Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock (large screen ebook reader txt) 📗
- Author: Thomas Love Peacock
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Now raged an unequal combat, for the assailants fell two to one on Robin, Marian, the baron, and the cottager; while the wife, being deprived of her spit, converted every thing that was at hand to a missile, and rained pots, pans, and pipkins on the armed heads of the enemy. The baron raged like a tiger, and the cottager laid about him like a thresher. One of the soldiers struck Robin’s sword from his hand and brought him on his knee, when the boy, who had been roused by the tumult and had been peeping through the inner door, leaped forward in his shirt, picked up the sword and replaced it in Robin’s hand, who instantly springing up, disarmed and wounded one of his antagonists, while the other was laid prostrate under the dint of a brass cauldron launched by the Amazonian dame. Robin now turned to the aid of Marian, who was parrying most dexterously the cuts and slashes of her two assailants, of whom Robin delivered her from one, while a well-applied blow of her sword struck off the helmet of the other, who fell on his knees to beg a boon, and she recognised Sir Ralph Montfaucon. The men who were engaged with the baron and the peasant, seeing their leader subdued, immediately laid down their arms and cried for quarter. The wife brought some strong rope, and the baron tied their arms behind them.
“Now, Sir Ralph,” said Marian, “once more you are at my mercy.”
“That I always am, cruel beauty,” said the discomfited lover.
“Odso! courteous knight,” said the baron, “is this the return you make for my beef and canary, when you kissed my daughter’s hand in token of contrition for your intermeddling at her wedding? Heart, I am glad to see she has given you a bloody coxcomb. Slice him down, Mawd! slice him down, and fling him into the river.”
“Confess,” said Marian, “what brought you here, and how did you trace our steps?”
“I will confess nothing,” said the knight.
“Then confess you, rascal,” said the baron, holding his sword to the throat of the captive squire.
“Take away the sword,” said the squire, “it is too near my mouth, and my voice will not come out for fear: take away the sword, and I will confess all.” The baron dropped his sword, and the squire proceeded; “Sir Ralph met you, as you quitted Lady Falkland’s castle, and by representing to her who you were, borrowed from her such a number of her retainers as he deemed must ensure your capture, seeing that your familiar the friar was not at your elbow. We set forth without delay, and traced you first by means of a peasant who saw you turn into this valley, and afterwards by the light from the casement of this solitary dwelling. Our design was to have laid an ambush for you in the morning, but the storm and your observation of my unlucky face through the casement made us change our purpose; and what followed you can tell better than I can, being indeed masters of the subject.”
“You are a merry knave,” said the baron, “and here is a cup of wine for you.”
“Gramercy,” said the squire, “and better late than never: but I lacked a cup of this before. Had I been pot-valiant, I had held you play.”
“Sir knight,” said Marian, “this is the third time you have sought the life of my lord and of me, for mine is interwoven with his. And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I can be yours by compulsion? Tempt me not again, for the next time shall be the last, and the fish of the nearest river shall commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fast-day dinner of an uncarnivorous friar. I spare you now, not in pity but in scorn. Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pursue or molest my lord or me, and on this condition you shall live.”
The knight had no alternative but to comply, and swore, on the honour of knighthood, to keep the convention inviolate. How well he kept his oath we shall have no opportunity of narrating: Di lui la nostra istoria piu non parla.
CHAPTER XVI Carry me over the water, thou fine fellowe.—Old Ballad.
The pilgrims, without experiencing further molestation, arrived at the retreat of Sir Guy of Gamwell. They found the old knight a cup too low; partly from being cut off from the scenes of his old hospitality and the shouts of his Nottinghamshire vassals, who were wont to make the rafters of his ancient hall re-echo to their revelry; but principally from being parted from his son, who had long been the better half of his flask and pasty. The arrival of our visitors cheered him up; and finding that the baron was to remain with him, he testified his delight and the cordiality of his welcome by pegging him in the ribs till he made him roar.
Robin and Marian took an affectionate leave of the baron and the old knight; and before they quitted the vicinity of Barnsdale, deeming it prudent to return in a different disguise, they laid aside their pilgrim’s attire, and assumed the habits and appurtenances of wandering minstrels.
They travelled in this character safely and pleasantly, till one evening at a late hour they arrived by the side of a river, where Robin looking out for a mode of passage perceived a ferry-boat safely moored in a nook on the opposite bank; near which a chimney sending up a wreath of smoke through the thick-set willows, was the only symptom of human habitation; and Robin naturally conceiving the said chimney and wreath of smoke to be the outward signs of the inward ferryman, shouted “Over!” with much strength and clearness; but no voice replied, and no ferryman appeared. Robin raised his voice, and shouted with redoubled energy, “Over, Over, O-o-o-over!” A faint echo alone responded “Over!” and again died away into deep silence: but after a brief interval a voice from among the willows, in a strange kind of mingled intonation that was half a shout and half a song, answered:
Over, over, over, jolly, jolly rover, Would you then come over? Over, over, over? Jolly, jolly rover, here’s one lives in clover: Who finds the clover? The jolly, jolly rover. He finds the clover, let him then come over, The jolly, jolly rover, over, over, over,“I much doubt,” said Marian, “if this ferryman do not mean by clover something more than the toll of his ferry-boat.”
“I doubt not,” answered Robin, “he is a levier of toll and tithe, which I shall put him upon proof of his right to receive, by making trial of his might to enforce.”
The ferryman emerged from the willows and stepped into his boat. “As I live,” exclaimed Robin, “the ferryman is a friar.”
“With a sword,” said Marian, “stuck in his rope girdle.”
The friar pushed his boat off manfully, and was presently half over the river.
“It is friar Tuck,” said Marian.
“He will scarcely know us,” said Robin; “and if he do not, I will break a staff with him for sport.”
The friar came singing across the water:
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