Maid Marian
Page 4
CHAPTER IV
Are you mad, or what are you, that you squeak out your catches without mitigation or remorse of voice? --Twelfth Night.
Matilda, not dreaming of visitors, tripped into the apartment in a dressof forest green, with a small quiver by her side, and a bow and arrowin her hand. Her hair, black and glossy as the raven's wing, curledlike wandering clusters of dark ripe grapes under the edge of her roundbonnet; and a plume of black feathers fell back negligently above it,with an almost horizontal inclination, that seemed the habitual effectof rapid motion against the wind. Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeamson a river: a clear, deep, liquid radiance, the reflection of etherealfire,--tempered, not subdued, in the medium of its living and gentlemirror. Her lips were half opened to speak as she entered the apartment;and with a smile of recognition to the friar, and a courtesy to thestranger knight, she approached the baron and said, "You are late atyour breakfast, father."
"I am not at breakfast," said the baron. "I have been at supper: my lastnight's supper; for I had none."
"I am sorry," said Matilda, "you should have gone to bed supperless."
"I did not go to bed supperless," said the baron: "I did not go to bedat all: and what are you doing with that green dress and that bow andarrow?"
"I am going a-hunting," said Matilda.
"A-hunting!" said the baron. "What, I warrant you, to meet with theearl, and slip your neck into the same noose?"
"No," said Matilda: "I am not going out of our own woods to-day."
"How do I know that?" said the baron. "What surety have I of that?"
"Here is the friar," said Matilda. "He will be surety."
"Not he," said the baron: "he will undertake nothing but where the devilis a party concerned."
"Yes, I will," said the friar: "I will undertake any thing for the ladyMatilda."
"No matter for that," said the baron: "she shall not go hunting to day."
"Why, father," said Matilda, "if you coop me up here in this odiouscastle, I shall pine and die like a lonely swan on a pool.
"No," said the baron, "the lonely swan does not die on the pool. Ifthere be a river at hand, she flies to the river, and finds her a mate;and so shall not you."
"But," said Matilda, "you may send with me any, or as many, of yourgrooms as you will."
"My grooms," said the baron, "are all false knaves. There is not arascal among them but loves you better than me. Villains that I feed andclothe."
"Surely," said Matilda, "it is not villany to love me: if it be, Ishould be sorry my father were an honest man." The baron relaxed hismuscles into a smile. "Or my lover either," added Matilda. The baronlooked grim again.
"For your lover," said the baron, "you may give God thanks of him. He isas arrant a knave as ever poached."
"What, for hunting the king's deer?" said Matilda. "Have I not heard yourail at the forest laws by the hour?"
"Did you ever hear me," said the baron, "rail myself out of house andland? If I had done that, then were I a knave."
"My lover," said Matilda, "is a brave man, and a true man, and agenerous man, and a young man, and a handsome man; aye, and an honestman too."
"How can he be an honest man," said the baron, "when he has neitherhouse nor land, which are the better part of a man?"
"They are but the husk of a man," said Matilda, "the worthless coat ofthe chesnut: the man himself is the kernel."
"The man is the grape stone," said the baron, "and the pulp of themelon. The house and land are the true substantial fruit, and all thatgive him savour and value."
"He will never want house or land," said Matilda, "while the meetingboughs weave a green roof in the wood, and the free range of the hartmarks out the bounds of the forest."
"Vert and venison! vert and venison!" exclaimed the baron. "Treasonand flat rebellion. Confound your smiling face! what makes you look sogood-humoured? What! you think I can't look at you, and be in a passion?You think so, do you? We shall see. Have you no fear in talking thus,when here is the king's liegeman come to take us all into custody, andconfiscate our goods and chattels?"
"Nay, Lord Fitzwater," said Sir Ralph, "you wrong me in your report. Myvisit is one of courtesy and excuse, not of menace and authority."
"There it is," said the baron: "every one takes a pleasure incontradicting me. Here is this courteous knight, who has not openedhis mouth three times since he has been in my house except to take inprovision, cuts me short in my story with a flat denial."
"Oh! I cry you mercy, sir knight," said Matilda; "I did not mark youbefore. I am your debtor for no slight favour, and so is my liege lord."
"Her liege lord!" exclaimed the baron, taking large strides across thechamber.
"Pardon me, gentle lady," said Sir Ralph. "Had I known you beforeyesterday, I would have cut off my right hand ere it should have beenraised to do you displeasure.
"Oh sir," said Matilda, "a good man may be forced on an ill office: butI can distinguish the man from his duty." She presented to him herhand, which he kissed respectfully, and simultaneously with the contactthirty-two invisible arrows plunged at once into his heart, one fromevery point of the compass of his pericardia.
"Well, father," added Matilda, "I must go to the woods."
"Must you?" said the baron; "I say you must not."
"But I am going," said Matilda
"But I will have up the drawbridge," said the baron.
"But I will swim the moat," said Matilda.
"But I will secure the gates," said the baron.
"But I will leap from the battlement," said Matilda.
"But I will lock you in an upper chamber," said the baron.
