to repair or alter the suits of armour to be used again on the morrow.

A strong guard of men-at-arms, renewed at intervals, from two hours to
two hours, surrounded the lists, and kept watch during the night.

CHAPTER X

Thus, like the sad presaging raven, that tolls
The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings;
Vex’d and tormented, runs poor Barrabas,
With fatal curses towards these Christians.

JEW OF MALTA

The Disinherited Knight had no sooner reached his pavilion, than
squires and pages in abundance tendered their services to disarm him,
to bring fresh attire, and to offer him the refreshment of the bath.
Their zeal on this occasion was perhaps sharpened by curiosity, since
every one desired to know who the knight was that had gained so many
laurels, yet had refused, even at the command of Prince John, to lift
his visor or to name his name. But their officious inquisitiveness was
not gratified. The Disinherited Knight refused all other assistance
save that of his own squire, or rather yeoman—a clownish-looking man,
who, wrapt in a cloak of dark-coloured felt, and having his head and
face half-buried in a Norman bonnet made of black fur, seemed to affect
the incognito as much as his master. All others being excluded from the
tent, this attendant relieved his master from the more burdensome parts
of his armour, and placed food and wine before him, which the exertions
of the day rendered very acceptable.

The Knight had scarcely finished a hasty meal, ere his menial announced
to him that five men, each leading a barbed steed, desired to speak
with him. The Disinherited Knight had exchanged his armour for the long
robe usually worn by those of his condition, which, being furnished
with a hood, concealed the features, when such was the pleasure of the
wearer, almost as completely as the visor of the helmet itself, but the
twilight, which was now fast darkening, would of itself have rendered a
disguise unnecessary, unless to persons to whom the face of an
individual chanced to be particularly well known.

The Disinherited Knight, therefore, stept boldly forth to the front of
his tent, and found in attendance the squires of the challengers, whom
he easily knew by their russet and black dresses, each of whom led his
master’s charger, loaded with the armour in which he had that day
fought.

“According to the laws of chivalry,” said the foremost of these men,
“I, Baldwin de Oyley, squire to the redoubted Knight Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, make offer to you, styling yourself, for the present,
the Disinherited Knight, of the horse and armour used by the said Brian
de Bois-Guilbert in this day’s Passage of Arms, leaving it with your
nobleness to retain or to ransom the same, according to your pleasure;
for such is the law of arms.”

The other squires repeated nearly the same formula, and then stood to
await the decision of the Disinherited Knight.

“To you four, sirs,” replied the Knight, addressing those who had last
spoken, “and to your honourable and valiant masters, I have one common
reply. Commend me to the noble knights, your masters, and say, I should
do ill to deprive them of steeds and arms which can never be used by
braver cavaliers.—I would I could here end my message to these gallant
knights; but being, as I term myself, in truth and earnest, the
Disinherited, I must be thus far bound to your masters, that they will,
of their courtesy, be pleased to ransom their steeds and armour, since
that which I wear I can hardly term mine own.”

“We stand commissioned, each of us,” answered the squire of Reginald
Front-de-Bœuf, “to offer a hundred zecchins in ransom of these horses
and suits of armour.”

“It is sufficient,” said the Disinherited Knight. “Half the sum my
present necessities compel me to accept; of the remaining half,
distribute one moiety among yourselves, sir squires, and divide the
other half betwixt the heralds and the pursuivants, and minstrels, and
attendants.”

The squires, with cap in hand, and low reverences, expressed their deep
sense of a courtesy and generosity not often practised, at least upon a
scale so extensive. The Disinherited Knight then addressed his
discourse to Baldwin, the squire of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. “From your
master,” said he, “I will accept neither arms nor ransom. Say to him in
my name, that our strife is not ended—no, not till we have fought as
well with swords as with lances—as well on foot as on horseback. To
this mortal quarrel he has himself defied me, and I shall not forget
the challenge.—Meantime, let him be assured, that I hold him not as one
of his companions, with whom I can with pleasure exchange courtesies;
but rather as one with whom I stand upon terms of mortal defiance.”

“My master,” answered Baldwin, “knows how to requite scorn with scorn,
and blows with blows, as well as courtesy with courtesy. Since you
disdain to accept from him any share of the ransom at which you have
rated the arms of the other knights, I must leave his armour and his
horse here, being well assured that he will never deign to mount the
one nor wear the other.”

“You have spoken well, good squire,” said the Disinherited Knight,
“well and boldly, as it beseemeth him to speak who answers for an
absent master. Leave not, however, the horse and armour here. Restore
them to thy master; or, if he scorns to accept them, retain them, good
friend, for thine own use. So far as they are mine, I bestow them upon
you freely.”

Baldwin made a deep obeisance, and retired with his companions; and the
Disinherited Knight entered the pavilion.

“Thus far, Gurth,” said he, addressing his attendant, “the reputation
of English chivalry hath not suffered in my hands.”

“And I,” said Gurth, “for a Saxon swineherd, have not ill played the
personage of a Norman squire-at-arms.”

“Yea, but,” answered the Disinherited Knight, “thou hast ever kept me
in anxiety lest thy clownish bearing should discover thee.”

“Tush!” said Gurth, “I fear discovery from none, saving my playfellow,
Wamba the Jester, of whom I could never discover whether he were most
knave or fool. Yet I could scarce choose but laugh, when my old master
passed so near to me, dreaming all the while that Gurth was keeping his
porkers many a mile off, in the thickets and swamps of Rotherwood. If I
am discovered—-”

“Enough,” said the Disinherited Knight, “thou knowest my promise.”

“Nay, for that matter,” said Gurth, “I will never fail my friend for
fear of my skin-cutting. I have a tough hide, that will bear knife or
scourge as well as any boar’s hide in my herd.”

“Trust me, I will requite the risk you run for my love, Gurth,” said
the Knight. “Meanwhile, I pray you to accept these ten pieces of gold.”

“I am richer,” said Gurth, putting them into his pouch, “than ever was
swineherd or bondsman.”

“Take this bag of gold to Ashby,” continued his master, “and find out
Isaac the Jew of York, and let him pay himself for the horse and arms
with which his credit supplied me.”

“Nay, by St Dunstan,” replied Gurth, “that I will not do.”

“How, knave,” replied his master, “wilt thou not obey my commands?”

“So they be honest, reasonable, and Christian commands,” replied Gurth;
“but this is none of these. To suffer the Jew to pay himself would be
dishonest, for it would be cheating my master; and unreasonable, for it
were the part of a fool; and unchristian, since it would be plundering
a believer to enrich an infidel.”

“See him contented, however, thou stubborn varlet,” said the
Disinherited Knight.

“I will do so,” said Gurth, taking the bag under his cloak, and leaving
the apartment; “and it will go hard,” he muttered, “but I content him
with one-half of his own asking.” So saying, he departed, and left the
Disinherited Knight to his own perplexed ruminations; which, upon more
accounts than it is now possible to communicate to the reader, were of
a nature peculiarly agitating and painful.

We must now change the scene to the village of Ashby, or rather to a
country house in its vicinity belonging to a wealthy Israelite, with
whom Isaac, his daughter, and retinue, had taken up their quarters; the
Jews, it is well known, being as liberal in exercising the duties of
hospitality and charity among their own people, as they were alleged to
be reluctant and churlish in extending them to those whom they termed
Gentiles, and whose treatment of them certainly merited little
hospitality at their hand.

In an apartment, small indeed, but richly furnished with decorations of
an Oriental taste, Rebecca was seated on a heap of embroidered
cushions, which, piled along a low platform that surrounded the
chamber, served, like the estrada of the Spaniards, instead of chairs
and stools. She was watching the motions of her father with a look of
anxious and filial affection, while he paced the apartment with a
dejected mien and disordered step; sometimes clasping his hands
together—sometimes casting his eyes to the roof of the apartment, as
one who laboured under great mental tribulation. “O, Jacob!” he
exclaimed—“O, all ye twelve Holy Fathers of our tribe! what a losing
venture is this for one who hath duly kept every jot and tittle of the
law of Moses—Fifty zecchins wrenched from me at one clutch, and by the
talons of a tyrant!”

“But, father,” said Rebecca, “you seemed to give the gold to Prince
John willingly.”

“Willingly? the blotch of Egypt upon him!—Willingly, saidst thou?—Ay,
as willingly as when, in the Gulf of Lyons, I flung over my merchandise
to lighten the ship, while she laboured in the tempest—robed the
seething billows in my choice silks—perfumed their briny foam with
myrrh and aloes—enriched their caverns with gold and silver work! And
was not that an hour of unutterable misery, though my own hands made
the sacrifice?”

“But it was a sacrifice which Heaven exacted to save our lives,”
answered Rebecca, “and the God of our fathers has since blessed your
store and your gettings.”

“Ay,” answered Isaac, “but if the tyrant lays hold on them as he did
to-day, and compels me to smile while he is robbing me?—O, daughter,
disinherited and wandering as we are, the worst evil which befalls our
race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs
around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to
smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely.”

“Think not thus of it, my father,” said Rebecca; “we also have
advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are, are in
some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion, whom they
despise and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth, they could
neither furnish forth their hosts in war, nor their triumphs in peace,
and the gold which we lend them returns with increase to our coffers.
We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled
on. Even this day’s pageant had not proceeded without the consent of
the despised Jew, who furnished the means.”

“Daughter,” said Isaac, “thou hast harped upon another string of
sorrow. The goodly steed and the rich armour, equal to the full profit
of my adventure with our Kirjath Jairam of Leicester—there is a dead
loss too—ay, a loss which swallows up the gains of a week; ay, of the
space between two Sabbaths—and yet it may end better than I now think,
for ’tis a good youth.”

“Assuredly,” said Rebecca, “you shall not repent you of requiting the
good deed received of the stranger knight.”

“I trust so, daughter,” said Isaac, “and I trust too in the rebuilding
of Zion; but as well do I hope with my own bodily eyes to see the walls
and battlements of the new Temple, as to see a Christian, yea, the very
best of Christians, repay a debt to a Jew, unless under the awe of the
judge and jailor.”

So saying, he resumed his discontented walk through the apartment; and
Rebecca, perceiving that her attempts at consolation only served to
awaken new subjects of complaint, wisely desisted from her unavailing
efforts—a prudential line of conduct, and we recommend to all who set
up for comforters and advisers, to follow it in the like circumstances.

The evening was now becoming dark, when a Jewish servant entered the
apartment, and placed upon the table two silver lamps, fed with
perfumed oil; the richest wines, and the most delicate refreshments,
were at the same time displayed by another Israelitish domestic on a
small ebony table, inlaid with silver; for, in the interior of their
houses, the Jews refused themselves no expensive indulgences. At the
same time the servant informed Isaac, that a Nazarene (so they termed
Christians, while conversing among themselves) desired to speak with
him. He that would live by traffic, must hold himself at the disposal
of every one claiming business with him. Isaac at once replaced on the
table the untasted glass of Greek wine which he had just raised to his
lips, and saying hastily to his daughter, “Rebecca, veil thyself,”
commanded the stranger to be admitted.

Just as Rebecca had dropped over her fine features a screen of silver
gauze which reached to her feet, the door opened, and Gurth entered,
wrapt in the ample folds of his Norman mantle. His appearance was
rather suspicious than prepossessing, especially as, instead of doffing
his bonnet, he pulled it still deeper over his rugged brow.

“Art thou Isaac the Jew of York?” said Gurth, in Saxon.

“I am,” replied Isaac, in the same language, (for his traffic had
rendered every tongue spoken in Britain familiar to him)—“and who art
thou?”

“That is not to the purpose,” answered Gurth.

“As much as my name is to thee,” replied Isaac; “for without knowing
thine, how can I hold intercourse with thee?”

“Easily,” answered Gurth; “I, being to pay money, must know that I
deliver it to the right person; thou, who are to receive it, will not,
I think, care very greatly by whose hands it is delivered.”

“O,” said the Jew, “you are come to pay moneys?—Holy Father Abraham!
that altereth our relation to each other. And from whom dost thou bring
it?”

“From the Disinherited Knight,” said Gurth, “victor in this day’s
tournament. It is the price of the armour supplied to him by Kirjath
Jairam of Leicester, on thy recommendation. The steed is restored to
thy stable. I desire to know the amount of the sum which I am to pay
for the armour.”

