Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (71 page)

At these words, pronounced in a tone of majesty suited to the high rank, and no less distinguished character, of Cœur-de-Lion, the yeomen at once kneeled down before him, and at the same time tendered their allegiance, and implored pardon for their offences.

“Rise, my friends,” said Richard, in a gracious tone, looking on them with a countenance in which his habitual good-humour had already conquered the blaze of hasty resentment, and whose features retained no mark of the late desperate conflict, excepting the flush arising from exertion—“arise,” he said, “my friends! Your misdemeanours, whether in forest or field, have been atoned by the loyal services you rendered my distressed subjects before the walls of Torquilstone, and the rescue you have this day afforded to your sovereign. Arise, my liegemen, and be good subjects in future. And thou, brave Locksley—”

“Call me no longer Locksley, my Liege, but know me under the name which, I fear, fame hath blown too widely not to have reached even your royal ears: I am Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest.”
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“King of outlaws, and Prince of good fellows!” said the King, “who hath not heard a name that has been borne as far as Palestine? But be assured, brave outlaw, that no deed done in our absence, and in the turbulent times to which it hath given rise, shall be remembered to thy disadvantage.”

“True says the proverb,” said Wamba, interposing his word, but with some abatement of his usual petulance—

“What, Wamba, art thou there?” said Richard; “I have been so long of hearing thy voice, I thought thou hadst taken flight.”

“I take flight!” said Wamba; “when do you ever find folly separated from valour? There lies the trophy of my sword, that good grey gelding, whom I heartily wish upon his legs again, conditioning his master lay there houghed
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in his place. It is true, I gave a little ground at first, for a motley jacket does not brook lance-heads as a steel doublet will. But if I fought not at sword’s point, you will grant me that I sounded the onset.”

“And to good purpose, honest Wamba,” replied the King. “Thy good service shall not be forgotten.”

“Confiteor! confiteor!”
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exclaimed, in a submissive tone, a voice near the King’s side; “my Latin will carry me no farther, but I confess my deadly treason, and pray leave to have absolution before I am led to execution!”

Richard looked around, and beheld the jovial Friar on his knees, telling his rosary, while his quarter-staff, which had not been idle during the skirmish, lay on the grass beside him. His countenance was gathered so as he thought might best express the most profound contrition, his eyes being turned up, and the corners of his mouth drawn down, as Wamba expressed it, like the tassels at the mouth of a purse. Yet this demure affectation of extreme penitence was whimsically belied by a ludicrous meaning which lurked in his huge features, and seemed to pronounce his fear and repentance alike hypocritical.

“For what art thou cast down, mad priest?” said Richard; “art thou afraid thy diocesan should learn how truly thou dost serve Our Lady and St. Dunstan? Tush, man! fear it not; Richard of England betrays no secrets that pass over the flagon.”

“Nay, most gracious sovereign,” answered the hermit, well known to the curious in penny histories of Robin Hood by the name of Friar Tuck, “it is not the crosier I fear, but the sceptre. Alas! that my sacrilegious fist should ever have been applied to the ear of the Lord’s anointed!”

“Ha! ha!” said Richard, “sits the wind there? In truth, I had forgotten the buffet, though mine ear sung after it for a whole day. But if the cuff was fairly given, I will be judged by the good men around, if it was not as well repaid; or, if thou thinkest I still owe thee aught, and will stand forth for another counterbuff—”

“By no means,” replied Friar Tuck, “I had mine own returned, and with usury: may your Majesty ever pay your debts as fully!”

“If I could do so with cuffs,” said the King, “my creditors should have little reason to complain of an empty exchequer.”

“And yet,” said the Friar, resuming his demure, hypocritical countenance, “I know not what penance I ought to perform for that most sacrilegious blow—!”

“Speak no more of it, brother,” said the King; “after having stood so many cuffs from paynims and misbelievers, I were void of reason to quarrel with the buffet of a clerk so holy as he of Copmanhurst. Yet, mine honest Friar, I think it would be best both for the church and thyself that I should procure a license to unfrock thee, and retain thee as a yeoman of our guard, serving in care of our person, as formerly in attendance upon the altar of St. Dunstan.”

