Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (31 page)

“To get me a wife,” answered De Bracy, coolly, “after the manner of the tribe of Benjamin.”

“The tribe of Benjamin!” said Fitzurse. “I comprehend thee not.”

“Wert thou not in presence yestereven,” said De Bracy, “when we heard the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung by the minstrel? He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish nation; and how they cut to pieces wellnigh all the chivalry of that tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady that they would not permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides’ families.”

“I have heard the story,” said Fitzurse, “though either the Prior or thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances.”

“I tell thee,” said De Bracy, “that I mean to purvey me a wife after the fashion of the tribe of Benjamin; which is as much as to say, that in this same equipment I will fall upon that herd of Saxon bullocks who have this night left the castle, and carry off from them the lovely Rowena.”

“Art thou mad, De Bracy?” said Fitzurse. “Bethink thee that, though the men be Saxons, they are rich and powerful, and regarded with the more respect by their countrymen that wealth and honour are but the lot of few of Saxon descent.”

“And should belong to none,” said De Bracy; “the work of the Conquest should be completed.”

“This is no time for it at least,” said Fitzurse; “the approaching crisis renders the favour of the multitude indispensable, and Prince John cannot refuse justice to any one who injures their favourites.”

“Let him grant it if he dare,” said De Bracy; “he will soon see the difference betwixt the support of such a lusty lot of spears as mine and that of a heartless mob of Saxon churls. Yet I mean no immediate discovery of myself. Seem I not in this garb as bold a forester as ever blew horn? The blame of the violence shall rest with the outlaws of the Yorkshire forests. I have sure spies on the Saxons’ motions. To-night they sleep in the convent of St. Wittol,
^cb
or Withold, or whatever they call that churl of a Saxon saint, at Burton-on-Trent. Next day’s march brings them within our reach, and, falcon-ways, we swoop on them at once. Presently after I will appear in mine own shape, play the courteous knight, rescue the unfortunate and afflicted fair one from the hands of the rude ravishers, conduct her to Front-de-Bœuf’s castle, or to Normandy, if it should be necessary, and produce her not again to her kindred until she be the bride and dame of Maurice de Bracy.”

“A marvellously sage plan,” said Fitzurse, “and, as I think, not entirely of thine own device. Come, be frank, De Bracy, who aided thee in the invention? and who is to assist in the execution? for, as I think, thine own band lies as far off as York.”

“Marry, if thou must needs know,” said De Bracy, “it was the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert that shaped out the enterprise, which the adventure of the men of Benjamin suggested to me. He is to aid me in the onslaught, and he and his followers will personate the outlaws, from whom my valorous arm is, after changing my garb, to rescue the lady.”

“By my halidome,” said Fitzurse, “the plan was worthy of your united wisdom! and thy prudence, De Bracy, is most especially manifested in the project of leaving the lady in the hands of thy worthy confederate. Thou mayest, I think, succeed in taking her from her Saxon friends, but how thou wilt rescue her afterwards from the clutches of Bois-Guilbert seems considerably more doubtful. He is a falcon well accustomed to pounce on a partridge and to hold his prey fast.”

“He is a Templar,” said De Bracy, “and cannot therefore rival me in my plan of wedding this heiress; and to attempt aught dishonourable against the intended bride of De Bracy—By Heaven! were he a whole chapter of his order in his single person, he dared not do me such an injury!”

“Then, since nought that I can say,” said Fitzurse, “will put this folly from thy imagination, for well I know the obstinacy of thy disposition, at least waste as little time as possible; let not thy folly be lasting as well as untimely.”

“I tell thee,” answered De Bracy, “that it will be the work of a few hours, and I shall be at York at the head of my daring and valorous fellows, as ready to support any bold design as thy policy can be to form one. But I hear my comrades assembling, and the steeds stamping and neighing in the outer court. Farewell. I go, like a true knight, to win the smiles of beauty.”

“Like a true knight!” repeated Fitzurse, looking after him; “like a fool, I should say, or like a child, who will leave the most serious and needful occupation to chase the down of the thistle that drives past him. But it is with such tools that I must work—and for whose advantage? For that of a Prince as unwise as he is profligate, and as likely to be an ungrateful master as he has already proved a rebellious son and an unnatural brother. But he—he too is but one of the tools with which I labour; and, proud as he is, should he presume to separate his interest from mine, this is a secret which he shall soon learn.”

The meditations of the statesman were here interrupted by the voice of the Prince from an interior apartment calling out, “Noble Waldemar Fitzurse!” and, with bonnet doffed, the future Chancellor, for to such high preferment did the wily Norman aspire, hastened to receive the orders of the future sovereign.

The reader cannot have forgotten that the event of the tournament was decided by the exertions of an unknown knight, whom, on account of the passive and indifferent conduct which he had manifested on the former part of the day, the spectators had entitled
Le Noir Faineant.
This knight had left the field abruptly when the victory was achieved; and when he was called upon to receive the reward of his valour he was nowhere to be found. In the meantime, while summoned by heralds and by trumpets, the knight was holding his course northward, avoiding all frequented paths, and taking the shortest road through the woodlands. He paused for the night at a small hostelry lying out of the ordinary route, where, however, he obtained from a wandering minstrel news of the event of the tourney.

On the next morning the knight departed early, with the intention of making a long journey; the condition of his horse, which he had carefully spared during the preceding morning, being such as enabled him to travel far without the necessity of much repose. Yet his purpose was baffled by the devious paths through which he rode, so that when evening closed upon him he only found himself on the frontiers of the West Riding of Yorkshire. By this time both horse and man required refreshment, and it became necessary, moreover, to look out for some place in which they might spend the night, which was now fast approaching.