“I said he was a good youth!” exclaimed Isaac with joyful exultation.
“A cup of wine will do thee no harm,” he added, filling and handing to
the swineherd a richer drought than Gurth had ever before tasted. “And
how much money,” continued Isaac, “has thou brought with thee?”

“Holy Virgin!” said Gurth, setting down the cup, “what nectar these
unbelieving dogs drink, while true Christians are fain to quaff ale as
muddy and thick as the draff we give to hogs!—What money have I brought
with me?” continued the Saxon, when he had finished this uncivil
ejaculation, “even but a small sum; something in hand the whilst. What,
Isaac! thou must bear a conscience, though it be a Jewish one.”

“Nay, but,” said Isaac, “thy master has won goodly steeds and rich
armours with the strength of his lance, and of his right hand—but ’tis
a good youth—the Jew will take these in present payment, and render him
back the surplus.”

“My master has disposed of them already,” said Gurth.

“Ah! that was wrong,” said the Jew, “that was the part of a fool. No
Christians here could buy so many horses and armour—no Jew except
myself would give him half the values. But thou hast a hundred zecchins
with thee in that bag,” said Isaac, prying under Gurth’s cloak, “it is
a heavy one.”

“I have heads for cross-bow bolts in it,” said Gurth, readily.

“Well, then”—said Isaac, panting and hesitating between habitual love
of gain and a new-born desire to be liberal in the present instance,
“if I should say that I would take eighty zecchins for the good steed
and the rich armour, which leaves me not a guilder’s profit, have you
money to pay me?”

“Barely,” said Gurth, though the sum demanded was more reasonable than
he expected, “and it will leave my master nigh penniless. Nevertheless,
if such be your least offer, I must be content.”

“Fill thyself another goblet of wine,” said the Jew. “Ah! eighty
zecchins is too little. It leaveth no profit for the usages of the
moneys; and, besides, the good horse may have suffered wrong in this
day’s encounter. O, it was a hard and a dangerous meeting! man and
steed rushing on each other like wild bulls of Bashan! The horse cannot
but have had wrong.”

“And I say,” replied Gurth, “he is sound, wind and limb; and you may
see him now, in your stable. And I say, over and above, that seventy
zecchins is enough for the armour, and I hope a Christian’s word is as
good as a Jew’s. If you will not take seventy, I will carry this bag”
(and he shook it till the contents jingled) “back to my master.”

“Nay, nay!” said Isaac; “lay down the talents—the shekels—the eighty
zecchins, and thou shalt see I will consider thee liberally.”

Gurth at length complied; and telling out eighty zecchins upon the
table, the Jew delivered out to him an acquittance for the horse and
suit of armour. The Jew’s hand trembled for joy as he wrapped up the
first seventy pieces of gold. The last ten he told over with much
deliberation, pausing, and saying something as he took each piece from
the table, and dropt it into his purse. It seemed as if his avarice
were struggling with his better nature, and compelling him to pouch
zecchin after zecchin while his generosity urged him to restore some
part at least to his benefactor, or as a donation to his agent. His
whole speech ran nearly thus:

“Seventy-one—seventy-two; thy master is a good youth—seventy-three, an
excellent youth—seventy-four—that piece hath been clipt within the
ring—seventy-five—and that looketh light of weight—seventy-six—when thy
master wants money, let him come to Isaac of York—seventy-seven—that
is, with reasonable security.” Here he made a considerable pause, and
Gurth had good hope that the last three pieces might escape the fate of
their comrades; but the enumeration proceeded.—“Seventy-eight—thou art
a good fellow—seventy-nine—and deservest something for thyself—-”

Here the Jew paused again, and looked at the last zecchin, intending,
doubtless, to bestow it upon Gurth. He weighed it upon the tip of his
finger, and made it ring by dropping it upon the table. Had it rung too
flat, or had it felt a hair’s breadth too light, generosity had carried
the day; but, unhappily for Gurth, the chime was full and true, the
zecchin plump, newly coined, and a grain above weight. Isaac could not
find in his heart to part with it, so dropt it into his purse as if in
absence of mind, with the words, “Eighty completes the tale, and I
trust thy master will reward thee handsomely.—Surely,” he added,
looking earnestly at the bag, “thou hast more coins in that pouch?”

Gurth grinned, which was his nearest approach to a laugh, as he
replied, “About the same quantity which thou hast just told over so
carefully.” He then folded the quittance, and put it under his cap,
adding,—“Peril of thy beard, Jew, see that this be full and ample!” He
filled himself unbidden, a third goblet of wine, and left the apartment
without ceremony.

“Rebecca,” said the Jew, “that Ishmaelite hath gone somewhat beyond me.
Nevertheless his master is a good youth—ay, and I am well pleased that
he hath gained shekels of gold and shekels of silver, even by the speed
of his horse and by the strength of his lance, which, like that of
Goliath the Philistine, might vie with a weaver’s beam.”

As he turned to receive Rebecca’s answer, he observed, that during his
chattering with Gurth, she had left the apartment unperceived.

In the meanwhile, Gurth had descended the stair, and, having reached
the dark antechamber or hall, was puzzling about to discover the
entrance, when a figure in white, shown by a small silver lamp which
she held in her hand, beckoned him into a side apartment. Gurth had
some reluctance to obey the summons. Rough and impetuous as a wild
boar, where only earthly force was to be apprehended, he had all the
characteristic terrors of a Saxon respecting fawns, forest-fiends,
white women, and the whole of the superstitions which his ancestors had
brought with them from the wilds of Germany. He remembered, moreover,
that he was in the house of a Jew, a people who, besides the other
unamiable qualities which popular report ascribed to them, were
supposed to be profound necromancers and cabalists. Nevertheless, after
a moment’s pause, he obeyed the beckoning summons of the apparition,
and followed her into the apartment which she indicated, where he found
to his joyful surprise that his fair guide was the beautiful Jewess
whom he had seen at the tournament, and a short time in her father’s
apartment.

She asked him the particulars of his transaction with Isaac, which he
detailed accurately.

“My father did but jest with thee, good fellow,” said Rebecca; “he owes
thy master deeper kindness than these arms and steed could pay, were
their value tenfold. What sum didst thou pay my father even now?”

“Eighty zecchins,” said Gurth, surprised at the question.

“In this purse,” said Rebecca, “thou wilt find a hundred. Restore to
thy master that which is his due, and enrich thyself with the
remainder. Haste—begone—stay not to render thanks! and beware how you
pass through this crowded town, where thou mayst easily lose both thy
burden and thy life.—Reuben,” she added, clapping her hands together,
“light forth this stranger, and fail not to draw lock and bar behind
him.” Reuben, a dark-brow’d and black-bearded Israelite, obeyed her
summons, with a torch in his hand; undid the outward door of the house,
and conducting Gurth across a paved court, let him out through a wicket
in the entrance-gate, which he closed behind him with such bolts and
chains as would well have become that of a prison.

“By St Dunstan,” said Gurth, as he stumbled up the dark avenue, “this
is no Jewess, but an angel from heaven! Ten zecchins from my brave
young master—twenty from this pearl of Zion—Oh, happy day!—Such
another, Gurth, will redeem thy bondage, and make thee a brother as
free of thy guild as the best. And then do I lay down my swineherd’s
horn and staff, and take the freeman’s sword and buckler, and follow my
young master to the death, without hiding either my face or my name.”

CHAPTER XI

1st Outlaw: Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you;
If not, we’ll make you sit, and rifle you.
Speed: Sir, we are undone! these are the villains
That all the travellers do fear so much.
Val: My friends,—
1st Out: That’s not so, sir, we are your enemies.
2d Out: Peace! we’ll hear him.
3d Out: Ay, by my beard, will we;
For he’s a proper man.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

The nocturnal adventures of Gurth were not yet concluded; indeed he
himself became partly of that mind, when, after passing one or two
straggling houses which stood in the outskirts of the village, he found
himself in a deep lane, running between two banks overgrown with hazel
and holly, while here and there a dwarf oak flung its arms altogether
across the path. The lane was moreover much rutted and broken up by the
carriages which had recently transported articles of various kinds to
the tournament; and it was dark, for the banks and bushes intercepted
the light of the harvest moon.

From the village were heard the distant sounds of revelry, mixed
occasionally with loud laughter, sometimes broken by screams, and
sometimes by wild strains of distant music. All these sounds,
intimating the disorderly state of the town, crowded with military
nobles and their dissolute attendants, gave Gurth some uneasiness. “The
Jewess was right,” he said to himself. “By heaven and St Dunstan, I
would I were safe at my journey’s end with all this treasure! Here are
such numbers, I will not say of arrant thieves, but of errant knights
and errant squires, errant monks and errant minstrels, errant jugglers
and errant jesters, that a man with a single merk would be in danger,
much more a poor swineherd with a whole bagful of zecchins. Would I
were out of the shade of these infernal bushes, that I might at least
see any of St Nicholas’s clerks before they spring on my shoulders.”

Gurth accordingly hastened his pace, in order to gain the open common
to which the lane led, but was not so fortunate as to accomplish his
object. Just as he had attained the upper end of the lane, where the
underwood was thickest, four men sprung upon him, even as his fears
anticipated, two from each side of the road, and seized him so fast,
that resistance, if at first practicable, would have been now too
late.—“Surrender your charge,” said one of them; “we are the deliverers
of the commonwealth, who ease every man of his burden.”

“You should not ease me of mine so lightly,” muttered Gurth, whose
surly honesty could not be tamed even by the pressure of immediate
violence,—“had I it but in my power to give three strokes in its
defence.”

“We shall see that presently,” said the robber; and, speaking to his
companions, he added, “bring along the knave. I see he would have his
head broken, as well as his purse cut, and so be let blood in two veins
at once.”

Gurth was hurried along agreeably to this mandate, and having been
dragged somewhat roughly over the bank, on the left-hand side of the
lane, found himself in a straggling thicket, which lay betwixt it and
the open common. He was compelled to follow his rough conductors into
the very depth of this cover, where they stopt unexpectedly in an
irregular open space, free in a great measure from trees, and on which,
therefore, the beams of the moon fell without much interruption from
boughs and leaves. Here his captors were joined by two other persons,
apparently belonging to the gang. They had short swords by their sides,
and quarter-staves in their hands, and Gurth could now observe that all
six wore visors, which rendered their occupation a matter of no
question, even had their former proceedings left it in doubt.

“What money hast thou, churl?” said one of the thieves.

“Thirty zecchins of my own property,” answered Gurth, doggedly.

“A forfeit—a forfeit,” shouted the robbers; “a Saxon hath thirty
zecchins, and returns sober from a village! An undeniable and
unredeemable forfeit of all he hath about him.”

“I hoarded it to purchase my freedom,” said Gurth.

“Thou art an ass,” replied one of the thieves “three quarts of double
ale had rendered thee as free as thy master, ay, and freer too, if he
be a Saxon like thyself.”

“A sad truth,” replied Gurth; “but if these same thirty zecchins will
buy my freedom from you, unloose my hands, and I will pay them to you.”

“Hold,” said one who seemed to exercise some authority over the others;
“this bag which thou bearest, as I can feel through thy cloak, contains
more coin than thou hast told us of.”

“It is the good knight my master’s,” answered Gurth, “of which,
assuredly, I would not have spoken a word, had you been satisfied with
working your will upon mine own property.”

“Thou art an honest fellow,” replied the robber, “I warrant thee; and
we worship not St Nicholas so devoutly but what thy thirty zecchins may
yet escape, if thou deal uprightly with us. Meantime render up thy
trust for a time.” So saying, he took from Gurth’s breast the large
leathern pouch, in which the purse given him by Rebecca was enclosed,
as well as the rest of the zecchins, and then continued his
interrogation.—“Who is thy master?”

“The Disinherited Knight,” said Gurth.

“Whose good lance,” replied the robber, “won the prize in to-day’s
tourney? What is his name and lineage?”

“It is his pleasure,” answered Gurth, “that they be concealed; and from
me, assuredly, you will learn nought of them.”

“What is thine own name and lineage?”

“To tell that,” said Gurth, “might reveal my master’s.”

“Thou art a saucy groom,” said the robber, “but of that anon. How comes
thy master by this gold? is it of his inheritance, or by what means
hath it accrued to him?”

“By his good lance,” answered Gurth.—“These bags contain the ransom of
four good horses, and four good suits of armour.”