“My Liege,” said the Friar, “I humbly crave your pardon; and you would readily grant my excuse, did you but know how the sin of laziness has beset me. St. Dunstan—may he be gracious to us!—stands quiet in his niche, though I should forget my orisons in killing a fat buck; I stay out of my cell sometimes a night, doing I wot not what—St. Dunstan never complains—a quiet master he is, and a peaceful, as ever was made of wood. But to be a yeoman in attendance on my sovereign the King—the honour is great, doubtless—yet, if I were but to step aside to comfort a widow in one corner, or to kill a deer in another, it would be, ‘Where is the dog priest?’ says one. ‘Who has seen the accursed Tuck?’ says another. ‘The unfrocked villain destroys more venison than half the country besides,’ says one keeper; ‘And is hunting after every shy doe in the country!’ quoth a second. In fine, good my Liege, I pray you to leave me as you found me; or, if in aught you desire to extend your benevolence to me, that I may be considered as the poor clerk of St. Dunstan’s cell in Copmanhurst, to whom any small donation will be most thankfully acceptable.”

“I understand thee,” said the King, “and the holy clerk shall have a grant of vert and venison
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in my woods of Wharncliffe. Mark, however, I will but assign thee three bucks every season; but if that do not prove an apology for thy slaying thirty, I am no Christian knight nor true king.”

“Your Grace may be well assured,” said the Friar, “that, with the grace of St. Dunstan, I shall find the way of multiplying your most bounteous gift.”

“I nothing doubt it, good brother,” said the King; “and as venison is but dry food, our cellarer shall have orders to deliver to thee a butt of sack, a runlet of Malvoisie, and three hogsheads of ale of the first strike, yearly. If that will not quench thy thirst, thou must come to court, and become acquainted with my butler.”

“But for St. Dunstan?” said the Friar—

“A cope, a stole, and an altar-cloth shalt thou also have,” continued the King, crossing himself. “But we may not turn our game into earnest, lest God punish us for thinking more on our follies than on His honour and worship.”

“I will answer for my patron,” said the priest, joyously.

“Answer for thyself, Friar,” said King Richard, something sternly; but immediately stretching out his hand to the hermit, the latter, somewhat abashed, bent his knee, and saluted it. “Thou dost less honour to my extended palm than to my clenched fist,” said the monarch; “thou didst only kneel to the one, and to the other didst prostrate thyself.”

But the Friar, afraid perhaps of again giving offence by continuing the conversation in too jocose a style—a false step to be particularly guarded against by those who converse with monarchs—bowed profoundly, and fell into the rear.

At the same time, two additional personages appeared on the scene.

The new-comers were Wilfred of Ivanhoe, on the prior of Botolph’s palfrey, and Gurth, who attended him, on the knight’s own war-horse. The astonishment of Ivanhoe was beyond bounds when he saw his master besprinkled with blood, and six or seven dead bodies lying around in the little glade in which the battle had taken place. Nor was he less surprised to see Richard surrounded by so many silvan attendants, the outlaws, as they seemed to be, of the forest, and a perilous retinue therefore for a prince. He hesitated whether to address the King as the Black Knight-errant, or in what other manner to demean himself towards him. Richard saw his embarrassment.

“Fear not, Wilfred,” he said, “to address Richard Plantagenet as himself, since thou seest him in the company of true English hearts, although it may be they have been urged a few steps aside by warm English blood.”

“Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe,” said the gallant outlaw, stepping forward, “my assurances can add nothing to those of our sovereign; yet, let me say somewhat proudly, that of men who have suffered much, he hath not truer subjects than those who now stand around him.”

“I cannot doubt it, brave man,” said Wilfred, “since thou art of the number. But what mean these marks of death and danger—these slain men, and the bloody armour of my Prince?”

“Treason hath been with us, Ivanhoe,” said the King; “but, thanks to these brave men, treason hath met its meed. But, now I bethink me, thou too art a traitor,” said Richard, smiling—“a most disobedient traitor; for were not our orders positive that thou shouldst repose thyself at St. Botolph’s until thy wound was healed?”

