Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (36 page)

“Whither? and for what purpose?” said the Jester.

“To rescue Cedric.”

“But you have renounced his service but now,” said Wamba.

“That,” said Gurth, “was but while he was fortunate; follow me!”

As the Jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms, Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of those outlaws who had just assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering baldric across his shoulder, with the rich bugle-horn which it supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice and manner, made him, notwithstanding the twilight, recognise Locksley, the yeoman who had been victorious, under such disadvantageous circumstances, in the contest for the prize of archery.

“What is the meaning of all this,” said he, “or who is it that rifle, and ransom, and make prisoners in these forests?”

“You may look at their cassocks close by,” said Wamba, “and see whether they be thy children’s coats or no; for they are as like thine own as one green pea-cod is to another.”

“I will learn that presently,” answered Locksley; “and I charge ye, on peril of your lives, not to stir from the place where ye stand, until I have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your masters. Yet stay, I must render myself as like these men as possible.”

So saying, he unbuckled his baldric with the bugle, took a feather from his cap, and gave them to Wamba; then drew a vizard from his pouch, and repeating his charges to them to stand fast, went to execute his purposes of reconnoitring.

“Shall we stand fast, Gurth?” said Wamba, “or shall we e’en give him leg-bail? In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in readiness to be himself a true man.”

“Let him be the devil,” said Gurth, “an he will. We can be no worse of waiting his return. If he belong to that party, he must already have given them the alarm, and it will avail nothing either to fight or fly. Besides, I have late experience that arrant thieves are not the worst men in the world to have to deal with.”

The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.

“Friend Gurth,” he said, “I have mingled among yon men, and have learnt to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their prisoners. For three men to attempt them at this moment were little else than madness; for they are good men of war, and have, as such, placed sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to gather such a force as may act in defiance of all their precautions. You are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants, of Cedric the Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English hands to help him in this extremity. Come, then, with me, until I gather more aid.”

So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the jester and the swineherd. It was not consistent with Wamba’s humour to travel long in silence.

“I think,” said he, looking at the baldric and bugle which he still carried, “that I saw the arrow shot which won this gay prize, and that not so long since as Christmas.”

“And I,” said Gurth, “could take it on my halidome that I have heard the voice of the good yeoman who won it, by night as well as by day, and that the moon is not three days older since I did so.”

“Mine honest friends,” replied the yeoman, “who or what I am is little to the present purpose; should I free your master, you will have reason to think me the best friend you have ever had in your lives. And whether I am known by one name or another, or whether I can draw a bow as well or better than a cow-keeper, or whether it is my pleasure to walk in sunshine or by moonlight, are matters which, as they do not concern you, so neither need ye busy yourselves respecting them.”

“Our heads are in the lion’s mouth,” said Wamba, in a whisper to Gurth, “get them out how we can.”

“Hush—be silent,” said Gurth. “Offend him not by thy folly, and I trust sincerely that all will go well.”

It was after three hours’ good walking that the servants of Cedric, with their mysterious guide, arrived at a small opening in the forest, in the centre of which grew an oak-tree of enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted branches in every direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay stretched on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro in the moonlight shade.

Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly gave the alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent their bows. Six arrows placed on the string were pointed towards the quarter from which the travellers approached, when their guide, being recognised, was welcomed with every token of respect and attachment, and all signs and fears of a rough reception at once subsided.

“Where is the Miller?” was his first question.

“On the road towards Rotherham.”

“With how many?” demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.

“With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please St. Nicholas.”

“Devoutly spoken,” said Locksley; “and where is Allan-a-Dale?”

“Walked up towards the Watling Street
²
to watch for the Prior of Jorvaulx.”

“That is well thought on also,” replied the Captain; “and where is the Friar?”

“In his cell.”

“Thither will I go,” said Locksley. “Disperse and seek your companions. Collect what force you can, for there’s game afoot that must be hunted hard, and will turn to bay. Meet me here by daybreak. And, stay,” he added, “I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you take the road quickly towards Torquilstone, the castle of Front-de-Bœuf. A set of gallants, who have been masquerading in such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch them closely, for even if they reach the castle before we collect our force, our honour is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to do so. Keep a close watch on them, therefore; and despatch one of your comrades, the lightest of foot, to bring the news of the yeomen thereabout.”

They promised implicit obedience, and departed with alacrity on their different errands. In the meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him with great respect, as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel to Copmanhurst.

When they had reached the little moonlight glade, having in front the reverend though ruinous chapel and the rude hermitage, so well suited to ascetic devotion, Wamba whispered to Gurth, “If this be the habitation of a thief, it makes good the old proverb, ‘The nearer the church the farther from God.’ And by my cockscomb,” he added, “I think it be even so. Hearken but to the black sanctus
^cj
which they are singing in the hermitage!”

In fact, the anchorite and his guest were performing, at the full extent of their very powerful lungs, an old drinking song, of which this was the burden:

“Now, that is not ill sung,” said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his own flourishes to help out the chorus. “But who, in the saint’s name, ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from out a hermit’s cell at midnight!”

“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 keep 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,
³
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 St. 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 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.”