“How much is there?” demanded the robber.

“Two hundred zecchins.”

“Only two hundred zecchins!” said the bandit; “your master hath dealt
liberally by the vanquished, and put them to a cheap ransom. Name those
who paid the gold.”

Gurth did so.

“The armour and horse of the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, at what
ransom were they held?—Thou seest thou canst not deceive me.”

“My master,” replied Gurth, “will take nought from the Templar save his
life’s-blood. They are on terms of mortal defiance, and cannot hold
courteous intercourse together.”

“Indeed!”—repeated the robber, and paused after he had said the word.
“And what wert thou now doing at Ashby with such a charge in thy
custody?”

“I went thither to render to Isaac the Jew of York,” replied Gurth,
“the price of a suit of armour with which he fitted my master for this
tournament.”

“And how much didst thou pay to Isaac?—Methinks, to judge by weight,
there is still two hundred zecchins in this pouch.”

“I paid to Isaac,” said the Saxon, “eighty zecchins, and he restored me
a hundred in lieu thereof.”

“How! what!” exclaimed all the robbers at once; “darest thou trifle
with us, that thou tellest such improbable lies?”

“What I tell you,” said Gurth, “is as true as the moon is in heaven.
You will find the just sum in a silken purse within the leathern pouch,
and separate from the rest of the gold.”

“Bethink thee, man,” said the Captain, “thou speakest of a Jew—of an
Israelite,—as unapt to restore gold, as the dry sand of his deserts to
return the cup of water which the pilgrim spills upon them.”

“There is no more mercy in them,” said another of the banditti, “than
in an unbribed sheriffs officer.”

“It is, however, as I say,” said Gurth.

“Strike a light instantly,” said the Captain; “I will examine this said
purse; and if it be as this fellow says, the Jew’s bounty is little
less miraculous than the stream which relieved his fathers in the
wilderness.”

A light was procured accordingly, and the robber proceeded to examine
the purse. The others crowded around him, and even two who had hold of
Gurth relaxed their grasp while they stretched their necks to see the
issue of the search. Availing himself of their negligence, by a sudden
exertion of strength and activity, Gurth shook himself free of their
hold, and might have escaped, could he have resolved to leave his
master’s property behind him. But such was no part of his intention. He
wrenched a quarter-staff from one of the fellows, struck down the
Captain, who was altogether unaware of his purpose, and had well-nigh
repossessed himself of the pouch and treasure. The thieves, however,
were too nimble for him, and again secured both the bag and the trusty
Gurth.

“Knave!” said the Captain, getting up, “thou hast broken my head; and
with other men of our sort thou wouldst fare the worse for thy
insolence. But thou shalt know thy fate instantly. First let us speak
of thy master; the knight’s matters must go before the squire’s,
according to the due order of chivalry. Stand thou fast in the
meantime—if thou stir again, thou shalt have that will make thee quiet
for thy life—Comrades!” he then said, addressing his gang, “this purse
is embroidered with Hebrew characters, and I well believe the yeoman’s
tale is true. The errant knight, his master, must needs pass us
toll-free. He is too like ourselves for us to make booty of him, since
dogs should not worry dogs where wolves and foxes are to be found in
abundance.”

“Like us?” answered one of the gang; “I should like to hear how that is
made good.”

“Why, thou fool,” answered the Captain, “is he not poor and
disinherited as we are?—Doth he not win his substance at the sword’s
point as we do?—Hath he not beaten Front-de-Bœuf and Malvoisin, even as
we would beat them if we could? Is he not the enemy to life and death
of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whom we have so much reason to fear? And
were all this otherwise, wouldst thou have us show a worse conscience
than an unbeliever, a Hebrew Jew?”

“Nay, that were a shame,” muttered the other fellow; “and yet, when I
served in the band of stout old Gandelyn, we had no such scruples of
conscience. And this insolent peasant,—he too, I warrant me, is to be
dismissed scatheless?”

“Not if THOU canst scathe him,” replied the Captain.—“Here, fellow,”
continued he, addressing Gurth, “canst thou use the staff, that thou
starts to it so readily?”

“I think,” said Gurth, “thou shouldst be best able to reply to that
question.”

“Nay, by my troth, thou gavest me a round knock,” replied the Captain;
“do as much for this fellow, and thou shalt pass scot-free; and if thou
dost not—why, by my faith, as thou art such a sturdy knave, I think I
must pay thy ransom myself.—Take thy staff, Miller,” he added, “and
keep thy head; and do you others let the fellow go, and give him a
staff—there is light enough to lay on load by.”

The two champions being alike armed with quarter-staves, stepped
forward into the centre of the open space, in order to have the full
benefit of the moonlight; the thieves in the meantime laughing, and
crying to their comrade, “Miller! beware thy toll-dish.” The Miller, on
the other hand, holding his quarter-staff by the middle, and making it
flourish round his head after the fashion which the French call “faire
le moulinet”, exclaimed boastfully, “Come on, churl, an thou darest:
thou shalt feel the strength of a miller’s thumb!”

“If thou be’st a miller,” answered Gurth, undauntedly, making his
weapon play around his head with equal dexterity, “thou art doubly a
thief, and I, as a true man, bid thee defiance.”

So saying, the two champions closed together, and for a few minutes
they displayed great equality in strength, courage, and skill,
intercepting and returning the blows of their adversary with the most
rapid dexterity, while, from the continued clatter of their weapons, a
person at a distance might have supposed that there were at least six
persons engaged on each side. Less obstinate, and even less dangerous
combats, have been described in good heroic verse; but that of Gurth
and the Miller must remain unsung, for want of a sacred poet to do
justice to its eventful progress. Yet, though quarter-staff play be out
of date, what we can in prose we will do for these bold champions.

Long they fought equally, until the Miller began to lose temper at
finding himself so stoutly opposed, and at hearing the laughter of his
companions, who, as usual in such cases, enjoyed his vexation. This was
not a state of mind favourable to the noble game of quarter-staff, in
which, as in ordinary cudgel-playing, the utmost coolness is requisite;
and it gave Gurth, whose temper was steady, though surly, the
opportunity of acquiring a decided advantage, in availing himself of
which he displayed great mastery.

The Miller pressed furiously forward, dealing blows with either end of
his weapon alternately, and striving to come to half-staff distance,
while Gurth defended himself against the attack, keeping his hands
about a yard asunder, and covering himself by shifting his weapon with
great celerity, so as to protect his head and body. Thus did he
maintain the defensive, making his eye, foot, and hand keep true time,
until, observing his antagonist to lose wind, he darted the staff at
his face with his left hand; and, as the Miller endeavoured to parry
the thrust, he slid his right hand down to his left, and with the full
swing of the weapon struck his opponent on the left side of the head,
who instantly measured his length upon the green sward.

“Well and yeomanly done!” shouted the robbers; “fair play and Old
England for ever! The Saxon hath saved both his purse and his hide, and
the Miller has met his match.”

“Thou mayst go thy ways, my friend,” said the Captain, addressing
Gurth, in special confirmation of the general voice, “and I will cause
two of my comrades to guide thee by the best way to thy master’s
pavilion, and to guard thee from night-walkers that might have less
tender consciences than ours; for there is many one of them upon the
amble in such a night as this. Take heed, however,” he added sternly;
“remember thou hast refused to tell thy name—ask not after ours, nor
endeavour to discover who or what we are; for, if thou makest such an
attempt, thou wilt come by worse fortune than has yet befallen thee.”

Gurth thanked the Captain for his courtesy, and promised to attend to
his recommendation. Two of the outlaws, taking up their quarter-staves,
and desiring Gurth to follow close in the rear, walked roundly forward
along a by-path, which traversed the thicket and the broken ground
adjacent to it. On the very verge of the thicket two men spoke to his
conductors, and receiving an answer in a whisper, withdrew into the
wood, and suffered them to pass unmolested. This circumstance induced
Gurth to believe both that the gang was strong in numbers, and that
they kept regular guards around their place of rendezvous.

When they arrived on the open heath, where Gurth might have had some
trouble in finding his road, the thieves guided him straight forward to
the top of a little eminence, whence he could see, spread beneath him
in the moonlight, the palisades of the lists, the glimmering pavilions
pitched at either end, with the pennons which adorned them fluttering
in the moonbeams, and from which could be heard the hum of the song
with which the sentinels were beguiling their night-watch.

Here the thieves stopt.

“We go with you no farther,” said they; “it were not safe that we
should do so.—Remember the warning you have received—keep secret what
has this night befallen you, and you will have no room to repent
it—neglect what is now told you, and the Tower of London shall not
protect you against our revenge.”

“Good night to you, kind sirs,” said Gurth; “I shall remember your
orders, and trust that there is no offence in wishing you a safer and
an honester trade.”

Thus they parted, the outlaws returning in the direction from whence
they had come, and Gurth proceeding to the tent of his master, to whom,
notwithstanding the injunction he had received, he communicated the
whole adventures of the evening.

The Disinherited Knight was filled with astonishment, no less at the
generosity of Rebecca, by which, however, he resolved he would not
profit, than that of the robbers, to whose profession such a quality
seemed totally foreign. His course of reflections upon these singular
circumstances was, however, interrupted by the necessity for taking
repose, which the fatigue of the preceding day, and the propriety of
refreshing himself for the morrow’s encounter, rendered alike
indispensable.

The knight, therefore, stretched himself for repose upon a rich couch
with which the tent was provided; and the faithful Gurth, extending his
hardy limbs upon a bear-skin which formed a sort of carpet to the
pavilion, laid himself across the opening of the tent, so that no one
could enter without awakening him.

CHAPTER XII

The heralds left their pricking up and down,
Now ringen trumpets loud and clarion.
There is no more to say, but east and west,
In go the speares sadly in the rest,
In goth the sharp spur into the side,
There see men who can just and who can ride;
There shiver shaftes upon shieldes thick,
He feeleth through the heart-spone the prick;
Up springen speares, twenty feet in height,
Out go the swordes to the silver bright;
The helms they to-hewn and to-shred;
Out burst the blood with stern streames red.

CHAUCER

Morning arose in unclouded splendour, and ere the sun was much above
the horizon, the idlest or the most eager of the spectators appeared on
the common, moving to the lists as to a general centre, in order to
secure a favourable situation for viewing the continuation of the
expected games.

The marshals and their attendants appeared next on the field, together
with the heralds, for the purpose of receiving the names of the knights
who intended to joust, with the side which each chose to espouse. This
was a necessary precaution, in order to secure equality betwixt the two
bodies who should be opposed to each other.

According to due formality, the Disinherited Knight was to be
considered as leader of the one body, while Brian de Bois-Guilbert, who
had been rated as having done second-best in the preceding day, was
named first champion of the other band. Those who had concurred in the
challenge adhered to his party of course, excepting only Ralph de
Vipont, whom his fall had rendered unfit so soon to put on his armour.
There was no want of distinguished and noble candidates to fill up the
ranks on either side.

In fact, although the general tournament, in which all knights fought
at once, was more dangerous than single encounters, they were,
nevertheless, more frequented and practised by the chivalry of the age.
Many knights, who had not sufficient confidence in their own skill to
defy a single adversary of high reputation, were, nevertheless,
desirous of displaying their valour in the general combat, where they
might meet others with whom they were more upon an equality. On the
present occasion, about fifty knights were inscribed as desirous of
combating upon each side, when the marshals declared that no more could
be admitted, to the disappointment of several who were too late in
preferring their claim to be included.

About the hour of ten o’clock, the whole plain was crowded with
horsemen, horsewomen, and foot-passengers, hastening to the tournament;
and shortly after, a grand flourish of trumpets announced Prince John
and his retinue, attended by many of those knights who meant to take
share in the game, as well as others who had no such intention.

About the same time arrived Cedric the Saxon, with the Lady Rowena,
unattended, however, by Athelstane. This Saxon lord had arrayed his
tall and strong person in armour, in order to take his place among the
combatants; and, considerably to the surprise of Cedric, had chosen to
enlist himself on the part of the Knight Templar. The Saxon, indeed,
had remonstrated strongly with his friend upon the injudicious choice
he had made of his party; but he had only received that sort of answer
usually given by those who are more obstinate in following their own
course, than strong in justifying it.