"But I will shred the tapestry," said Matilda, "and let myself down."
"But I will lock you in a turret," said the baron, "where you shall onlysee light through a loophole."
"But through that loophole," said Matilda, "will I take my flight, likea young eagle from its eerie; and, father, while I go out freely, I willreturn willingly: but if once I slip out through a loop-hole----" Shepaused a moment, and then added, singing,--
The love that follows fain Will never its faith betray: But the faith that is held in a chain Will never be found again, If a single link give way.
The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of thefriar, who accordingly sang in his turn,--
For hark! hark! hark! The dog doth bark, That watches the wild deer's lair. The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn, But the lair it is empty, the deer it is gone, And the hunter knows not where.
Matilda and the friar then sang together,--
Then follow, oh follow! the hounds do cry: The red sun flames in the eastern sky: The stag bounds over the hollow. He that lingers in spirit, or loiters in hall, Shall see us no more till the evening fall, And no voice but the echo shall answer his call: Then follow, oh follow, follow: Follow, oh follow, follow!
During the process of this harmony, the baron's eyes wandered from hisdaughter to the friar, and from the friar to his daughter again, withan alternate expression of anger differently modified: when he lookedon the friar, it was anger without qualification; when he looked onhis daughter it was still anger, but tempered by an expression ofinvoluntary admiration and pleasure. These rapid fluctuations of thebaron's physiognomy--the habitual, reckless, resolute merriment in thejovial face of the friar,--and the cheerful, elastic spirits that playedon the lips and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda,--would have presented avery amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three images inthe group had not absorbed his total attention with feelings of intensedelight very nearly allied to pain. The baron's wrath was somewhatcounteracted by the reflection that his daughter's good spiritsseemed to show that they would naturally rise triumphant over alldisappointments; and he had had sufficient experience of her humour toknow that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven. Then,too, he was always delighted to hear her sing, though he was not at allpleas
ed in this instance with the subject of her song. Still he wouldhave endured the subject for the sake of the melody of the treble, buthis mind was not sufficiently attuned to unison to relish the harmonyof the bass. The friar's accompaniment put him out of all patience,and--"So," he exclaimed, "this is the way, you teach my daughter torenounce the devil, is it? A hunting friar, truly! Who ever heardbefore of a hunting friar? A profane, roaring, bawling, bumper-bibbing,neck-breaking, catch-singing friar?"
"Under favour, bold baron," said the friar; but the friar was warmwith canary, and in his singing vein; and he could not go on in plainunmusical prose. He therefore sang in a new tune,--
Though I be now a grey, grey friar, Yet I was once a hale young knight: The cry of my dogs was the only choir In which my spirit did take delight. Little I recked of matin bell, But drowned its toll with my clanging horn: And the only beads I loved to tell Were the beads of dew on the spangled thorn.
The baron was going to storm, but the friar paused, and Matilda sang inrepetition,--
Little I reck of matin bell, But drown its toll with my clanging horn: And the only beads I love to tell Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn.
And then she and the friar sang the four lines together, and rang thechanges upon them alternately.
Little I reck of matin bell,
sang the friar.
"A precious friar," said the baron.
But drown its toll with my clanging horn, sang Matilda.
"More shame for you," said the baron.
And the only beads I love to tell Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn,
sang Matilda and the friar together.
"Penitent and confessor," said the baron: "a hopeful pair truly."
The friar went on,--
An archer keen I was withal, As ever did lean on greenwood tree; And could make the fleetest roebuck fall, A good three hundred yards from me. Though changeful time, with hand severe, Has made me now these joys forego, Yet my heart bounds whene'er I hear Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!
Matilda chimed in as before.
"Are you mad?" said the baron. "Are you insane? Are you possessed? Whatdo you mean? What in the devil's name do you both mean?"
Yoicks! hark away! and tally ho!
roared the friar.
The baron's pent-up wrath had accumulated like the waters above the damof an overshot mill. The pond-head of his passion being now filledto the utmost limit of its capacity, and beginning to overflow in thequivering of his lips and the flashing of his eyes, he pulled up allthe flash-boards at once, and gave loose to the full torrent of hisindignation, by seizing, like furious Ajax, not a messy stone more thantwo modern men could raise, but a vast dish of beef more than fiftyancient yeomen could eat, and whirled it like a coit, in terrorem, overthe head of the friar, to the extremity of the apartment,
Where it on oaken floor did settle, With mighty din of ponderous metal.
"Nay father," said Matilda, taking the baron's hand, "do not harm thefriar: he means not to offend you. My gaiety never before displeasedyou. Least of all should it do so now, when I have need of all myspirits to outweigh the severity of my fortune."
As she spoke the last words, tears started into her eyes, which, as ifashamed of the involuntary betraying of her feelings, she turned away toconceal. The baron was subdued at once. He kissed his daughter, held outhis hand to the friar, and said, "Sing on, in God's name, and crack awaythe flasks till your voice swims in canary." Then turning to Sir Ralph,he said, "You see how it is, sir knight. Matilda is my daughter; but shehas me in leading-strings, that is the truth of it."