Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott

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``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?'' 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 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 best
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-but 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-Buf.''

``What! is it Front-de-Buf,'' 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-Buf'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 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-Buf, 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-Buf. 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 court-yard.
Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied
with water from a neighbouring rivulet.
Front-de-Buf, 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-Buf'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 cross-bow 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 every thing
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.

``Yes,'' said Cedric, half speaking to himself,
and half addressing himself to Athelstane, ``it was
in this very hall that my father feasted with Torquil
Wolfganger, when he entertained the valiant and
unfortunate Harold, then advancing against the
Norwegians, who had united themselves to the
rebel Tosti. It was in this hall that Harold returned
the magnanimous answer to the ambassador
of his rebel brother. Oft have I heard my father
kindle as he told the tale. The envoy of Tosti
was admitted, when this ample room could scarce
contain the crowd of noble Saxon leaders, who
were quaffing the blood-red wine around their monarch.''

``I hope,'' said Athelstane, somewhat moved by
this part of his friend's discourse, ``they will not
forget to send us some wine and refactions at noon
---we had scarce a breathing-space allowed to break
our fast, and I never have the benefit of my food
when I eat immediately after dismounting from
horseback, though the leeches recommend that
practice.''

Cedric went on with his story without noticing
this interjectional observation of his friend.

``The envoy of Tosti,'' he said, ``moved up the
hall, undismayed by the frowning countenances of
all around him, until he made his obeisance before
the throne of King Harold.

`` `What terms,' he said, `Lord King, hath thy
brother Tosti to hope, if he should lay down his
arms, and crave peace at thy hands?'

`` `A brother's love,' cried the generous Harold,
`and the fair earldom of Northumberland.'

`` `But should Tosti accept these terms,' continued
the envoy, ` what lands shall be assigned to his faithful
ally, Hardrada, King of Norway?'

`` `Seven feet of English ground,' answered Harold,
fiercely, 'or, as Hardrada is said to be a giant,
perhaps we may allow him twelve inches more.'

``The hall rung with acclamations, and cup and
horn was filled to the Norwegian, who should be
speedily in possession of his English territory.''

``I could have pledged him with all my soul,''
said Athelstane, ``for my tongue cleaves to my
palate.''

``The baffled envoy,'' continued Cedric, pursuing
with animation his tale, though it interested not
the listener, ``retreated, to carry to Tosti and his
ally the ominous answer of his injured brother. It
was then that the distant towers of York, and the
bloody streams of the Derwent,* beheld that direful

* Note D. Battle of Stamford.

conflict, in which, after displaying the most undaunted
valour, the King of Norway, and Tosti,
both fell, with ten thousand of their bravest followers.
Who would have thought that upon the proud
day when this battle was won, the very gale which
waved the Saxon banners in triumph, was filling
the Norman sails, and impelling them to the fatal
shores of Sussex?---Who would have thought that
Harold, within a few brief days, would himself possess
no more of his kingdom, than the share which
he allotted in his wrath to the Norwegian invader?
---Who would have thought that you, noble Athelstane---
that you, descended of Harold's blood, and
that I, whose father was not the worst defender of
the Saxon crown, should be prisoners to a vile Norman,
in the very hall in which our ancestors held
such high festival?''