His best, if not his only reason, for adhering to the party of Brian de
Bois-Guilbert, Athelstane had the prudence to keep to himself. Though
his apathy of disposition prevented his taking any means to recommend
himself to the Lady Rowena, he was, nevertheless, by no means
insensible to her charms, and considered his union with her as a matter
already fixed beyond doubt, by the assent of Cedric and her other
friends. It had therefore been with smothered displeasure that the
proud though indolent Lord of Coningsburgh beheld the victor of the
preceding day select Rowena as the object of that honour which it
became his privilege to confer. In order to punish him for a preference
which seemed to interfere with his own suit, Athelstane, confident of
his strength, and to whom his flatterers, at least, ascribed great
skill in arms, had determined not only to deprive the Disinherited
Knight of his powerful succour, but, if an opportunity should occur, to
make him feel the weight of his battle-axe.

De Bracy, and other knights attached to Prince John, in obedience to a
hint from him, had joined the party of the challengers, John being
desirous to secure, if possible, the victory to that side. On the other
hand, many other knights, both English and Norman, natives and
strangers, took part against the challengers, the more readily that the
opposite band was to be led by so distinguished a champion as the
Disinherited Knight had approved himself.

As soon as Prince John observed that the destined Queen of the day had
arrived upon the field, assuming that air of courtesy which sat well
upon him when he was pleased to exhibit it, he rode forward to meet
her, doffed his bonnet, and, alighting from his horse, assisted the
Lady Rowena from her saddle, while his followers uncovered at the same
time, and one of the most distinguished dismounted to hold her palfrey.

“It is thus,” said Prince John, “that we set the dutiful example of
loyalty to the Queen of Love and Beauty, and are ourselves her guide to
the throne which she must this day occupy.—Ladies,” he said, “attend
your Queen, as you wish in your turn to be distinguished by like
honours.”

So saying, the Prince marshalled Rowena to the seat of honour opposite
his own, while the fairest and most distinguished ladies present
crowded after her to obtain places as near as possible to their
temporary sovereign.

No sooner was Rowena seated, than a burst of music, half-drowned by the
shouts of the multitude, greeted her new dignity. Meantime, the sun
shone fierce and bright upon the polished arms of the knights of either
side, who crowded the opposite extremities of the lists, and held eager
conference together concerning the best mode of arranging their line of
battle, and supporting the conflict.

The heralds then proclaimed silence until the laws of the tourney
should be rehearsed. These were calculated in some degree to abate the
dangers of the day; a precaution the more necessary, as the conflict
was to be maintained with sharp swords and pointed lances.

The champions were therefore prohibited to thrust with the sword, and
were confined to striking. A knight, it was announced, might use a mace
or battle-axe at pleasure, but the dagger was a prohibited weapon. A
knight unhorsed might renew the fight on foot with any other on the
opposite side in the same predicament; but mounted horsemen were in
that case forbidden to assail him. When any knight could force his
antagonist to the extremity of the lists, so as to touch the palisade
with his person or arms, such opponent was obliged to yield himself
vanquished, and his armour and horse were placed at the disposal of the
conqueror. A knight thus overcome was not permitted to take farther
share in the combat. If any combatant was struck down, and unable to
recover his feet, his squire or page might enter the lists, and drag
his master out of the press; but in that case the knight was adjudged
vanquished, and his arms and horse declared forfeited. The combat was
to cease as soon as Prince John should throw down his leading staff, or
truncheon; another precaution usually taken to prevent the unnecessary
effusion of blood by the too long endurance of a sport so desperate.
Any knight breaking the rules of the tournament, or otherwise
transgressing the rules of honourable chivalry, was liable to be stript
of his arms, and, having his shield reversed to be placed in that
posture astride upon the bars of the palisade, and exposed to public
derision, in punishment of his unknightly conduct. Having announced
these precautions, the heralds concluded with an exhortation to each
good knight to do his duty, and to merit favour from the Queen of
Beauty and of Love.

This proclamation having been made, the heralds withdrew to their
stations. The knights, entering at either end of the lists in long
procession, arranged themselves in a double file, precisely opposite to
each other, the leader of each party being in the centre of the
foremost rank, a post which he did not occupy until each had carefully
marshalled the ranks of his party, and stationed every one in his
place.

It was a goodly, and at the same time an anxious, sight, to behold so
many gallant champions, mounted bravely, and armed richly, stand ready
prepared for an encounter so formidable, seated on their war-saddles
like so many pillars of iron, and awaiting the signal of encounter with
the same ardour as their generous steeds, which, by neighing and pawing
the ground, gave signal of their impatience.

As yet the knights held their long lances upright, their bright points
glancing to the sun, and the streamers with which they were decorated
fluttering over the plumage of the helmets. Thus they remained while
the marshals of the field surveyed their ranks with the utmost
exactness, lest either party had more or fewer than the appointed
number. The tale was found exactly complete. The marshals then withdrew
from the lists, and William de Wyvil, with a voice of thunder,
pronounced the signal words—“Laissez aller!” The trumpets sounded as he
spoke—the spears of the champions were at once lowered and placed in
the rests—the spurs were dashed into the flanks of the horses, and the
two foremost ranks of either party rushed upon each other in full
gallop, and met in the middle of the lists with a shock, the sound of
which was heard at a mile’s distance. The rear rank of each party
advanced at a slower pace to sustain the defeated, and follow up the
success of the victors of their party.

The consequences of the encounter were not instantly seen, for the dust
raised by the trampling of so many steeds darkened the air, and it was
a minute ere the anxious spectator could see the fate of the encounter.
When the fight became visible, half the knights on each side were
dismounted, some by the dexterity of their adversary’s lance,—some by
the superior weight and strength of opponents, which had borne down
both horse and man,—some lay stretched on earth as if never more to
rise,—some had already gained their feet, and were closing hand to hand
with those of their antagonists who were in the same predicament,—and
several on both sides, who had received wounds by which they were
disabled, were stopping their blood by their scarfs, and endeavouring
to extricate themselves from the tumult. The mounted knights, whose
lances had been almost all broken by the fury of the encounter, were
now closely engaged with their swords, shouting their war-cries, and
exchanging buffets, as if honour and life depended on the issue of the
combat.

The tumult was presently increased by the advance of the second rank on
either side, which, acting as a reserve, now rushed on to aid their
companions. The followers of Brian de Bois-Guilbert shouted—“Ha!
Beau-seant! Beau-seant! 20

“—For the Temple—For the Temple!” The opposite party shouted in
answer—“Desdichado! Desdichado!”—which watch-word they took from the
motto upon their leader’s shield.

The champions thus encountering each other with the utmost fury, and
with alternate success, the tide of battle seemed to flow now toward
the southern, now toward the northern extremity of the lists, as the
one or the other party prevailed. Meantime the clang of the blows, and
the shouts of the combatants, mixed fearfully with the sound of the
trumpets, and drowned the groans of those who fell, and lay rolling
defenceless beneath the feet of the horses. The splendid armour of the
combatants was now defaced with dust and blood, and gave way at every
stroke of the sword and battle-axe. The gay plumage, shorn from the
crests, drifted upon the breeze like snow-flakes. All that was
beautiful and graceful in the martial array had disappeared, and what
was now visible was only calculated to awake terror or compassion.

Yet such is the force of habit, that not only the vulgar spectators,
who are naturally attracted by sights of horror, but even the ladies of
distinction who crowded the galleries, saw the conflict with a
thrilling interest certainly, but without a wish to withdraw their eyes
from a sight so terrible. Here and there, indeed, a fair cheek might
turn pale, or a faint scream might be heard, as a lover, a brother, or
a husband, was struck from his horse. But, in general, the ladies
around encouraged the combatants, not only by clapping their hands and
waving their veils and kerchiefs, but even by exclaiming, “Brave lance!
Good sword!” when any successful thrust or blow took place under their
observation.

Such being the interest taken by the fair sex in this bloody game, that
of the men is the more easily understood. It showed itself in loud
acclamations upon every change of fortune, while all eyes were so
riveted on the lists, that the spectators seemed as if they themselves
had dealt and received the blows which were there so freely bestowed.
And between every pause was heard the voice of the heralds, exclaiming,
“Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives!—Fight on—death is
better than defeat!—Fight on, brave knights!—for bright eyes behold
your deeds!”

Amid the varied fortunes of the combat, the eyes of all endeavoured to
discover the leaders of each band, who, mingling in the thick of the
fight, encouraged their companions both by voice and example. Both
displayed great feats of gallantry, nor did either Bois-Guilbert or the
Disinherited Knight find in the ranks opposed to them a champion who
could be termed their unquestioned match. They repeatedly endeavoured
to single out each other, spurred by mutual animosity, and aware that
the fall of either leader might be considered as decisive of victory.
Such, however, was the crowd and confusion, that, during the earlier
part of the conflict, their efforts to meet were unavailing, and they
were repeatedly separated by the eagerness of their followers, each of
whom was anxious to win honour, by measuring his strength against the
leader of the opposite party.

But when the field became thin by the numbers on either side who had
yielded themselves vanquished, had been compelled to the extremity of
the lists, or been otherwise rendered incapable of continuing the
strife, the Templar and the Disinherited Knight at length encountered
hand to hand, with all the fury that mortal animosity, joined to
rivalry of honour, could inspire. Such was the address of each in
parrying and striking, that the spectators broke forth into a unanimous
and involuntary shout, expressive of their delight and admiration.

But at this moment the party of the Disinherited Knight had the worst;
the gigantic arm of Front-de-Bœuf on the one flank, and the ponderous
strength of Athelstane on the other, bearing down and dispersing those
immediately exposed to them. Finding themselves freed from their
immediate antagonists, it seems to have occurred to both these knights
at the same instant, that they would render the most decisive advantage
to their party, by aiding the Templar in his contest with his rival.
Turning their horses, therefore, at the same moment, the Norman spurred
against the Disinherited Knight on the one side, and the Saxon on the
other. It was utterly impossible that the object of this unequal and
unexpected assault could have sustained it, had he not been warned by a
general cry from the spectators, who could not but take interest in one
exposed to such disadvantage.

“Beware! beware! Sir Disinherited!” was shouted so universally, that
the knight became aware of his danger; and, striking a full blow at the
Templar, he reined back his steed in the same moment, so as to escape
the charge of Athelstane and Front-de-Bœuf. These knights, therefore,
their aim being thus eluded, rushed from opposite sides betwixt the
object of their attack and the Templar, almost running their horses
against each other ere they could stop their career. Recovering their
horses however, and wheeling them round, the whole three pursued their
united purpose of bearing to the earth the Disinherited Knight.

Nothing could have saved him, except the remarkable strength and
activity of the noble horse which he had won on the preceding day.

This stood him in the more stead, as the horse of Bois-Guilbert was
wounded, and those of Front-de-Bœuf and Athelstane were both tired with
the weight of their gigantic masters, clad in complete armour, and with
the preceding exertions of the day. The masterly horsemanship of the
Disinherited Knight, and the activity of the noble animal which he
mounted, enabled him for a few minutes to keep at sword’s point his
three antagonists, turning and wheeling with the agility of a hawk upon
the wing, keeping his enemies as far separate as he could, and rushing
now against the one, now against the other, dealing sweeping blows with
his sword, without waiting to receive those which were aimed at him in
return.

But although the lists rang with the applauses of his dexterity, it was
evident that he must at last be overpowered; and the nobles around
Prince John implored him with one voice to throw down his warder, and
to save so brave a knight from the disgrace of being overcome by odds.

“Not I, by the light of Heaven!” answered Prince John; “this same
springald, who conceals his name, and despises our proffered
hospitality, hath already gained one prize, and may now afford to let
others have their turn.” As he spoke thus, an unexpected incident
changed the fortune of the day.

There was among the ranks of the Disinherited Knight a champion in
black armour, mounted on a black horse, large of size, tall, and to all
appearance powerful and strong, like the rider by whom he was mounted.
This knight, who bore on his shield no device of any kind, had hitherto
evinced very little interest in the event of the fight, beating off
with seeming ease those combatants who attacked him, but neither
pursuing his advantages, nor himself assailing any one. In short, he
had hitherto acted the part rather of a spectator than of a party in
the tournament, a circumstance which procured him among the spectators
the name of “Le Noir Faineant”, or the Black Sluggard.

