Ivanhoe - Walter Scott (bookreader txt) 📗

the vulgar without, in a fashion totally irreconcilable to the real fact. Athelstane, however, went on as follows, with the history of his escape:⁠—

“Finding myself freed from the staple, I dragged myself upstairs as well as a man loaded with shackles, and emaciated with fasting, might; and after much groping about, I was at length directed, by the sound of a jolly roundelay, to the apartment where the worthy Sacristan, an it so please ye, was holding a devil’s mass with a huge beetle-browed, broad-shouldered brother of the grey-frock and cowl, who looked much more like a thief than a clergyman. I burst in upon them, and the fashion of my grave-clothes, as well as the clanking of my chains, made me more resemble an inhabitant of the other world than of this. Both stood aghast; but when I knocked down the Sacristan with my fist, the other fellow, his pot-companion, fetched a blow at me with a huge quarterstaff.”

“This must be our Friar Tuck, for a count’s ransom,” said Richard, looking at Ivanhoe.

“He may be the devil, an he will,” said Athelstane. “Fortunately he missed the aim; and on my approaching to grapple with him, took to his heels and ran for it. I failed not to set my own heels at liberty by means of the fetter-key, which hung amongst others at the sexton’s belt; and I had thoughts of beating out the knave’s brains with the bunch of keys, but gratitude for the nook of pasty and the flask of wine which the rascal had imparted to my captivity, came over my heart; so, with a brace of hearty kicks, I left him on the floor, pouched some baked meat, and a leathern bottle of wine, with which the two venerable brethren had been regaling, went to the stable, and found in a private stall mine own best palfrey, which, doubtless, had been set apart for the holy Father Abbot’s particular use. Hither I came with all the speed the beast could compass⁠—man and mother’s son flying before me wherever I came, taking me for a spectre, the more especially as, to prevent my being recognised, I drew the corpse-hood over my face. I had not gained admittance into my own castle, had I not been supposed to be the attendant of a juggler who is making the people in the castle-yard very merry, considering they are assembled to celebrate their lord’s funeral⁠—I say the sewer thought I was dressed to bear a part in the tregetour’s mummery, and so I got admission, and did but disclose myself to my mother, and eat a hasty morsel, ere I came in quest of you, my noble friend.”

“And you have found me,” said Cedric, “ready to resume our brave projects of honour and liberty. I tell thee, never will dawn a morrow so auspicious as the next, for the deliverance of the noble Saxon race.”

“Talk not to me of delivering anyone,” said Athelstane; “it is well I am delivered myself. I am more intent on punishing that villain Abbot. He shall hang on the top of this Castle of Coningsburgh, in his cope and stole; and if the stairs be too strait to admit his fat carcass, I will have him craned up from without.”

“But, my son,” said Edith, “consider his sacred office.”

“Consider my three days’ fast,” replied Athelstane; “I will have their blood every one of them. Front-de-Boeuf was burnt alive for a less matter, for he kept a good table for his prisoners, only put too much garlic in his last dish of pottage. But these hypocritical, ungrateful slaves, so often the self-invited flatterers at my board, who gave me neither pottage nor garlic, more or less, they die, by the soul of Hengist!”

“But the Pope, my noble friend,”⁠—said Cedric⁠—

“But the devil, my noble friend,”⁠—answered Athelstane; “they die, and no more of them. Were they the best monks upon earth, the world would go on without them.”

“For shame, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric; “forget such wretches in the career of glory which lies open before thee. Tell this Norman prince, Richard of Anjou, that, lionhearted as he is, he shall not hold undisputed the throne of Alfred, while a male descendant of the Holy Confessor lives to dispute it.”

“How!” said Athelstane, “is this the noble King Richard?”

“It is Richard Plantagenet himself,” said Cedric; “yet I need not remind thee that, coming hither a guest of free-will, he may neither be injured nor detained prisoner⁠—thou well knowest thy duty to him as his host.”

“Ay, by my faith!” said Athelstane; “and my duty as a subject besides, for I here tender him my allegiance, heart and hand.”

“My son,” said Edith, “think on thy royal rights!”

“Think on the freedom of England, degenerate Prince!” said Cedric.

“Mother and friend,” said Athelstane, “a truce to your upbraidings⁠—bread and water and a dungeon are marvellous mortifiers of ambition, and I rise from the tomb a wiser man than I descended into it. One half of those vain follies were puffed into mine ear by that perfidious Abbot Wolfram, and you may now judge if he is a counsellor to be trusted. Since these plots were set in agitation, I have had nothing but hurried journeys, indigestions, blows and bruises, imprisonments and starvation; besides that they can only end in the murder of some thousands of quiet folk. I tell you, I will be king in my own domains, and nowhere else; and my first act of dominion shall be to hang the Abbot.”

“And my ward Rowena,” said Cedric⁠—“I trust you intend not to desert her?”

“Father Cedric,” said Athelstane, “be reasonable. The Lady Rowena cares not for me⁠—she loves the little finger of my kinsman Wilfred’s glove better than my whole person. There she stands to avouch it⁠—Nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country franklin⁠—and do not laugh neither, Rowena, for grave-clothes and a thin visage are, God knows, no matter of merriment⁠—Nay, an