Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (bookreader txt) 📗

addressing what seemed the spectre of his departed friend, “if thou art mortal, speak!⁠—if a departed spirit, say for what cause thou dost revisit us, or if I can do aught that can set thy spirit at repose.⁠—Living or dead, noble Athelstane, speak to Cedric!”

“I will,” said the spectre, very composedly, “when I have collected breath, and when you give me time⁠—Alive, saidst thou?⁠—I am as much alive as he can be who has fed on bread and water for three days, which seem three ages⁠—Yes, bread and water, Father Cedric! By Heaven, and all saints in it, better food hath not passed my weasand for three livelong days, and by God’s providence it is that I am now here to tell it.”

“Why, noble Athelstane,” said the Black Knight, “I myself saw you struck down by the fierce Templar towards the end of the storm at Torquilstone, and as I thought, and Wamba reported, your skull was cloven through the teeth.”

“You thought amiss, Sir Knight,” said Athelstane, “and Wamba lied. My teeth are in good order, and that my supper shall presently find⁠—No thanks to the Templar though, whose sword turned in his hand, so that the blade struck me flatlings, being averted by the handle of the good mace with which I warded the blow; had my steel-cap been on, I had not valued it a rush, and had dealt him such a counter-buff as would have spoilt his retreat. But as it was, down I went, stunned, indeed, but unwounded. Others, of both sides, were beaten down and slaughtered above me, so that I never recovered my senses until I found myself in a coffin⁠—(an open one, by good luck)⁠—placed before the altar of the church of Saint Edmund’s. I sneezed repeatedly⁠—groaned⁠—awakened and would have arisen, when the Sacristan and Abbot, full of terror, came running at the noise, surprised, doubtless, and no way pleased to find the man alive, whose heirs they had proposed themselves to be. I asked for wine⁠—they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many hours. I found my arms swathed down⁠—my feet tied so fast that mine ankles ache at the very remembrance⁠—the place was utterly dark⁠—the oubliette, as I suppose, of their accursed convent, and from the close, stifled, damp smell, I conceive it is also used for a place of sepulture. I had strange thoughts of what had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon creaked, and two villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I was in purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of the Father Abbot.⁠—Saint Jeremy! how different from that tone with which he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!⁠—the dog has feasted with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night.”

“Have patience, noble Athelstane,” said the King, “take breath⁠—tell your story at leisure⁠—beshrew me but such a tale is as well worth listening to as a romance.”

“Ay but, by the rood of Bromeholm, there was no romance in the matter!” said Athelstane.⁠—“A barley loaf and a pitcher of water⁠—that they gave me, the niggardly traitors, whom my father, and I myself, had enriched, when their best resources were the flitches of bacon and measures of corn, out of which they wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange for their prayers⁠—the nest of foul ungrateful vipers⁠—barley bread and ditch water to such a patron as I had been! I will smoke them out of their nest, though I be excommunicated!”

“But, in the name of Our Lady, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric, grasping the hand of his friend, “how didst thou escape this imminent danger⁠—did their hearts relent?”

“Did their hearts relent!” echoed Athelstane.⁠—“Do rocks melt with the sun? I should have been there still, had not some stir in the Convent, which I find was their procession hitherward to eat my funeral feast, when they well knew how and where I had been buried alive, summoned the swarm out of their hive. I heard them droning out their death-psalms, little judging they were sung in respect for my soul by those who were thus famishing my body. They went, however, and I waited long for food⁠—no wonder⁠—the gouty Sacristan was even too busy with his own provender to mind mine. At length down he came, with an unstable step and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person. Good cheer had opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty and a flask of wine, instead of my former fare. I ate, drank, and was invigorated; when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan, too totty to discharge his duty of turnkey fitly, locked the door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar. The light, the food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to which my chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot had supposed. Even iron could not remain without consuming in the damps of that infernal dungeon.”

“Take breath, noble Athelstane,” said Richard, “and partake of some refreshment, ere you proceed with a tale so dreadful.”

“Partake!” quoth Athelstane; “I have been partaking five times today⁠—and yet a morsel of that savoury ham were not altogether foreign to the matter; and I pray you, fair sir, to do me reason in a cup of wine.”

The guests, though still agape with astonishment, pledged their resuscitated landlord, who thus proceeded in his story:⁠—He had indeed now many more auditors than those to whom it was commenced, for Edith, having given certain necessary orders for arranging matters within the Castle, had followed the dead-alive up to the stranger’s apartment attended by as many of the guests, male and female, as could squeeze into the small room, while others, crowding the staircase, caught up an erroneous edition of the story, and transmitted it still more inaccurately to those beneath, who again sent it forth to