“It is healed,” said Ivanhoe—“it is not of more consequence than the scratch of a bodkin. By why—oh why, noble Prince, will you thus vex the hearts of your faithful servants, and expose your life by lonely journeys and rash adventures, as if it were of no more value than that of a mere knight-errant, who has no interest on earth but what lance and sword may procure him?”

“And Richard Plantagenet,” said the King, “desires no more fame than his good lance and sword may acquire him; and Richard Plantagenet is prouder of achieving an adventure, with only his good sword, and his good arm to speed, than if he led to battle an host of an hundred thousand armed men.”

“But your kingdom, my Liege,” said Ivanhoe—“your kingdom is threatened with dissolution and civil war; your subjects menaced with every species of evil, if deprived of their sovereign in some of those dangers which it is your daily pleasure to incur, and from which you have but this moment narrowly escaped.”

“Ho! ho! my kingdom and my subjects!” answered Richard, impatiently; “I tell thee, Sir Wilfred, the best of them are most willing to repay my follies in kind. For example, my very faithful servant, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, will not obey my positive commands, and yet reads his king a homily, because he does not walk exactly by his advice. Which of us has most reason to upbraid the other? Yet forgive me, my faithful Wilfred. The time I have spent, and am yet to spend, in concealment is, as I explained to thee at St. Botolph’s, necessary to give my friends and faithful nobles time to assemble their forces, that, when Richard’s return is announced, he should be at the head of such a force as enemies shall tremble to face, and thus subdue the meditated treason, without even unsheathing a sword. Estoteville and Bohun will not be strong enough to move forward to York for twenty-four hours. I must have news of Salisbury from the south, and of Beauchamp in Warwickshire, and of Multon and Percy in the north. The Chancellor must make sure of London.
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Too sudden an appearance would subject me to dangers other than my lance and sword, though backed by the bow of bold Robin, or the quarter-staff of Friar Tuck, and the horn of the sage Wamba, may be able to rescue me from.”

Wilfred bowed in submission, well knowing how vain it was to contend with the wild spirit of chivalry which so often impelled his master upon dangers which he might easily have avoided, or rather, which it was unpardonable in him to have sought out. The young knight sighed, therefore, and held his peace; while Richard, rejoiced at having silenced his counsellor, though his heart acknowledged the justice of the charge he had brought against him, went on in conversation with Robin Hood. “King of outlaws,” he said, “have you no refreshment to offer to your brother sovereign? for these dead knaves have found me both in exercise and appetite.”

“In troth,” replied the outlaw, “for I scorn to lie to your Grace, our larder is chiefly supplied with—” He stopped, and was somewhat embarrassed.

“With venison, I suppose?” said Richard, gaily; “better food at need there can be none; and truly, if a king will not remain at home and slay his own game, methinks he should not brawl too loud if he finds it killed to his hand.”

“If your Grace, then,” said Robin, “will again honour with your presence one of Robin Hood’s places of rendezvous, the venison shall not be lacking; and a stoup of ale, and it may be a cup of reasonably good wine, to relish it withal.”

The outlaw accordingly led the way, followed by the buxom
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monarch, more happy, probably, in this chance meeting with Robin Hood and his foresters than he would have been in again assuming his royal state, and presiding over a splendid circle of peers and nobles. Novelty in society and adventure were the zest of life to Richard Cœur-de-Lion, and it had its highest relish when enhanced by dangers encountered and surmounted. In the lion-hearted king, the brilliant, but useless, character of a knight of romance was in a great measure realised and revived; and the personal glory which he acquired by his own deeds of arms was far more dear to his excited imagination than that which a course of policy and wisdom would have spread around his government. Accordingly, his reign was like the course of a brilliant and rapid meteor, which shoots along the face of heaven, shedding around an unnecessary and portentous light, which is instantly swallowed up by universal darkness; his feats of chivalry furnishing themes for bards and minstrels, but affording none of those solid benefits to his country on which history loves to pause, and hold up as an example to posterity. But in his present company Richard showed to the greatest imaginable advantage. He was gay, good-humoured, and fond of manhood in every rank of life.