Ivanhoe, Walter Scott [the lemonade war series txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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thus darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Boeuf was
heard, exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the
scallop-shell of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he
loiters here to hatch treason among my domestics!”
“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil conscience! But
heed him not---out and to thy people---Cry your Saxon onslaught,
and let them sing their war-song of Rollo, if they will;
vengeance shall bear a burden to it.”
As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and
Reginald Front-de-Boeuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with
some difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the
haughty Baron, who returned his courtesy with a slight
inclination of the head.
“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift---it is the
better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make.
Hast thou prepared them for death?”
“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command,
“expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power
they had fallen.”
“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “thy speech,
methinks, smacks of a Saxon tongue?”
“I was bred in the convent of St Withold of Burton,” answered
Cedric.
“Ay?” said the Baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a
Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of
messengers. That St Withold’s of Burton is an owlet’s nest worth
the harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall
protect the Saxon as little as the mail-coat.”
“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with
passion, which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.
“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are
in thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy
holy office, and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as
safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of proof.”
“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion.
“Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by
the postern.”
And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar,
Front-de-Boeuf thus schooled him in the part which he desired he
should act.
“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared
to environ this castle of Torquilstone---Tell them whatever thou
hast a mind of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that
can detain them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear
thou this scroll---But soft---canst read, Sir Priest?”
“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I
know the characters, because I have the holy service by heart,
praised be Our Lady and St Withold!”
“The fitter messenger for my purpose.---Carry thou this scroll to
the castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is
written by the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray
him to send it to York with all the speed man and horse can make.
Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and
sound behind our battlement---Shame on it, that we should be
compelled to hide thus by a pack of runagates, who are wont to
fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses!
I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art to keep
the knaves where they are, until our friends bring up their
lances. My vengeance is awake, and she is a falcon that slumbers
not till she has been gorged.”
“By my patron saint,” said Cedric, with deeper energy than became
his character, “and by every saint who has lived and died in
England, your commands shall be obeyed! Not a Saxon shall stir
from before these walls, if I have art and influence to detain
them there.”
“Ha!” said Front-de-Boeuf, “thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest,
and speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the
slaughter of the Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred
to the swine?”
Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and
would at this moment have been much the better of a hint from
Wamba’s more fertile brain. But necessity, according to the
ancient proverb, sharpens invention, and he muttered something
under his cowl concerning the men in question being
excommunicated outlaws both to church and to kingdom.
“‘Despardieux’,” answered Front-de-Boeuf, “thou hast spoken the
very truth---I forgot that the knaves can strip a fat abbot, as
well as if they had been born south of yonder salt channel. Was
it not he of St Ives whom they tied to an oak-tree, and compelled
to sing a mass while they were rifling his mails and his wallets?
---No, by our Lady---that jest was played by Gualtier of
Middleton, one of our own companions-at-arms. But they were
Saxons who robbed the chapel at St Bees of cup, candlestick and
chalice, were they not?”
“They were godless men,” answered Cedric.
“Ay, and they drank out all the good wine and ale that lay in
store for many a secret carousal, when ye pretend ye are but
busied with vigils and primes!---Priest, thou art bound to
revenge such sacrilege.”
“I am indeed bound to vengeance,” murmured Cedric; “Saint Withold
knows my heart.”
Front-de-Boeuf, in the meanwhile, led the way to a postern,
where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small
barbican, or exterior defence, which communicated with the open
field by a well-fortified sallyport.
“Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and if thou
return hither when it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap
as ever was hog’s in the shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee,
thou seemest to be a jolly confessor---come hither after the
onslaught, and thou shalt have as much Malvoisie as would drench
thy whole convent.”
“Assuredly we shall meet again,” answered Cedric.
“Something in hand the whilst,” continued the Norman; and, as
they parted at the postern door, he thrust into Cedric’s
reluctant hand a gold byzant, adding, “Remember, I will fly off
both cowl and skin, if thou failest in thy purpose.”
“And full leave will I give thee to do both,” answered Cedric,
leaving the postern, and striding forth over the free field with
a joyful step, “if, when we meet next, I deserve not better at
thine hand.”---Turning then back towards the castle, he threw the
piece of gold towards the donor, exclaiming at the same time,
“False Norman, thy money perish with thee!”