At once this knight seemed to throw aside his apathy, when he
discovered the leader of his party so hard bestead; for, setting spurs
to his horse, which was quite fresh, he came to his assistance like a
thunderbolt, exclaiming, in a voice like a trumpet-call, “Desdichado,
to the rescue!” It was high time; for, while the Disinherited Knight
was pressing upon the Templar, Front-de-Bœuf had got nigh to him with
his uplifted sword; but ere the blow could descend, the Sable Knight
dealt a stroke on his head, which, glancing from the polished helmet,
lighted with violence scarcely abated on the “chamfron” of the steed,
and Front-de-Bœuf rolled on the ground, both horse and man equally
stunned by the fury of the blow. “Le Noir Faineant” then turned his
horse upon Athelstane of Coningsburgh; and his own sword having been
broken in his encounter with Front-de-Bœuf, he wrenched from the hand
of the bulky Saxon the battle-axe which he wielded, and, like one
familiar with the use of the weapon, bestowed him such a blow upon the
crest, that Athelstane also lay senseless on the field. Having achieved
this double feat, for which he was the more highly applauded that it
was totally unexpected from him, the knight seemed to resume the
sluggishness of his character, returning calmly to the northern
extremity of the lists, leaving his leader to cope as he best could
with Brian de Bois-Guilbert. This was no longer matter of so much
difficulty as formerly. The Templars horse had bled much, and gave way
under the shock of the Disinherited Knight’s charge. Brian de
Bois-Guilbert rolled on the field, encumbered with the stirrup, from
which he was unable to draw his foot. His antagonist sprung from
horseback, waved his fatal sword over the head of his adversary, and
commanded him to yield himself; when Prince John, more moved by the
Templars dangerous situation than he had been by that of his rival,
saved him the mortification of confessing himself vanquished, by
casting down his warder, and putting an end to the conflict.

It was, indeed, only the relics and embers of the fight which continued
to burn; for of the few knights who still continued in the lists, the
greater part had, by tacit consent, forborne the conflict for some
time, leaving it to be determined by the strife of the leaders.

The squires, who had found it a matter of danger and difficulty to
attend their masters during the engagement, now thronged into the lists
to pay their dutiful attendance to the wounded, who were removed with
the utmost care and attention to the neighbouring pavilions, or to the
quarters prepared for them in the adjoining village.

Thus ended the memorable field of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, one of the most
gallantly contested tournaments of that age; for although only four
knights, including one who was smothered by the heat of his armour, had
died upon the field, yet upwards of thirty were desperately wounded,
four or five of whom never recovered. Several more were disabled for
life; and those who escaped best carried the marks of the conflict to
the grave with them. Hence it is always mentioned in the old records,
as the Gentle and Joyous Passage of Arms of Ashby.

It being now the duty of Prince John to name the knight who had done
best, he determined that the honour of the day remained with the knight
whom the popular voice had termed “Le Noir Faineant.” It was pointed
out to the Prince, in impeachment of this decree, that the victory had
been in fact won by the Disinherited Knight, who, in the course of the
day, had overcome six champions with his own hand, and who had finally
unhorsed and struck down the leader of the opposite party. But Prince
John adhered to his own opinion, on the ground that the Disinherited
Knight and his party had lost the day, but for the powerful assistance
of the Knight of the Black Armour, to whom, therefore, he persisted in
awarding the prize.

To the surprise of all present, however, the knight thus preferred was
nowhere to be found. He had left the lists immediately when the
conflict ceased, and had been observed by some spectators to move down
one of the forest glades with the same slow pace and listless and
indifferent manner which had procured him the epithet of the Black
Sluggard. After he had been summoned twice by sound of trumpet, and
proclamation of the heralds, it became necessary to name another to
receive the honours which had been assigned to him. Prince John had now
no further excuse for resisting the claim of the Disinherited Knight,
whom, therefore, he named the champion of the day.

Through a field slippery with blood, and encumbered with broken armour
and the bodies of slain and wounded horses, the marshals of the lists
again conducted the victor to the foot of Prince John’s throne.

“Disinherited Knight,” said Prince John, “since by that title only you
will consent to be known to us, we a second time award to you the
honours of this tournament, and announce to you your right to claim and
receive from the hands of the Queen of Love and Beauty, the Chaplet of
Honour which your valour has justly deserved.” The Knight bowed low and
gracefully, but returned no answer.

While the trumpets sounded, while the heralds strained their voices in
proclaiming honour to the brave and glory to the victor—while ladies
waved their silken kerchiefs and embroidered veils, and while all ranks
joined in a clamorous shout of exultation, the marshals conducted the
Disinherited Knight across the lists to the foot of that throne of
honour which was occupied by the Lady Rowena.

On the lower step of this throne the champion was made to kneel down.
Indeed his whole action since the fight had ended, seemed rather to
have been upon the impulse of those around him than from his own free
will; and it was observed that he tottered as they guided him the
second time across the lists. Rowena, descending from her station with
a graceful and dignified step, was about to place the chaplet which she
held in her hand upon the helmet of the champion, when the marshals
exclaimed with one voice, “It must not be thus—his head must be bare.”
The knight muttered faintly a few words, which were lost in the hollow
of his helmet, but their purport seemed to be a desire that his casque
might not be removed.

Whether from love of form, or from curiosity, the marshals paid no
attention to his expressions of reluctance, but unhelmed him by cutting
the laces of his casque, and undoing the fastening of his gorget. When
the helmet was removed, the well-formed, yet sun-burnt features of a
young man of twenty-five were seen, amidst a profusion of short fair
hair. His countenance was as pale as death, and marked in one or two
places with streaks of blood.

Rowena had no sooner beheld him than she uttered a faint shriek; but at
once summoning up the energy of her disposition, and compelling
herself, as it were, to proceed, while her frame yet trembled with the
violence of sudden emotion, she placed upon the drooping head of the
victor the splendid chaplet which was the destined reward of the day,
and pronounced, in a clear and distinct tone, these words: “I bestow on
thee this chaplet, Sir Knight, as the meed of valour assigned to this
day’s victor:” Here she paused a moment, and then firmly added, “And
upon brows more worthy could a wreath of chivalry never be placed!”

The knight stooped his head, and kissed the hand of the lovely
Sovereign by whom his valour had been rewarded; and then, sinking yet
farther forward, lay prostrate at her feet.

There was a general consternation. Cedric, who had been struck mute by
the sudden appearance of his banished son, now rushed forward, as if to
separate him from Rowena. But this had been already accomplished by the
marshals of the field, who, guessing the cause of Ivanhoe’s swoon, had
hastened to undo his armour, and found that the head of a lance had
penetrated his breastplate, and inflicted a wound in his side.

CHAPTER XIII

“Heroes, approach!” Atrides thus aloud,
“Stand forth distinguish’d from the circling crowd,
Ye who by skill or manly force may claim,
Your rivals to surpass and merit fame.
This cow, worth twenty oxen, is decreed,
For him who farthest sends the winged reed.”

ILIAD

The name of Ivanhoe was no sooner pronounced than it flew from mouth to
mouth, with all the celerity with which eagerness could convey and
curiosity receive it. It was not long ere it reached the circle of the
Prince, whose brow darkened as he heard the news. Looking around him,
however, with an air of scorn, “My Lords,” said he, “and especially
you, Sir Prior, what think ye of the doctrine the learned tell us,
concerning innate attractions and antipathies? Methinks that I felt the
presence of my brother’s minion, even when I least guessed whom yonder
suit of armour enclosed.”

“Front-de-Bœuf must prepare to restore his fief of Ivanhoe,” said De
Bracy, who, having discharged his part honourably in the tournament,
had laid his shield and helmet aside, and again mingled with the
Prince’s retinue.

“Ay,” answered Waldemar Fitzurse, “this gallant is likely to reclaim
the castle and manor which Richard assigned to him, and which your
Highness’s generosity has since given to Front-de-Bœuf.”

“Front-de-Bœuf,” replied John, “is a man more willing to swallow three
manors such as Ivanhoe, than to disgorge one of them. For the rest,
sirs, I hope none here will deny my right to confer the fiefs of the
crown upon the faithful followers who are around me, and ready to
perform the usual military service, in the room of those who have
wandered to foreign Countries, and can neither render homage nor
service when called upon.”

The audience were too much interested in the question not to pronounce
the Prince’s assumed right altogether indubitable. “A generous
Prince!—a most noble Lord, who thus takes upon himself the task of
rewarding his faithful followers!”

Such were the words which burst from the train, expectants all of them
of similar grants at the expense of King Richard’s followers and
favourites, if indeed they had not as yet received such. Prior Aymer
also assented to the general proposition, observing, however, “That the
blessed Jerusalem could not indeed be termed a foreign country. She was
‘communis mater’—the mother of all Christians. But he saw not,” he
declared, “how the Knight of Ivanhoe could plead any advantage from
this, since he” (the Prior) “was assured that the crusaders, under
Richard, had never proceeded much farther than Askalon, which, as all
the world knew, was a town of the Philistines, and entitled to none of
the privileges of the Holy City.”

Waldemar, whose curiosity had led him towards the place where Ivanhoe
had fallen to the ground, now returned. “The gallant,” said he, “is
likely to give your Highness little disturbance, and to leave
Front-de-Bœuf in the quiet possession of his gains—he is severely
wounded.”

“Whatever becomes of him,” said Prince John, “he is victor of the day;
and were he tenfold our enemy, or the devoted friend of our brother,
which is perhaps the same, his wounds must be looked to—our own
physician shall attend him.”

A stern smile curled the Prince’s lip as he spoke. Waldemar Fitzurse
hastened to reply, that Ivanhoe was already removed from the lists, and
in the custody of his friends.

“I was somewhat afflicted,” he said, “to see the grief of the Queen of
Love and Beauty, whose sovereignty of a day this event has changed into
mourning. I am not a man to be moved by a woman’s lament for her lover,
but this same Lady Rowena suppressed her sorrow with such dignity of
manner, that it could only be discovered by her folded hands, and her
tearless eye, which trembled as it remained fixed on the lifeless form
before her.”

“Who is this Lady Rowena,” said Prince John, “of whom we have heard so
much?”

“A Saxon heiress of large possessions,” replied the Prior Aymer; “a
rose of loveliness, and a jewel of wealth; the fairest among a
thousand, a bundle of myrrh, and a cluster of camphire.”

“We shall cheer her sorrows,” said Prince John, “and amend her blood,
by wedding her to a Norman. She seems a minor, and must therefore be at
our royal disposal in marriage.—How sayst thou, De Bracy? What thinkst
thou of gaining fair lands and livings, by wedding a Saxon, after the
fashion of the followers of the Conqueror?”

“If the lands are to my liking, my lord,” answered De Bracy, “it will
be hard to displease me with a bride; and deeply will I hold myself
bound to your highness for a good deed, which will fulfil all promises
made in favour of your servant and vassal.”

“We will not forget it,” said Prince John; “and that we may instantly
go to work, command our seneschal presently to order the attendance of
the Lady Rowena and her company—that is, the rude churl her guardian,
and the Saxon ox whom the Black Knight struck down in the tournament,
upon this evening’s banquet.—De Bigot,” he added to his seneschal,
“thou wilt word this our second summons so courteously, as to gratify
the pride of these Saxons, and make it impossible for them again to
refuse; although, by the bones of Becket, courtesy to them is casting
pearls before swine.”

Prince John had proceeded thus far, and was about to give the signal
for retiring from the lists, when a small billet was put into his hand.

“From whence?” said Prince John, looking at the person by whom it was
delivered.

“From foreign parts, my lord, but from whence I know not” replied his
attendant. “A Frenchman brought it hither, who said, he had ridden
night and day to put it into the hands of your highness.”

The Prince looked narrowly at the superscription, and then at the seal,
placed so as to secure the flex-silk with which the billet was
surrounded, and which bore the impression of three fleurs-de-lis. John
then opened the billet with apparent agitation, which visibly and
greatly increased when he had perused the contents, which were
expressed in these words:

“_Take heed to yourself for the Devil is unchained!_”

The Prince turned as pale as death, looked first on the earth, and then
up to heaven, like a man who has received news that sentence of
execution has been passed upon him. Recovering from the first effects
of his surprise, he took Waldemar Fitzurse and De Bracy aside, and put
the billet into their hands successively. “It means,” he added, in a
faltering voice, “that my brother Richard has obtained his freedom.”

“This may be a false alarm, or a forged letter,” said De Bracy.

