Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (e ink ebook reader txt) 📗

at even-song prick’d through with a spear;

I confess him in haste---for his lady desires

No comfort on earth save the Barefooted Friar’s.

3.

Your monarch?---Pshaw! many a prince has been known

To barter his robes for our cowl and our gown,

But which of us e’er felt the idle desire

To exchange for a crown the grey hood of a Friar!

4.

The Friar has walk’d out, and where’er he has gone,

The land and its fatness is mark’d for his own;

He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires,

For every man’s house is the Barefooted Friar’s.

5.

He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes

May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums

For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,

Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.

6.

He’s expected at night, and the pasty’s made hot,

They broach the brown ale, and they fill the black pot,

And the goodwife would wish the goodman in the mire,

Ere he lack’d a soft pillow, the Barefooted Friar.

7.

Long flourish the sandal, the cord, and the cope,

The dread of the devil and trust of the Pope;

For to gather life’s roses, unscathed by the briar,

Is granted alone to the Barefooted Friar.

“By my troth,” said the knight, “thou hast sung well and lustily,

and in high praise of thine order. And, talking of the devil,

Holy Clerk, are you not afraid that he may pay you a visit during

some of your uncanonical pastimes?”

“I uncanonical!” answered the hermit; “I scorn the charge---I

scorn it with my heels!---I serve the duty of my chapel duly and

truly---Two masses daily, morning and evening, primes, noons, and

vespers, ‘aves, credos, paters’------”

“Excepting moonlight nights, when the venison is in season,” said

his guest.

“‘Exceptis excipiendis’” replied the hermit, “as our old abbot

taught me to say, when impertinent laymen should ask me if I kept

every punctilio of mine order.”

“True, holy father,” said the knight; “but the devil is apt to

keep an eye on such exceptions; he goes about, thou knowest, like

a roaring lion.”

“Let him roar here if he dares,” said the friar; “a touch of my

cord will make him roar as loud as the tongs of St Dunstan

himself did. I never feared man, and I as little fear the devil

and his imps. Saint Dunstan, Saint Dubric, Saint Winibald, Saint

Winifred, Saint Swibert, Saint Willick, not forgetting Saint

Thomas a Kent, and my own poor merits to speed, I defy every

devil of them, come cut and long tail.---But to let you into a

secret, I never speak upon such subjects, my friend, until after

morning vespers.”

He changed the conversation; fast and furious grew the mirth of

the parties, and many a song was exchanged betwixt them, when

their revels were interrupted by a loud knocking at the door of

the hermitage.

The occasion of this interruption we can only explain by resuming

the adventures of another set of our characters; for, like old

Ariosto, we do not pique ourselves upon continuing uniformly to

keep company with any one personage of our drama.

CHAPTER XVIII

Away! our journey lies through dell and dingle,

Where the blithe fawn trips by its timid mother,

Where the broad oak, with intercepting boughs,

Chequers the sunbeam in the green-sward alley---

Up and away!---for lovely paths are these

To tread, when the glad Sun is on his throne

Less pleasant, and less safe, when Cynthia’s lamp

With doubtful glimmer lights the dreary forest.

Ettrick Forest

When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the

lists at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the

custody and care of his own attendants, but the words choked in

his throat. He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in

presence of such an assembly, the son whom he had renounced and

disinherited. He ordered, however, Oswald to keep an eye upon

him; and directed that officer, with two of his serfs, to convey

Ivanhoe to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. Oswald,

however, was anticipated in this good office. The crowd

dispersed, indeed, but the knight was nowhere to be seen.

It was in vain that Cedric’s cupbearer looked around for his

young master---he saw the bloody spot on which he had lately sunk

down, but himself he saw no longer; it seemed as if the fairies

had conveyed him from the spot. Perhaps Oswald (for the Saxons

were very superstitious) might have adopted some such hypothesis,

to account for Ivanhoe’s disappearance, had he not suddenly cast

his eye upon a person attired like a squire, in whom he

recognised the features of his fellow-servant Gurth. Anxious

concerning his master’s fate, and in despair at his sudden

disappearance, the translated swineherd was searching for him

everywhere, and had neglected, in doing so, the concealment on

which his own safety depended. Oswald deemed it his duty to

secure Gurth, as a fugitive of whose fate his master was to

judge.

Renewing his enquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, the only

information which the cupbearer could collect from the bystanders

was, that the knight had been raised with care by certain

well-attired grooms, and placed in a litter belonging to a lady

among the spectators, which had immediately transported him out

of the press. Oswald, on receiving this intelligence, resolved

to return to his master for farther instructions, carrying along

with him Gurth, whom he considered in some sort as a deserter

from the service of Cedric.

