will permit,” said the hermit, “while I remove
these pewter flagons, whose late contents run strangely in mine
own pate; and to drown the clatter---for, in faith, I feel
somewhat unsteady---strike into the tune which thou hearest me
sing; it is no matter for the words---I scarce know them myself.”
So saying, he struck up a thundering “De profundis clamavi”,
under cover of which he removed the apparatus of their banquet:
while the knight, laughing heartily, and arming himself all the
while, assisted his host with his voice from time to time as his
mirth permitted.
“What devil’s matins are you after at this hour?” said a voice
from without.
“Heaven forgive you, Sir Traveller!” said the hermit, whose own
noise, and perhaps his nocturnal potations, prevented from
recognising accents which were tolerably familiar to him---“Wend
on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and disturb
not the devotions of me and my holy brother.”
“Mad priest,” answered the voice from without, “open to
Locksley!”
“All’s safe---all’s right,” said the hermit to his companion.
“But who is he?” said the Black Knight; “it imports me much to
know.”
“Who is he?” answered the hermit; “I tell thee he is a friend.”
“But what friend?” answered the knight; “for he may be friend to
thee and none of mine?”
“What friend?” replied the hermit; “that, now, is one of the
questions that is more easily asked than answered. What friend?
---why, he is, now that I bethink me a little, the very same
honest keeper I told thee of a while since.”
“Ay, as honest a keeper as thou art a pious hermit,” replied the
knight, “I doubt it not. But undo the door to him before he beat
it from its hinges.”
The dogs, in the meantime, which had made a dreadful baying at
the commencement of the disturbance, seemed now to recognise the
voice of him who stood without; for, totally changing their
manner, they scratched and whined at the door, as if interceding
for his admission. The hermit speedily unbolted his portal, and
admitted Locksley, with his two companions.
“Why, hermit,” was the yeoman’s first question as soon as he
beheld the knight, “what boon companion hast thou here?”
“A brother of our order,” replied the friar, shaking his head;
“we have been at our orisons all night.”
“He is a monk of the church militant, I think,” answered
Locksley; “and there be more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar,
thou must lay down the rosary and take up the quarter-staff; we
shall need every one of our merry men, whether clerk or layman.
---But,” he added, taking him a step aside, “art thou mad? to
give admittance to a knight thou dost not know? Hast thou forgot
our articles?”
“Not know him!” replied the friar, boldly, “I know him as well as
the beggar knows his dish.”
“And what is his name, then?”
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