“It is France’s own hand and seal,” replied Prince John.

“It is time, then,” said Fitzurse, “to draw our party to a head, either
at York, or some other centrical place. A few days later, and it will
be indeed too late. Your highness must break short this present
mummery.”

“The yeomen and commons,” said De Bracy, “must not be dismissed
discontented, for lack of their share in the sports.”

“The day,” said Waldemar, “is not yet very far spent—let the archers
shoot a few rounds at the target, and the prize be adjudged. This will
be an abundant fulfilment of the Prince’s promises, so far as this herd
of Saxon serfs is concerned.”

“I thank thee, Waldemar,” said the Prince; “thou remindest me, too,
that I have a debt to pay to that insolent peasant who yesterday
insulted our person. Our banquet also shall go forward to-night as we
proposed. Were this my last hour of power, it should be an hour sacred
to revenge and to pleasure—let new cares come with to-morrow’s new
day.”

The sound of the trumpets soon recalled those spectators who had
already begun to leave the field; and proclamation was made that Prince
John, suddenly called by high and peremptory public duties, held
himself obliged to discontinue the entertainments of to-morrow’s
festival: Nevertheless, that, unwilling so many good yeoman should
depart without a trial of skill, he was pleased to appoint them, before
leaving the ground, presently to execute the competition of archery
intended for the morrow. To the best archer a prize was to be awarded,
being a bugle-horn, mounted with silver, and a silken baldric richly
ornamented with a medallion of St Hubert, the patron of silvan sport.

More than thirty yeomen at first presented themselves as competitors,
several of whom were rangers and under-keepers in the royal forests of
Needwood and Charnwood. When, however, the archers understood with whom
they were to be matched, upwards of twenty withdrew themselves from the
contest, unwilling to encounter the dishonour of almost certain defeat.
For in those days the skill of each celebrated marksman was as well
known for many miles round him, as the qualities of a horse trained at
Newmarket are familiar to those who frequent that well-known meeting.

The diminished list of competitors for silvan fame still amounted to
eight. Prince John stepped from his royal seat to view more nearly the
persons of these chosen yeomen, several of whom wore the royal livery.
Having satisfied his curiosity by this investigation, he looked for the
object of his resentment, whom he observed standing on the same spot,
and with the same composed countenance which he had exhibited upon the
preceding day.

“Fellow,” said Prince John, “I guessed by thy insolent babble that thou
wert no true lover of the longbow, and I see thou darest not adventure
thy skill among such merry-men as stand yonder.”

“Under favour, sir,” replied the yeoman, “I have another reason for
refraining to shoot, besides the fearing discomfiture and disgrace.”

“And what is thy other reason?” said Prince John, who, for some cause
which perhaps he could not himself have explained, felt a painful
curiosity respecting this individual.

“Because,” replied the woodsman, “I know not if these yeomen and I are
used to shoot at the same marks; and because, moreover, I know not how
your Grace might relish the winning of a third prize by one who has
unwittingly fallen under your displeasure.”

Prince John coloured as he put the question, “What is thy name,
yeoman?”

“Locksley,” answered the yeoman.

“Then, Locksley,” said Prince John, “thou shalt shoot in thy turn, when
these yeomen have displayed their skill. If thou carriest the prize, I
will add to it twenty nobles; but if thou losest it, thou shalt be
stript of thy Lincoln green, and scourged out of the lists with
bowstrings, for a wordy and insolent braggart.”

“And how if I refuse to shoot on such a wager?” said the yeoman.—“Your
Grace’s power, supported, as it is, by so many men-at-arms, may indeed
easily strip and scourge me, but cannot compel me to bend or to draw my
bow.”

“If thou refusest my fair proffer,” said the Prince, “the Provost of
the lists shall cut thy bowstring, break thy bow and arrows, and expel
thee from the presence as a faint-hearted craven.”

“This is no fair chance you put on me, proud Prince,” said the yeoman,
“to compel me to peril myself against the best archers of Leicester and
Staffordshire, under the penalty of infamy if they should overshoot me.
Nevertheless, I will obey your pleasure.”

“Look to him close, men-at-arms,” said Prince John, “his heart is
sinking; I am jealous lest he attempt to escape the trial.—And do you,
good fellows, shoot boldly round; a buck and a butt of wine are ready
for your refreshment in yonder tent, when the prize is won.”

A target was placed at the upper end of the southern avenue which led
to the lists. The contending archers took their station in turn, at the
bottom of the southern access, the distance between that station and
the mark allowing full distance for what was called a shot at rovers.
The archers, having previously determined by lot their order of
precedence, were to shoot each three shafts in succession. The sports
were regulated by an officer of inferior rank, termed the Provost of
the Games; for the high rank of the marshals of the lists would have
been held degraded, had they condescended to superintend the sports of
the yeomanry.

One by one the archers, stepping forward, delivered their shafts
yeomanlike and bravely. Of twenty-four arrows, shot in succession, ten
were fixed in the target, and the others ranged so near it, that,
considering the distance of the mark, it was accounted good archery. Of
the ten shafts which hit the target, two within the inner ring were
shot by Hubert, a forester in the service of Malvoisin, who was
accordingly pronounced victorious.

“Now, Locksley,” said Prince John to the bold yeoman, with a bitter
smile, “wilt thou try conclusions with Hubert, or wilt thou yield up
bow, baldric, and quiver, to the Provost of the sports?”

“Sith it be no better,” said Locksley, “I am content to try my fortune;
on condition that when I have shot two shafts at yonder mark of
Hubert’s, he shall be bound to shoot one at that which I shall
propose.”

“That is but fair,” answered Prince John, “and it shall not be refused
thee.—If thou dost beat this braggart, Hubert, I will fill the bugle
with silver-pennies for thee.”

“A man can do but his best,” answered Hubert; “but my grandsire drew a
good long bow at Hastings, and I trust not to dishonour his memory.”

The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of the same size
placed in its room. Hubert, who, as victor in the first trial of skill,
had the right to shoot first, took his aim with great deliberation,
long measuring the distance with his eye, while he held in his hand his
bended bow, with the arrow placed on the string. At length he made a
step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm,
till the centre or grasping-place was nigh level with his face, he drew
his bowstring to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air, and
lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in the
centre.

“You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert,” said his antagonist,
bending his bow, “or that had been a better shot.”

So saying, and without showing the least anxiety to pause upon his aim,
Locksley stept to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as
carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He
was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bowstring,
yet it alighted in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which
marked the centre than that of Hubert.

“By the light of heaven!” said Prince John to Hubert, “an thou suffer
that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows!”

Hubert had but one set speech for all occasions. “An your highness were
to hang me,” he said, “a man can but do his best. Nevertheless, my
grandsire drew a good bow—”

“The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all his generation!” interrupted
John, “shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for
thee!”

Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and not neglecting the caution
which he had received from his adversary, he made the necessary
allowance for a very light air of wind, which had just arisen, and shot
so successfully that his arrow alighted in the very centre of the
target.

“A Hubert! a Hubert!” shouted the populace, more interested in a known
person than in a stranger. “In the clout!—in the clout!—a Hubert for
ever!”

“Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley,” said the Prince, with an
insulting smile.

“I will notch his shaft for him, however,” replied Locksley.

And letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution than before, it
lighted right upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers.
The people who stood around were so astonished at his wonderful
dexterity, that they could not even give vent to their surprise in
their usual clamour. “This must be the devil, and no man of flesh and
blood,” whispered the yeomen to each other; “such archery was never
seen since a bow was first bent in Britain.”

“And now,” said Locksley, “I will crave your Grace’s permission to
plant such a mark as is used in the North Country; and welcome every
brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonny
lass he loves best.”

He then turned to leave the lists. “Let your guards attend me,” he
said, “if you please—I go but to cut a rod from the next willow-bush.”

Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him in
case of his escape: but the cry of “Shame! shame!” which burst from the
multitude, induced him to alter his ungenerous purpose.

Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six feet in
length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man’s thumb. He
began to peel this with great composure, observing at the same time,
that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had
hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. “For his own
part,” he said, “and in the land where he was bred, men would as soon
take for their mark King Arthur’s round-table, which held sixty knights
around it. A child of seven years old,” he said, “might hit yonder
target with a headless shaft; but,” added he, walking deliberately to
the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in the
ground, “he that hits that rod at five-score yards, I call him an
archer fit to bear both bow and quiver before a king, an it were the
stout King Richard himself.”

“My grandsire,” said Hubert, “drew a good bow at the battle of
Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life—and neither will I.
If this yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers—or rather,
I yield to the devil that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill;
a man can but do his best, and I will not shoot where I am sure to
miss. I might as well shoot at the edge of our parson’s whittle, or at
a wheat straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I
can hardly see.”

“Cowardly dog!” said Prince John.—“Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot; but,
if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever did
so. However it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of
superior skill.”

“I will do my best, as Hubert says,” answered Locksley; “no man can do
more.”

So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked
with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought
was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two
former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the
multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer
vindicated their opinion of his skill: his arrow split the willow rod
against which it was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and
even Prince John, in admiration of Locksley’s skill, lost for an
instant his dislike to his person. “These twenty nobles,” he said,
“which, with the bugle, thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we will
make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a
yeoman of our body guard, and be near to our person. For never did so
strong a hand bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a shaft.”

“Pardon me, noble Prince,” said Locksley; “but I have vowed, that if
ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother King Richard.
These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave
a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the
trial, he would have hit the wand as well I.”

Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the
stranger, and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed
with the crowd, and was seen no more.

The victorious archer would not perhaps have escaped John’s attention
so easily, had not that Prince had other subjects of anxious and more
important meditation pressing upon his mind at that instant. He called
upon his chamberlain as he gave the signal for retiring from the lists,
and commanded him instantly to gallop to Ashby, and seek out Isaac the
Jew. “Tell the dog,” he said, “to send me, before sun-down, two
thousand crowns. He knows the security; but thou mayst show him this
ring for a token. The rest of the money must be paid at York within six
days. If he neglects, I will have the unbelieving villain’s head. Look
that thou pass him not on the way; for the circumcised slave was
displaying his stolen finery amongst us.”

So saying, the Prince resumed his horse, and returned to Ashby, the
whole crowd breaking up and dispersing upon his retreat.

CHAPTER XIV

In rough magnificence array’d,
When ancient Chivalry display’d
The pomp of her heroic games,
And crested chiefs and tissued dames
Assembled, at the clarion’s call,
In some proud castle’s high arch’d hall.

WARTON

Prince John held his high festival in the Castle of Ashby. This was not
the same building of which the stately ruins still interest the
traveller, and which was erected at a later period by the Lord
Hastings, High Chamberlain of England, one of the first victims of the
tyranny of Richard the Third, and yet better known as one of
Shakespeare’s characters than by his historical fame. The castle and
town of Ashby, at this time, belonged to Roger de Quincy, Earl of
Winchester, who, during the period of our history, was absent in the
Holy Land. Prince John, in the meanwhile, occupied his castle, and
disposed of his domains without scruple; and seeking at present to
dazzle men’s eyes by his hospitality and magnificence, had given orders
for great preparations, in order to render the banquet as splendid as
possible.

The purveyors of the Prince, who exercised on this and other occasions
the full authority of royalty, had swept the country of all that could
be collected which was esteemed fit for their master’s table. Guests
also were invited in great numbers; and in the necessity in which he
then found himself of courting popularity, Prince John had extended his
invitation to a few distinguished Saxon and Danish families, as well as
to the Norman nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. However
despised and degraded on ordinary occasions, the great numbers of the
Anglo-Saxons must necessarily render them formidable in the civil
commotions which seemed approaching, and it was an obvious point of
policy to secure popularity with their leaders.

It was accordingly the Prince’s intention, which he for some time
maintained, to treat these unwonted guests with a courtesy to which
they had been little accustomed. But although no man with less scruple
made his ordinary habits and feelings bend to his interest, it was the
misfortune of this Prince, that his levity and petulance were
perpetually breaking out, and undoing all that had been gained by his
previous dissimulation.

