by Walter Scott
“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 quarterstaff; 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?” demanded Locksley.
“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 has 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 I have changed this grey gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarterstaff 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 grey friar’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? I 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 partizan 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 draught 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 draught as if he had meant to exhaust the spring.
“When didst thou drink as deep a draught 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 partizan 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 St. 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 blythe 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-Bœuf.”
“What! is it Front-de-Bœuf,” 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 rende
zvous 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 Tragedy1
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-Bœuf’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 check 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 her first confession upon Good Friday eve.”
“Thou knowest best thine own privileges,” said De Bracy. “Yet, I would have sworn thy thought had been more on the old usurer’s money-bags than on the black eyes of the daughter.”
“I can admire both,” answered the Templar; “besides, the old Jew is but half-prize. I must share his spoils with Front-de-Bœuf, who will not lend us the use of his castle for nothing. I must have something that I can term exclusively my own by this foray of ours, and I have fixed on the lovely Jewess as my peculiar prize. But, now thou knowest my drift, thou wilt resume thine own original plan, wilt thou not? Thou hast nothing, thou seest, to fear from my interference.”
“No,” replied De Bracy, “I will remain beside my prize. What thou sayst is passing true, but I like not the privileges acquired by the dispensation of the Grand Master, and the merit acquired by the slaughter of three hundred Saracens. You have too good a right to a free pardon to render you very scrupulous about peccadilloes.”
While this dialogue was proceeding, Cedric was endeavouring to wring out of those who guarded him an avowal of their character and purpose. “You should be Englishmen,” said he; “and yet, sacred Heaven! you prey upon your countrymen as if you were very Normans. You should be my neighbours, and, if so, my friends; for which of my English neighbours have reason to be otherwise? I tell ye, yeomen, that even those among ye who have been branded with outlawry have had from me protection; for I have pitied their miseries, and curst the oppression of their tyrannic nobles. What, then, would you have of me? or in what can this violence serve ye? Ye are worse than brute beasts in your actions, and will you imitate them in their very dumbness?”
It was in vain that Cedric expostulated with his guards, who had too many good reasons for their silence to be induced to break it either by his wrath or his expostulations. They continued to hurry him along, travelling at a very rapid rate, until, at the end of an avenue of huge trees, arose Torquilstone, now the hoary and ancient castle of Reginald Front-de-Bœuf. It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of inferior height, which were encircled by an inner courtyard. Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied with water from a neighbouring rivulet. Front-de-Bœuf, whose character placed him often at feud with his enemies, had made considerable additions to the strength of his castle, by building towers upon the outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in castles of the period, lay through an arched barbican, or outwork, which was terminated and defended by a small turret at each corner.
Cedric no sooner saw the turrets of Front-de-Bœuf’s castle raise their grey and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun above the wood by which they were surrounded, than he instantly augured more truly concerning the cause of his misfortune.
“I did injustice,” he said, “to the thieves and outlaws of these woods, when I supposed such banditti to belong to their bands; I might as justly have confounded the foxes of these brakes with the ravening wolves of France. Tell me, dogs, is it my life or my wealth that your master aims at? Is it too much that two Saxons, myself and the noble Athelstane, should hold land in the country which was once the patrimony of our race? Put us, then, to death, and complete your tyranny by taking our lives, as you began with our liberties. If the Saxon Cedric cannot rescue England, he is willing to die for her. Tell your tyrannical master, I do only beseech him to dismiss the Lady Rowena in honour and safety. She is a woman, and he need not dread her; and with us will die all who dare fight in her cause.”
The attendants remained as mute to this address as to the former, and they now stood before the gate of the castle. De Bracy winded his horn three times, and the archers and crossbow men, who had manned the wall upon seeing their approach, hastened to lower the drawbridge and admit them. The prisoners were compelled by their guards to alight, and were conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to partake. Neither had the descendant of the Confessor much time to do justice to the good cheer placed before them, for their guards gave
him and Cedric to understand that they were to be imprisoned in a chamber apart from Rowena. Resistance was vain; and they were compelled to follow to a large room, which, rising on clumsy Saxon pillars, resembled those refectories and chapter-houses which may be still seen in the most ancient parts of our most ancient monasteries.
The Lady Rowena was next separated from her train, and conducted, with courtesy, indeed, but still without consulting her inclination, to a distant apartment. The same alarming distinction was conferred on Rebecca, in spite of her father’s entreaties, who offered even money, in this extremity of distress, that she might be permitted to abide with him. “Base unbeliever,” answered one of his guards, “when thou hast seen thy lair, thou wilt not wish thy daughter to partake it.” And, without farther discussion, the old Jew was forcibly dragged off in a different direction from the other prisoners. The domestics, after being carefully searched and disarmed, were confined in another part of the castle; and Rowena was refused even the comfort she might have derived from the attendance of her handmaiden Elgitha.
The apartment in which the Saxon chiefs were confined, for to them we turn our first attention, although at present used as a sort of guard-room, had formerly been the great hall of the castle. It was now abandoned to meaner purposes, because the present lord, among other additions to the convenience, security, and beauty of his baronial residence, had erected a new and noble hall, whose vaulted roof was supported by lighter and more elegant pillars, and fitted up with that higher degree of ornament which the Normans had already introduced into architecture.
Cedric paced the apartment, filled with indignant reflections on the past and on the present, while the apathy of his companion served, instead of patience and philosophy, to defend him against everything save the inconvenience of the present moment; and so little did he feel even this last, that he was only from time to time roused to a reply by Cedric’s animated and impassioned appeal to him.