Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock (large screen ebook reader txt) 📗

the altar.”

The foresters did as the friar directed.

“Now, Little John,” said the friar, “on with the cloak of the abbot of Doubleflask. I appoint thee my clerk: thou art here duly elected in full mote.”

“I wish you were all in full moat together,” said the baron, “and smooth wall on both sides.”

“Punnest thou?” said the friar. “A heinous anti-christian offence. Why anti-christian? Because anti-catholic? Why anti-catholic? Because anti-roman. Why anti-roman? Because Carthaginian. Is not pun from Punic? punica fides: the very quint-essential quiddity of bad faith: double-visaged: double-tongued. He that will make a pun will—— I say no more. Fie on it. Stand forth, clerk. Who is the bride’s father?”

“There is no bride’s father,” said the baron. “I am the father of Matilda Fitzwater.”

“There is none such,” said the friar. “This is the fair Maid Marian. Will you make a virtue of necessity, or will you give laws to the flowing tide? Will you give her, or shall Robin take her? Will you be her true natural father, or shall I commute paternity? Stand forth, Scarlet.”

“Stand back, sirrah Scarlet,” said the baron. “My daughter shall have no father but me. Needs must when the devil drives.”

“No matter who drives,” said the friar, “so that, like a well-disposed subject, you yield cheerful obedience to those who can enforce it.”

“Mawd, sweet Mawd,” said the baron, “will you then forsake your poor old father in his distress, with his castle in ashes, and his enemy in power?”

“Not so, father,” said Marian; “I will always be your true daughter: I will always love, and serve, and watch, and defend you: but neither will I forsake my plighted love, and my own liege lord, who was your choice before he was mine, for you made him my associate in infancy; and that he continued to be mine when he ceased to be yours, does not in any way show remissness in my duties or falling off in my affections. And though I here plight my troth at the altar to Robin, in the presence of this holy priest and pious clerk, yet.... Father, when Richard returns from Palestine, he will restore you to your barony, and perhaps, for your sake, your daughter’s husband to the earldom of Huntingdon: should that never be, should it be the will of fate that we must live and die in the greenwood, I will live and die MAID MARIAN.” 4

“A pretty resolution,” said the baron, “if Robin will let you keep it.”

“I have sworn it,” said Robin. “Should I expose her tenderness to the perils of maternity, when life and death may hang on shifting at a moment’s notice from Sherwood to Barnsdale, and from Barnsdale to the sea-shore? And why should I banquet when my merry men starve? Chastity is our forest law, and even the friar has kept it since he has been here.”

“Truly so,” said the friar: “for temptation dwells with ease and luxury: but the hunter is Hippolytus, and the huntress is Dian. And now, dearly beloved——”

The friar went through the ceremony with great unction, and Little John was most clerical in the intonation of his responses. After which, the friar sang, and Little John fiddled, and the foresters danced, Robin with Marian, and Scarlet with the baron; and the venison smoked, and the ale frothed, and the wine sparkled, and the sun went down on their unwearied festivity: which they wound up with the following song, the friar leading and the foresters joining chorus:

Oh! bold Robin Hood is a forester good, As ever drew bow in the merry greenwood: At his bugle’s shrill singing the echoes are ringing, The wild deer are springing for many a rood: Its summons we follow, through brake, over hollow, The thrice-blown shrill summons of bold Robin Hood. And what eye hath e’er seen such a sweet Maiden Queen, As Marian, the pride of the forester’s green? A sweet garden-flower, she blooms in the bower, Where alone to this hour the wild rose has been: We hail her in duty the queen of all beauty: We will live, we will die, by our sweet Maiden queen. And here’s a grey friar, good as heart can desire, To absolve all our sins as the case may require: Who with courage so stout, lays his oak-plant about, And puts to the rout all the foes of his choir: For we are his choristers, we merry foresters, Chorussing thus with our militant friar And Scarlet cloth bring his good yew-bough and string, Prime minister is he of Robin our king: No mark is too narrow for little John’s arrow, That hits a cock sparrow a mile on the wing; Robin and Marion, Scarlet, and Little John, Long with their glory old Sherwood shall ring. Each a good liver, for well-feathered quiver Doth furnish brawn, venison, and fowl of the river: But the best game we dish up, it is a fat bishop: When his angels we fish up, he proves a free giver: For a prelate so lowly has angels more holy, And should this world’s false angels to sinners deliver. Robin and Marion, Scarlet and Little John, Drink to them one by one, drink as ye sing: Robin and Marion, Scarlet and Little John, Echo to echo through Sherwood shall fling: Robin and Marion, Scarlet and Little John, Long with their glory old Sherwood shall ring.