The place where the traveller found himself seemed unpropitious for obtaining either shelter or refreshment, and he was likely to be reduced to the usual expedient of knights errant, who, on such occasions, turned their horses to graze, and laid themselves down to meditate on their lady-mistress, with an oak-tree for a canopy. But the Black Knight either had no mistress to meditate upon, or, being as indifferent in love as he seemed to be in war, was not sufficiently occupied by passionate reflections upon her beauty and cruelty to be able to parry the effects of fatigue and hunger, and suffer love to act as a substitute for the solid comforts of a bed and supper. He felt dissatisfied, therefore, when, looking around, he found himself deeply involved in woods, through which indeed there were many open glades and some paths, but such as seemed only formed by the numerous herds of cattle which grazed in the forest, or by the animals of chase, and the hunters who made prey of them.

The sun, by which the knight had chiefly directed his course, had now sunk behind the Derbyshire hills on his left, and every effort which he might make to pursue his journey was as likely to lead him out of his road as to advance him on his route. After having in vain endeavoured to select the most beaten path, in hopes it might lead to the cottage of some herdsman or the silvan lodge of a forester, and having repeatedly found himself totally unable to determine on a choice, the knight resolved to trust to the sagacity of his horse, experience having on former occasions made him acquainted with the wonderful talent possessed by these animals for extricating themselves and their riders on such emergencies.

The good steed, grievously fatigued with so long a day’s journey under a rider cased in mail, had no sooner found, by the slackened reins, that he was abandoned to his own guidance, than he seemed to assume new strength and spirit; and whereas formerly he had scarce replied to the spur otherwise than by a groan, he now, as if proud of the confidence reposed in him, pricked up his ears, and assumed, of his own accord, a more lively motion. The path which the animal adopted rather turned off from the course pursued by the knight during the day; but as the horse seemed confident in his choice, the rider abandoned himself to his discretion.

He was justified by the event, for the footpath soon after appeared a little wider and more worn, and the tinkle of a small bell gave the knight to understand that he was in the vicinity of some chapel or hermitage.

Accordingly, he soon reached an open plat of turf, on the opposite side of which a rock, rising abruptly from a gently sloping plain, offered its grey and weather-beaten front to the traveller. Ivy mantled its sides in some places, and in others oaks and holly bushes, whose roots found nourishment in the cliffs of the crag, waved over the precipices below, like the plumage of the warrior over his steel helmet, giving grace to that whose chief expression was terror. At the bottom of the rock, and leaning, as it were, against it, was constructed a rude hut, built chiefly of the trunks of trees felled in the neighbouring forest, and secured against the weather by having its crevices stuffed with moss mingled with clay. The stem of a young fir-tree lopped of its branches, with a piece of wood tied across near the top, was planted upright by the door, as a rude emblem of the holy cross. At a little distance on the right hand, a fountain of the purest water trickled out of the rock, and was received in a hollow stone, which labour had formed into a rustic basin. Escaping from thence, the stream murmured down the descent by a channel which its course had long worn, and so wandered through the little plain to lose itself in the neighbouring wood.

Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of which the roof had partly fallen in. The building, when entire, had never been above sixteen feet long by twelve feet in breadth, and the roof, low in proportion, rested upon four concentric arches which sprung from the four corners of the building, each supported upon a short and heavy pillar. The ribs of two of these arches remained, though the roof had fallen down betwixt them; over the others it remained entire. The entrance to this ancient place of devotion was under a very low round arch, ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding, resembling sharks’ teeth, which appears so often in the more ancient Saxon architecture. A belfry rose above the porch on four small pillars, within which hung the green and weather-beaten bell, the feeble sounds of which had been some time before heard by the Black Knight.

The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight before the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of lodging for the night; since it was a special duty of those hermits who dwelt in the woods to exercise hospitality towards benighted or bewildered passengers.

Accordingly, the knight took no time to consider minutely the particulars which we have detailed, but thanking St. Julian, the patron of travellers, who had sent him good harbourage, he leaped from his horse and assailed the door of the hermitage with the butt of his lance, in order to arouse attention and gain admittance.

It was some time before he obtained any answer, and the reply, when made, was unpropitious.

“Pass on, whosoever thou art,” was the answer given by a deep hoarse voice from within the hut, “and disturb not the servant of God and St. Dunstan in his evening devotions.”

“Worthy father,” answered the knight, “here is a poor wanderer bewildered in these woods, who gives thee the opportunity of exercising thy charity and hospitality.”

“Good brother,” replied the inhabitant of the hermitage, “it has pleased Our Lady and St. Dunstan to destine me for the object of those virtues, instead of the exercise thereof. I have no provisions here which even a dog would share with me, and a horse of any tenderness of nurture would despise my couch; pass therefore on thy way, and God speed thee.”

“But how,” replied the knight, “is it possible for me to find my way through such a wood as this, when darkness is coming on? I pray you, reverend father, as you are a Christian, to undo your door, and at least point out to me thy road.”

“And I pray you, good Christian brother,” replied the anchorite, “to disturb me no more. You have already interrupted one
pater,
two
aves,
and a
credo,
which I, miserable sinner that I am, should, according to my vow, have said before moonrise.”

“The road—the road!” vociferated the knight; “give me directions for the road, if I am to expect no more from thee.”

“The road,” replied the hermit, “is easy to hit. The path from the woods leads to a morass, and from thence to a ford, which, as the rains have abated, may now be passable. When thou hast crossed the ford, thou wilt take care of thy footing up the left bank, as it is somewhat precipitous, and the path, which hangs over the river, has lately, as I learn—for I seldom leave the duties of my chapel—given way in sundry places. Thou wilt then keep straight forward—”