Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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“His name,” said the hermit---“his name is Sir Anthony of
Scrabelstone---as if I would drink with a man, and did not know
his name!”
“Thou hast been drinking more than enough, friar,” said the
woodsman, “and, I fear, prating more than enough too.”
“Good yeoman,” said the knight, coming forward, “be not wroth
with my merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I
would have compelled from him if he had refused it.”
“Thou compel!” said the friar; “wait but till have changed this
grey gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarter-staff
ring twelve upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good
woodsman.”
While he spoke thus, he stript off his gown, and appeared in a
close black buckram doublet and drawers, over which he speedily
did on a cassock of green, and hose of the same colour. “I pray
thee truss my points,” said he to Wamba, “and thou shalt have a
cup of sack for thy labour.”
“Gramercy for thy sack,” said Wamba; “but think’st thou it is
lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit
into a sinful forester?”
“Never fear,” said the hermit; “I will but confess the sins of my
green cloak to my greyfriar’s frock, and all shall be well
again.”
“Amen!” answered the Jester; “a broadcloth penitent should have a
sackcloth confessor, and your frock may absolve my motley doublet
into the bargain.”
So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying
the endless number of points, as the laces which attached the
hose to the doublet were then termed.
While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little
apart, and addressed him thus:---“Deny it not, Sir Knight---you
are he who decided the victory to the advantage of the English
against the strangers on the second day of the tournament at
Ashby.”
“And what follows if you guess truly, good yeoman?” replied the
knight.
“I should in that case hold you,” replied the yeoman, “a friend
to the weaker party.”
“Such is the duty of a true knight at least,” replied the Black
Champion; “and I would not willingly that there were reason to
think otherwise of me.”
“But for my purpose,” said the yeoman, “thou shouldst be as well
a good Englishman as a good knight; for that, which I have to
speak of, concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is
more especially that of a true-born native of England.”
“You can speak to no one,” replied the knight, “to whom England,
and the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me.”
“I would willingly believe so,” said the woodsman, “for never had
this country such need to be supported by those who love her.
Hear me, and I will tell thee of an enterprise, in which, if thou
be’st really that which thou seemest, thou mayst take an
honourable part. A band of villains, in the disguise of better
men than themselves, have made themselves master of the person of
a noble Englishman, called Cedric the Saxon, together with his
ward, and his friend Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and have
transported them to a castle in this forest, called Torquilstone.
I ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou
aid in their rescue?”
“I am bound by my vow to do so,” replied the knight; “but I would
willingly know who you are, who request my assistance in their
behalf?”
“I am,” said the forester, “a nameless man; but I am the friend
of my country, and of my country’s friends---With this account of
me you must for the present remain satisfied, the more especially
since you yourself desire to continue unknown. Believe, however,
that my word, when pledged, is as inviolate as if I wore golden
spurs.”
“I willingly believe it,” said the knight; “I have been
accustomed to study men’s countenances, and I can read in thine
honesty and resolution. I will, therefore, ask thee no further
questions, but aid thee in setting at freedom these oppressed
captives; which done, I trust we shall part better acquainted,
and well satisfied with each other.”
“So,” said Wamba to Gurth,---for the friar being now fully
equipped, the Jester, having approached to the other side of the
hut, had heard the conclusion of the conversation,---“So we have
got a new ally ?---l trust the valour of the knight will be truer
metal than the religion of the hermit, or the honesty of the
yeoman; for this Locksley looks like a born deer-stealer, and the
priest like a lusty hypocrite.”
“Hold thy peace, Wamba,” said Gurth; “it may all be as thou dost
guess; but were the horned devil to rise and proffer me his
assistance to set at liberty Cedric and the Lady Rowena, I fear I
should hardly have religion enough to refuse the foul fiend’s
offer, and bid him get behind me.”
The friar was now completely accoutred as a yeoman, with sword
and buckler, bow, and quiver, and a strong partisan over his
shoulder. He left his cell at the head of the party, and, having
carefully locked the door, deposited the key under the threshold.
“Art thou in condition to do good service, friar,” said Locksley,
“or does the brown bowl still run in thy head?”
“Not more than a drought of St Dunstan’s fountain will allay,”
answered the priest; “something there is of a whizzing in my
brain, and of instability in my legs, but you shall presently see
both pass away.”
So saying, he stepped to the stone basin, in which the waters of
the fountain as they fell formed bubbles which danced in the
white moonlight, and took so long a drought as if he had meant to
exhaust the spring.
“When didst thou drink as deep a drought of water before, Holy
Clerk of Copmanhurst?” said the Black Knight.
“Never since my wine-butt leaked, and let out its liquor by an
illegal vent,” replied the friar, “and so left me nothing to
drink but my patron’s bounty here.”
Then plunging his hands and head into the fountain, he washed
from them all marks of the midnight revel.