The Saxon had been under very intense and agonizing apprehensions

concerning his son; for Nature had asserted her rights, in spite

of the patriotic stoicism which laboured to disown her. But no

sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful, and probably

in friendly hands, than the paternal anxiety which had been

excited by the dubiety of his fate, gave way anew to the feeling

of injured pride and resentment, at what he termed Wilfred’s

filial disobedience.

“Let him wander his way,” said he---“let those leech his wounds

for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the

juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame

and honour of his English ancestry with the glaive and

brown-bill, the good old weapons of his country.”

“If to maintain the honour of ancestry,” said Rowena, who was

present, “it is sufficient to be wise in council and brave in

execution---to be boldest among the bold, and gentlest among the

gentle, I know no voice, save his father’s------”

“Be silent, Lady Rowena!---on this subject only I hear you not.

Prepare yourself for the Prince’s festival: we have been summoned

thither with unwonted circumstance of honour and of courtesy,

such as the haughty Normans have rarely used to our race since

the fatal day of Hastings. Thither will I go, were it only to

show these proud Normans how little the fate of a son, who could

defeat their bravest, can affect a Saxon.”

“Thither,” said Rowena, “do I NOT go; and I pray you to beware,

lest what you mean for courage and constancy, shall be accounted

hardness of heart.”

“Remain at home, then, ungrateful lady,” answered Cedric; “thine

is the hard heart, which can sacrifice the weal of an oppressed

people to an idle and unauthorized attachment. I seek the noble

Athelstane, and with him attend the banquet of John of Anjou.”

He went accordingly to the banquet, of which we have already

mentioned the principal events. Immediately upon retiring from

the castle, the Saxon thanes, with their attendants, took horse;

and it was during the bustle which attended their doing so, that

Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the deserter

Gurth. The noble Saxon had returned from the banquet, as we have

seen, in no very placid humour, and wanted but a pretext for

wreaking his anger upon some one.

“The gyves!” he said, “the gyves!---Oswald---Hundibert!---Dogs

and villains!---why leave ye the knave unfettered?”

Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him

with a halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted

to the operation without remonstrance, except that, darting a

reproachful look at his master, he said, “This comes of loving

your flesh and blood better than mine own.”

“To horse, and forward!” said Cedric.

“It is indeed full time,” said the noble Athelstane; “for, if we

ride not the faster, the worthy Abbot Waltheoff’s preparations

for a rere-supper*

A rere-supper was a night-meal, and sometimes signified a collation, which was given at a late hour, after the regular supper had made its appearance. L. T.

will be altogether spoiled.”

The travellers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent

of St Withold’s before the apprehended evil took place. The

Abbot, himself of ancient Saxon descent, received the noble

Saxons with the profuse and exuberant hospitality of their

nation, wherein they indulged to a late, or rather an early hour;

nor did they take leave of their reverend host the next morning

until they had shared with him a sumptuous refection.

As the cavalcade left the court of the monastery, an incident

happened somewhat alarming to the Saxons, who, of all people of

Europe, were most addicted to a superstitious observance of

omens, and to whose opinions can be traced most of those notions

upon such subjects, still to be found among our popular

antiquities. For the Normans being a mixed race, and better

informed according to the information of the times, had lost most

of the superstitious prejudices which their ancestors had brought

from Scandinavia, and piqued themselves upon thinking freely on

such topics.

In the present instance, the apprehension of impending evil was

inspired by no less respectable a prophet than a large lean black

dog, which, sitting upright, howled most piteously as the

foremost riders left the gate, and presently afterwards, barking

wildly, and jumping to and fro, seemed bent upon attaching itself

to the party.

“I like not that music, father Cedric,” said Athelstane; for by

this title of respect he was accustomed to address him.

“Nor I either, uncle,” said Wamba; “I greatly fear we shall have

to pay the piper.”

“In my mind,” said Athelstane, upon whose memory the Abbot’s good

ale (for Burton was already famous for that genial liquor) had

made a favourable impression,---“in my mind we had better turn

back, and abide with the Abbot until the afternoon. It is

unlucky to travel where your path is crossed by a monk, a hare,

or a howling dog, until you have eaten your next meal.”

“Away!” said Cedric, impatiently; “the day is already too short

for our journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the

runaway slave Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master.”

So saying, and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient

at the interruption of his journey, he launched his javelin at

poor Fangs---for Fangs it was, who, having traced his master thus

far upon his stolen expedition, had here lost him, and was now,

in his uncouth way, rejoicing at his reappearance. The javelin

inflicted a wound upon the animal’s shoulder, and narrowly missed

pinning him to the earth; and Fangs fled howling from the

presence of the enraged thane. Gurth’s heart swelled within him;

for he felt this meditated slaughter of his faithful adherent in

a degree much deeper than the harsh treatment he had himself

received. Having in vain attempted to raise his hand to his

eyes, he said to Wamba, who, seeing his master’s ill humour had

prudently retreated to the rear, “I pray thee, do me the kindness

to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends

me, and these bonds will not