Of this fickle temper he gave a memorable example in Ireland, when sent
thither by his father, Henry the Second, with the purpose of buying
golden opinions of the inhabitants of that new and important
acquisition to the English crown. Upon this occasion the Irish
chieftains contended which should first offer to the young Prince their
loyal homage and the kiss of peace. But, instead of receiving their
salutations with courtesy, John and his petulant attendants could not
resist the temptation of pulling the long beards of the Irish
chieftains; a conduct which, as might have been expected, was highly
resented by these insulted dignitaries, and produced fatal consequences
to the English domination in Ireland. It is necessary to keep these
inconsistencies of John’s character in view, that the reader may
understand his conduct during the present evening.

In execution of the resolution which he had formed during his cooler
moments, Prince John received Cedric and Athelstane with distinguished
courtesy, and expressed his disappointment, without resentment, when
the indisposition of Rowena was alleged by the former as a reason for
her not attending upon his gracious summons. Cedric and Athelstane were
both dressed in the ancient Saxon garb, which, although not unhandsome
in itself, and in the present instance composed of costly materials,
was so remote in shape and appearance from that of the other guests,
that Prince John took great credit to himself with Waldemar Fitzurse
for refraining from laughter at a sight which the fashion of the day
rendered ridiculous. Yet, in the eye of sober judgment, the short close
tunic and long mantle of the Saxons was a more graceful, as well as a
more convenient dress, than the garb of the Normans, whose under
garment was a long doublet, so loose as to resemble a shirt or
waggoner’s frock, covered by a cloak of scanty dimensions, neither fit
to defend the wearer from cold or from rain, and the only purpose of
which appeared to be to display as much fur, embroidery, and jewellery
work, as the ingenuity of the tailor could contrive to lay upon it. The
Emperor Charlemagne, in whose reign they were first introduced, seems
to have been very sensible of the inconveniences arising from the
fashion of this garment. “In Heaven’s name,” said he, “to what purpose
serve these abridged cloaks? If we are in bed they are no cover, on
horseback they are no protection from the wind and rain, and when
seated, they do not guard our legs from the damp or the frost.”

Nevertheless, spite of this imperial objurgation, the short cloaks
continued in fashion down to the time of which we treat, and
particularly among the princes of the House of Anjou. They were
therefore in universal use among Prince John’s courtiers; and the long
mantle, which formed the upper garment of the Saxons, was held in
proportional derision.

The guests were seated at a table which groaned under the quantity of
good cheer. The numerous cooks who attended on the Prince’s progress,
having exerted all their art in varying the forms in which the ordinary
provisions were served up, had succeeded almost as well as the modern
professors of the culinary art in rendering them perfectly unlike their
natural appearance. Besides these dishes of domestic origin, there were
various delicacies brought from foreign parts, and a quantity of rich
pastry, as well as of the simnel-bread and wastle cakes, which were
only used at the tables of the highest nobility. The banquet was
crowned with the richest wines, both foreign and domestic.

But, though luxurious, the Norman nobles were not generally speaking an
intemperate race. While indulging themselves in the pleasures of the
table, they aimed at delicacy, but avoided excess, and were apt to
attribute gluttony and drunkenness to the vanquished Saxons, as vices
peculiar to their inferior station. Prince John, indeed, and those who
courted his pleasure by imitating his foibles, were apt to indulge to
excess in the pleasures of the trencher and the goblet; and indeed it
is well known that his death was occasioned by a surfeit upon peaches
and new ale. His conduct, however, was an exception to the general
manners of his countrymen.

With sly gravity, interrupted only by private signs to each other, the
Norman knights and nobles beheld the ruder demeanour of Athelstane and
Cedric at a banquet, to the form and fashion of which they were
unaccustomed. And while their manners were thus the subject of
sarcastic observation, the untaught Saxons unwittingly transgressed
several of the arbitrary rules established for the regulation of
society. Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be
guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good
morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable
etiquette. Thus Cedric, who dried his hands with a towel, instead of
suffering the moisture to exhale by waving them gracefully in the air,
incurred more ridicule than his companion Athelstane, when he swallowed
to his own single share the whole of a large pasty composed of the most
exquisite foreign delicacies, and termed at that time a “Karum-Pie”.
When, however, it was discovered, by a serious cross-examination, that
the Thane of Coningsburgh (or Franklin, as the Normans termed him) had
no idea what he had been devouring, and that he had taken the contents
of the Karum-pie for larks and pigeons, whereas they were in fact
beccaficoes and nightingales, his ignorance brought him in for an ample
share of the ridicule which would have been more justly bestowed on his
gluttony.

The long feast had at length its end; and, while the goblet circulated
freely, men talked of the feats of the preceding tournament,—of the
unknown victor in the archery games, of the Black Knight, whose
self-denial had induced him to withdraw from the honours he had
won,—and of the gallant Ivanhoe, who had so dearly bought the honours
of the day. The topics were treated with military frankness, and the
jest and laugh went round the hall. The brow of Prince John alone was
overclouded during these discussions; some overpowering care seemed
agitating his mind, and it was only when he received occasional hints
from his attendants, that he seemed to take interest in what was
passing around him. On such occasions he would start up, quaff a cup of
wine as if to raise his spirits, and then mingle in the conversation by
some observation made abruptly or at random.

“We drink this beaker,” said he, “to the health of Wilfred of Ivanhoe,
champion of this Passage of Arms, and grieve that his wound renders him
absent from our board—Let all fill to the pledge, and especially Cedric
of Rotherwood, the worthy father of a son so promising.”

“No, my lord,” replied Cedric, standing up, and placing on the table
his untasted cup, “I yield not the name of son to the disobedient
youth, who at once despises my commands, and relinquishes the manners
and customs of his fathers.”

“’Tis impossible,” cried Prince John, with well-feigned astonishment,
“that so gallant a knight should be an unworthy or disobedient son!”

“Yet, my lord,” answered Cedric, “so it is with this Wilfred. He left
my homely dwelling to mingle with the gay nobility of your brother’s
court, where he learned to do those tricks of horsemanship which you
prize so highly. He left it contrary to my wish and command; and in the
days of Alfred that would have been termed disobedience—ay, and a crime
severely punishable.”

“Alas!” replied Prince John, with a deep sigh of affected sympathy,
“since your son was a follower of my unhappy brother, it need not be
enquired where or from whom he learned the lesson of filial
disobedience.”

Thus spake Prince John, wilfully forgetting, that of all the sons of
Henry the Second, though no one was free from the charge, he himself
had been most distinguished for rebellion and ingratitude to his
father.

“I think,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “that my brother proposed
to confer upon his favourite the rich manor of Ivanhoe.”

“He did endow him with it,” answered Cedric; “nor is it my least
quarrel with my son, that he stooped to hold, as a feudal vassal, the
very domains which his fathers possessed in free and independent
right.”

“We shall then have your willing sanction, good Cedric,” said Prince
John, “to confer this fief upon a person whose dignity will not be
diminished by holding land of the British crown.—Sir Reginald
Front-de-Bœuf,” he said, turning towards that Baron, “I trust you will
so keep the goodly Barony of Ivanhoe, that Sir Wilfred shall not incur
his father’s farther displeasure by again entering upon that fief.”

“By St Anthony!” answered the black-brow’d giant, “I will consent that
your highness shall hold me a Saxon, if either Cedric or Wilfred, or
the best that ever bore English blood, shall wrench from me the gift
with which your highness has graced me.”

“Whoever shall call thee Saxon, Sir Baron,” replied Cedric, offended at
a mode of expression by which the Normans frequently expressed their
habitual contempt of the English, “will do thee an honour as great as
it is undeserved.”

Front-de-Bœuf would have replied, but Prince John’s petulance and
levity got the start.

“Assuredly,” said be, “my lords, the noble Cedric speaks truth; and his
race may claim precedence over us as much in the length of their
pedigrees as in the longitude of their cloaks.”

“They go before us indeed in the field—as deer before dogs,” said
Malvoisin.

“And with good right may they go before us—forget not,” said the Prior
Aymer, “the superior decency and decorum of their manners.”

“Their singular abstemiousness and temperance,” said De Bracy,
forgetting the plan which promised him a Saxon bride.

“Together with the courage and conduct,” said Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
“by which they distinguished themselves at Hastings and elsewhere.”

While, with smooth and smiling cheek, the courtiers, each in turn,
followed their Prince’s example, and aimed a shaft of ridicule at
Cedric, the face of the Saxon became inflamed with passion, and he
glanced his eyes fiercely from one to another, as if the quick
succession of so many injuries had prevented his replying to them in
turn; or, like a baited bull, who, surrounded by his tormentors, is at
a loss to choose from among them the immediate object of his revenge.
At length he spoke, in a voice half choked with passion; and,
addressing himself to Prince John as the head and front of the offence
which he had received, “Whatever,” he said, “have been the follies and
vices of our race, a Saxon would have been held ‘nidering’,” 21 (the
most emphatic term for abject worthlessness,) “who should in his own
hall, and while his own wine-cup passed, have treated, or suffered to
be treated, an unoffending guest as your highness has this day beheld
me used; and whatever was the misfortune of our fathers on the field of
Hastings, those may at least be silent,” here he looked at
Front-de-Bœuf and the Templar, “who have within these few hours once
and again lost saddle and stirrup before the lance of a Saxon.”

“By my faith, a biting jest!” said Prince John. “How like you it,
sirs?—Our Saxon subjects rise in spirit and courage; become shrewd in
wit, and bold in bearing, in these unsettled times—What say ye, my
lords?—By this good light, I hold it best to take our galleys, and
return to Normandy in time.”

“For fear of the Saxons?” said De Bracy, laughing; “we should need no
weapon but our hunting spears to bring these boars to bay.”

“A truce with your raillery, Sir Knights,” said Fitzurse;—“and it were
well,” he added, addressing the Prince, “that your highness should
assure the worthy Cedric there is no insult intended him by jests,
which must sound but harshly in the ear of a stranger.”

“Insult?” answered Prince John, resuming his courtesy of demeanour; “I
trust it will not be thought that I could mean, or permit any, to be
offered in my presence. Here! I fill my cup to Cedric himself, since he
refuses to pledge his son’s health.”

The cup went round amid the well-dissembled applause of the courtiers,
which, however, failed to make the impression on the mind of the Saxon
that had been designed. He was not naturally acute of perception, but
those too much undervalued his understanding who deemed that this
flattering compliment would obliterate the sense of the prior insult.
He was silent, however, when the royal pledge again passed round, “To
Sir Athelstane of Coningsburgh.”

The knight made his obeisance, and showed his sense of the honour by
draining a huge goblet in answer to it.

“And now, sirs,” said Prince John, who began to be warmed with the wine
which he had drank, “having done justice to our Saxon guests, we will
pray of them some requital to our courtesy.—Worthy Thane,” he
continued, addressing Cedric, “may we pray you to name to us some
Norman whose mention may least sully your mouth, and to wash down with
a goblet of wine all bitterness which the sound may leave behind it?”

Fitzurse arose while Prince John spoke, and gliding behind the seat of
the Saxon, whispered to him not to omit the opportunity of putting an
end to unkindness betwixt the two races, by naming Prince John. The
Saxon replied not to this politic insinuation, but, rising up, and
filling his cup to the brim, he addressed Prince John in these words:
“Your highness has required that I should name a Norman deserving to be
remembered at our banquet. This, perchance, is a hard task, since it
calls on the slave to sing the praises of the master—upon the
vanquished, while pressed by all the evils of conquest, to sing the
praises of the conqueror. Yet I will name a Norman—the first in arms
and in place—the best and the noblest of his race. And the lips that
shall refuse to pledge me to his well-earned fame, I term false and
dishonoured, and will so maintain them with my life.—I quaff this
goblet to the health of Richard the Lion-hearted!”

Prince John, who had expected that his own name would have closed the
Saxon’s speech, started when that of his injured brother was so
unexpectedly introduced. He raised mechanically the wine-cup to his
lips, then instantly set it down, to view the demeanour of the company
at this unexpected proposal, which many of them felt it as unsafe to
oppose as to comply with. Some of them, ancient and experienced
courtiers, closely imitated the example of the Prince himself, raising
the goblet to their lips, and again replacing it before them. There
were many who, with a more generous feeling, exclaimed, “Long live King
Richard! and may he be speedily restored to us!” And some few, among
whom were Front-de-Bœuf and the Templar, in sullen disdain suffered
their goblets to stand untasted before them. But no man ventured
directly to gainsay a pledge filled to the health of the reigning
monarch.