Thus refreshed and sobered, the jolly priest twirled his heavy
partisan round his head with three fingers, as if he had been
balancing a reed, exclaiming at the same time, “Where be those
false ravishers, who carry off wenches against their will? May
the foul fiend fly off with me, if I am not man enough for a
dozen of them.”
“Swearest thou, Holy Clerk?” said the Black Knight.
“Clerk me no Clerks,” replied the transformed priest; “by Saint
George and the Dragon, I am no longer a shaveling than while my
frock is on my back---When I am cased in my green cassock, I
will drink, swear, and woo a lass, with any blithe forester in
the West Riding.”
“Come on, Jack Priest,” said Locksley, “and be silent; thou art
as noisy as a whole convent on a holy eve, when the Father Abbot
has gone to bed.---Come on you, too, my masters, tarry not to
talk of it---I say, come on, we must collect all our forces, and
few enough we shall have, if we are to storm the Castle of
Reginald Front-de-Boeuf.”
“What! is it Front-de-Boeuf,” said the Black Knight, “who has
stopt on the king’s highway the king’s liege subjects?---Is he
turned thief and oppressor?”
“Oppressor he ever was,” said Locksley.
“And for thief,” said the priest, “I doubt if ever he were even
half so honest a man as many a thief of my acquaintance.”
“Move on, priest, and be silent,” said the yeoman; “it were
better you led the way to the place of rendezvous, than say what
should be left unsaid, both in decency and prudence.”
CHAPTER XXI
Alas, how many hours and years have past,
Since human forms have round this table sate,
Or lamp, or taper, on its surface gleam’d!
Methinks, I hear the sound of time long pass’d
Still murmuring o’er us, in the lofty void
Of these dark arches, like the ling’ring voices
Of those who long within their graves have slept.
Orra, a Tragedy
While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his
companions, the armed men by whom the latter had been seized,
hurried their captives along towards the place of security, where
they intended to imprison them. But darkness came on fast, and
the paths of the wood seemed but imperfectly known to the
marauders. They were compelled to make several long halts, and
once or twice to return on their road to resume the direction
which they wished to pursue. The summer morn had dawned upon
them ere they could travel in full assurance that they held the
right path. But confidence returned with light, and the
cavalcade now moved rapidly forward. Meanwhile, the following
dialogue took place between the two leaders of the banditti.
“It is time thou shouldst leave us, Sir Maurice,” said the
Templar to De Bracy, “in order to prepare the second part of thy
mystery. Thou art next, thou knowest, to act the Knight
Deliverer.”
“I have thought better of it,” said De Bracy; “I will not leave
thee till the prize is fairly deposited in Front-de-Boeuf’s
castle. There will I appear before the Lady Rowena in mine own
shape, and trust that she will set down to the vehemence of my
passion the violence of which I have been guilty.”
“And what has made thee change thy plan, De Bracy?” replied the
Knight Templar.
“That concerns thee nothing,” answered his companion.
“I would hope, however, Sir Knight,” said the Templar, “that this
alteration of measures arises from no suspicion of my honourable
meaning, such as Fitzurse endeavoured to instil into thee?”
“My thoughts are my own,” answered De Bracy; “the fiend laughs,
they say, when one thief robs another; and we know, that were he
to spit fire and brimstone instead, it would never prevent a
Templar from following his bent.”
“Or the leader of a Free Company,” answered the Templar, “from
dreading at the hands of a comrade and friend, the injustice he
does to all mankind.”
“This is unprofitable and perilous recrimination,” answered De
Bracy; “suffice it to say, I know the morals of the Temple-Order,
and I will not give thee the power of cheating me out of the fair
prey for which I have run such risks.”
“Psha,” replied the Templar, “what hast thou to fear?---Thou
knowest the vows of our order.”
“Right well,” said De Bracy, “and also how they are kept. Come,
Sir Templar, the laws of gallantry have a liberal interpretation
in Palestine, and this is a case in which I will trust nothing to
your conscience.”
“Hear the truth, then,” said the Templar; “I care not for your
blue-eyed beauty. There is in that train one who will make me a
better mate.”
“What! wouldst thou stoop to the waiting damsel?” said De Bracy.
“No, Sir Knight,” said the Templar, haughtily. “To the
waiting-woman will I not stoop. I have a prize among the
captives as lovely as thine own.”
“By the mass, thou meanest the fair Jewess!” said De Bracy.
“And if I do,” said Bois-Guilbert, “who shall gainsay me?”
“No one that I know,” said De Bracy, “unless it be your vow of
celibacy, or a cheek of conscience for an intrigue with a
Jewess.”
“For my vow,” said the Templar, “our Grand Master hath granted me
a dispensation. And for my conscience, a man that has slain
three hundred Saracens, need not reckon up every little failing,
like a village girl at
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