Front-de-Boeuf heard the words imperfectly, but the action was
suspicious---“Archers,” he called to the warders on the outward
battlements, “send me an arrow through yon monk’s frock!---yet
stay,” he said, as his retainers were bending their bows, “it
avails not—we must thus far trust him since we have no better
shift. I think he dares not betray me---at the worst I can but
treat with these Saxon dogs whom I have safe in kennel.---Ho!
Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and
the other churl, his companion---him I mean of Coningsburgh
---Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names are
an encumbrance to a Norman knight’s mouth, and have, as it were,
a flavour of bacon---Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince
John said, that I may wash away the relish---place it in the
armoury, and thither lead the prisoners.”
His commands were obeyed; and, upon entering that Gothic
apartment, hung with many spoils won by his own valour and that
of his father, he found a flagon of wine on the massive oaken
table, and the two Saxon captives under the guard of four of his
dependants. Front-de-Boeuf took a long drought of wine, and then
addressed his prisoners;---for the manner in which Wamba drew the
cap over his face, the change of dress, the gloomy and broken
light, and the Baron’s imperfect acquaintance with the features
of Cedric, (who avoided his Norman neighbours, and seldom stirred
beyond his own domains,) prevented him from discovering that the
most important of his captives had made his escape.
“Gallants of England,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “how relish ye your
entertainment at Torquilstone?---Are ye yet aware what your
‘surquedy’ and ‘outrecuidance’*
“Surquedy” and “outrecuidance” – insolence and presumptionmerit, for scoffing at the entertainment of a prince of the House
of Anjou?---Have ye forgotten how ye requited the unmerited
hospitality of the royal John? By God and St Dennis, an ye pay
not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the
iron bars of these windows, till the kites and hooded crows have
made skeletons of you!---Speak out, ye Saxon dogs---what bid ye
for your worthless lives?---How say you, you of Rotherwood?”
“Not a doit I,” answered poor Wamba---“and for hanging up by the
feet, my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the
biggin was bound first round my head; so turning me upside down
may peradventure restore it again.”
“Saint Genevieve!” said Front-de-Boeuf, “what have we got here?”
And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric’s cap from the
head of the Jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered
the fatal badge of servitude, the silver collar round his neck.
“Giles---Clement---dogs and varlets!” exclaimed the furious
Norman, “what have you brought me here?”
“I think I can tell you,” said De Bracy, who just entered the
apartment. “This is Cedric’s clown, who fought so manful a
skirmish with Isaac of York about a question of precedence.”
“I shall settle it for them both,” replied Front-de-Boeuf; “they
shall hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar
of Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is
the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them
the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender
of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and
vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin,
we leave them the breath of their nostrils.---Go,” said he to
two of his attendants, “fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I
pardon your error for once; the rather that you but mistook a
fool for a Saxon franklin.”
“Ay, but,” said Wamba, “your chivalrous excellency will find
there are more fools than franklins among us.”
“What means the knave?” said Front-de-Boeuf, looking towards his
followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief,
that if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew
not what was become of him.
“Saints of Heaven!” exclaimed De Bracy, “he must have escaped in
the monk’s garments!”
“Fiends of hell!” echoed Front-de-Boeuf, “it was then the boar of
Rotherwood whom I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my
own hands!---And thou,” he said to Wamba, “whose folly could
overreach the wisdom of idiots yet more gross than thyself---I
will give thee holy orders---I will shave thy crown for thee!
---Here, let them tear the scalp from his head, and then pitch
him headlong from the battlements---Thy trade is to jest, canst
thou jest now?”
“You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,” whimpered
forth poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be
overcome even by the immediate prospect of death; “if you give
me the red cap you propose, out of a simple monk you will make a
cardinal.”
“The poor wretch,” said De Bracy, “is resolved to die in his
vocation.---Front-de-Boeuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to
me to make sport for my Free Companions.---How sayst thou, knave?
Wilt thou take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?”
“Ay, with my master’s leave,” said Wamba; “for, look you,
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