Having enjoyed his triumph for about a minute, Cedric said to his
companion, “Up, noble Athelstane! we have remained here long enough,
since we have requited the hospitable courtesy of Prince John’s
banquet. Those who wish to know further of our rude Saxon manners must
henceforth seek us in the homes of our fathers, since we have seen
enough of royal banquets, and enough of Norman courtesy.”

So saying, he arose and left the banqueting room, followed by
Athelstane, and by several other guests, who, partaking of the Saxon
lineage, held themselves insulted by the sarcasms of Prince John and
his courtiers.

“By the bones of St Thomas,” said Prince John, as they retreated, “the
Saxon churls have borne off the best of the day, and have retreated
with triumph!”

“‘Conclamatum est, poculatum est’,” said Prior Aymer; “we have drunk
and we have shouted,—it were time we left our wine flagons.”

“The monk hath some fair penitent to shrive to-night, that he is in
such a hurry to depart,” said De Bracy.

“Not so, Sir Knight,” replied the Abbot; “but I must move several miles
forward this evening upon my homeward journey.”

“They are breaking up,” said the Prince in a whisper to Fitzurse;
“their fears anticipate the event, and this coward Prior is the first
to shrink from me.”

“Fear not, my lord,” said Waldemar; “I will show him such reasons as
shall induce him to join us when we hold our meeting at York.—Sir
Prior,” he said, “I must speak with you in private, before you mount
your palfrey.”

The other guests were now fast dispersing, with the exception of those
immediately attached to Prince John’s faction, and his retinue.

“This, then, is the result of your advice,” said the Prince, turning an
angry countenance upon Fitzurse; “that I should be bearded at my own
board by a drunken Saxon churl, and that, on the mere sound of my
brother’s name, men should fall off from me as if I had the leprosy?”

“Have patience, sir,” replied his counsellor; “I might retort your
accusation, and blame the inconsiderate levity which foiled my design,
and misled your own better judgment. But this is no time for
recrimination. De Bracy and I will instantly go among these shuffling
cowards, and convince them they have gone too far to recede.”

“It will be in vain,” said Prince John, pacing the apartment with
disordered steps, and expressing himself with an agitation to which the
wine he had drank partly contributed—“It will be in vain—they have seen
the handwriting on the wall—they have marked the paw of the lion in the
sand—they have heard his approaching roar shake the wood—nothing will
reanimate their courage.”

“Would to God,” said Fitzurse to De Bracy, “that aught could reanimate
his own! His brother’s very name is an ague to him. Unhappy are the
counsellors of a Prince, who wants fortitude and perseverance alike in
good and in evil!”

CHAPTER XV

And yet he thinks,—ha, ha, ha, ha,—he thinks
I am the tool and servant of his will.
Well, let it be; through all the maze of trouble
His plots and base oppression must create,
I’ll shape myself a way to higher things,
And who will say ’tis wrong?

BASIL, A TRAGEDY

No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of his
web, than did Waldemar Fitzurse to reunite and combine the scattered
members of Prince John’s cabal. Few of these were attached to him from
inclination, and none from personal regard. It was therefore necessary,
that Fitzurse should open to them new prospects of advantage, and
remind them of those which they at present enjoyed. To the young and
wild nobles, he held out the prospect of unpunished license and
uncontrolled revelry; to the ambitious, that of power, and to the
covetous, that of increased wealth and extended domains. The leaders of
the mercenaries received a donation in gold; an argument the most
persuasive to their minds, and without which all others would have
proved in vain. Promises were still more liberally distributed than
money by this active agent; and, in fine, nothing was left undone that
could determine the wavering, or animate the disheartened. The return
of King Richard he spoke of as an event altogether beyond the reach of
probability; yet, when he observed, from the doubtful looks and
uncertain answers which he received, that this was the apprehension by
which the minds of his accomplices were most haunted, he boldly treated
that event, should it really take place, as one which ought not to
alter their political calculations.

“If Richard returns,” said Fitzurse, “he returns to enrich his needy
and impoverished crusaders at the expense of those who did not follow
him to the Holy Land. He returns to call to a fearful reckoning, those
who, during his absence, have done aught that can be construed offence
or encroachment upon either the laws of the land or the privileges of
the crown. He returns to avenge upon the Orders of the Temple and the
Hospital, the preference which they showed to Philip of France during
the wars in the Holy Land. He returns, in fine, to punish as a rebel
every adherent of his brother Prince John. Are ye afraid of his power?”
continued the artful confident of that Prince, “we acknowledge him a
strong and valiant knight; but these are not the days of King Arthur,
when a champion could encounter an army. If Richard indeed comes back,
it must be alone,—unfollowed—unfriended. The bones of his gallant army
have whitened the sands of Palestine. The few of his followers who have
returned have straggled hither like this Wilfred of Ivanhoe, beggared
and broken men.—And what talk ye of Richard’s right of birth?” he
proceeded, in answer to those who objected scruples on that head. “Is
Richard’s title of primogeniture more decidedly certain than that of
Duke Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror’s eldest son? And yet William
the Red, and Henry, his second and third brothers, were successively
preferred to him by the voice of the nation, Robert had every merit
which can be pleaded for Richard; he was a bold knight, a good leader,
generous to his friends and to the church, and, to crown the whole, a
crusader and a conqueror of the Holy Sepulchre; and yet he died a blind
and miserable prisoner in the Castle of Cardiff, because he opposed
himself to the will of the people, who chose that he should not rule
over them. It is our right,” he said, “to choose from the blood royal
the prince who is best qualified to hold the supreme power—that is,”
said he, correcting himself, “him whose election will best promote the
interests of the nobility. In personal qualifications,” he added, “it
was possible that Prince John might be inferior to his brother Richard;
but when it was considered that the latter returned with the sword of
vengeance in his hand, while the former held out rewards, immunities,
privileges, wealth, and honours, it could not be doubted which was the
king whom in wisdom the nobility were called on to support.”

These, and many more arguments, some adapted to the peculiar
circumstances of those whom he addressed, had the expected weight with
the nobles of Prince John’s faction. Most of them consented to attend
the proposed meeting at York, for the purpose of making general
arrangements for placing the crown upon the head of Prince John.

It was late at night, when, worn out and exhausted with his various
exertions, however gratified with the result, Fitzurse, returning to
the Castle of Ashby, met with De Bracy, who had exchanged his
banqueting garments for a short green kirtle, with hose of the same
cloth and colour, a leathern cap or head-piece, a short sword, a horn
slung over his shoulder, a long bow in his hand, and a bundle of arrows
stuck in his belt. Had Fitzurse met this figure in an outer apartment,
he would have passed him without notice, as one of the yeomen of the
guard; but finding him in the inner hall, he looked at him with more
attention, and recognised the Norman knight in the dress of an English
yeoman.

“What mummery is this, De Bracy?” said Fitzurse, somewhat angrily; “is
this a time for Christmas gambols and quaint maskings, when the fate of
our master, Prince John, is on the very verge of decision? Why hast
thou not been, like me, among these heartless cravens, whom the very
name of King Richard terrifies, as it is said to do the children of the
Saracens?”

“I have been attending to mine own business,” answered De Bracy calmly,
“as you, Fitzurse, have been minding yours.”

“I minding mine own business!” echoed Waldemar; “I have been engaged in
that of Prince John, our joint patron.”

“As if thou hadst any other reason for that, Waldemar,” said De Bracy,
“than the promotion of thine own individual interest? Come, Fitzurse,
we know each other—ambition is thy pursuit, pleasure is mine, and they
become our different ages. Of Prince John thou thinkest as I do; that
he is too weak to be a determined monarch, too tyrannical to be an easy
monarch, too insolent and presumptuous to be a popular monarch, and too
fickle and timid to be long a monarch of any kind. But he is a monarch
by whom Fitzurse and De Bracy hope to rise and thrive; and therefore
you aid him with your policy, and I with the lances of my Free
Companions.”

“A hopeful auxiliary,” said Fitzurse impatiently; “playing the fool in
the very moment of utter necessity.—What on earth dost thou purpose by
this absurd disguise at a moment so urgent?”

“To get me a wife,” answered De Bracy coolly, “after the manner of the
tribe of Benjamin.”

“The tribe of Benjamin?” said Fitzurse; “I comprehend thee not.”

“Wert thou not in presence yester-even,” said De Bracy, “when we heard
the Prior Aymer tell us a tale in reply to the romance which was sung
by the Minstrel?—He told how, long since in Palestine, a deadly feud
arose between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of the Israelitish
nation; and how they cut to pieces well-nigh all the chivalry of that
tribe; and how they swore by our blessed Lady, that they would not
permit those who remained to marry in their lineage; and how they
became grieved for their vow, and sent to consult his holiness the Pope
how they might be absolved from it; and how, by the advice of the Holy
Father, the youth of the tribe of Benjamin carried off from a superb
tournament all the ladies who were there present, and thus won them
wives without the consent either of their brides or their brides’
families.”

“I have heard the story,” said Fitzurse, “though either the Prior or
thou has made some singular alterations in date and circumstances.”

“I tell thee,” said De Bracy, “that I mean to purvey me a wife after
the fashion of the tribe of Benjamin; which is as much as to say, that
in this same equipment I will fall upon that herd of Saxon bullocks,
who have this night left the castle, and carry off from them the lovely
Rowena.”

“Art thou mad, De Bracy?” said Fitzurse. “Bethink thee that, though the
men be Saxons, they are rich and powerful, and regarded with the more
respect by their countrymen, that wealth and honour are but the lot of
few of Saxon descent.”

“And should belong to none,” said De Bracy; “the work of the Conquest
should be completed.”

“This is no time for it at least,” said Fitzurse “the approaching
crisis renders the favour of the multitude indispensable, and Prince
John cannot refuse justice to any one who injures their favourites.”

“Let him grant it, if he dare,” said De Bracy; “he will soon see the
difference betwixt the support of such a lusty lot of spears as mine,
and that of a heartless mob of Saxon churls. Yet I mean no immediate
discovery of myself. Seem I not in this garb as bold a forester as ever
blew horn? The blame of the violence shall rest with the outlaws of the
Yorkshire forests. I have sure spies on the Saxon’s motions—To-night
they sleep in the convent of Saint Wittol, or Withold, or whatever they
call that churl of a Saxon Saint at Burton-on-Trent. Next day’s march
brings them within our reach, and, falcon-ways, we swoop on them at
once. Presently after I will appear in mine own shape, play the
courteous knight, rescue the unfortunate and afflicted fair one from
the hands of the rude ravishers, conduct her to Front-de-Bœuf’s Castle,
or to Normandy, if it should be necessary, and produce her not again to
her kindred until she be the bride and dame of Maurice de Bracy.”

“A marvellously sage plan,” said Fitzurse, “and, as I think, not
entirely of thine own device.—Come, be frank, De Bracy, who aided thee
in the invention? and who is to assist in the execution? for, as I
think, thine own band lies as far off as York.”

“Marry, if thou must needs know,” said De Bracy, “it was the Templar
Brian de Bois-Guilbert that shaped out the enterprise, which the
adventure of the men of Benjamin suggested to me. He is to aid me in
the onslaught, and he and his followers will personate the outlaws,
from whom my valorous arm is, after changing my garb, to rescue the
lady.”

“By my halidome,” said Fitzurse, “the plan was worthy of your united
wisdom! and thy prudence, De Bracy, is most especially manifested in
the project of leaving the lady in the hands of thy worthy confederate.
Thou mayst, I think, succeed in taking her from her Saxon friends, but
how thou wilt rescue her afterwards from the clutches of Bois-Guilbert
seems considerably more doubtful—He is a falcon well accustomed to
pounce on a partridge, and to hold his prey fast.”

“He is a Templar,” said De Bracy, “and cannot therefore rival me in my
plan of wedding this heiress;—and to attempt aught dishonourable
against the intended bride of De Bracy—By Heaven! were he a whole
Chapter of his Order in his single person, he dared not do me such an
injury!”

“Then since nought that I can say,” said Fitzurse, “will put this folly
from thy imagination, (for well I know the obstinacy of thy
disposition,) at least waste as little time as possible—let not thy
folly be lasting as well as untimely.”

“I tell thee,” answered De Bracy, “that it will be the work of a few
hours, and I shall be at York—at the head of my daring and valorous
fellows, as ready to support any bold design as thy policy can be to
form one.—But I hear my comrades assembling, and the steeds stamping
and neighing in the outer court.—Farewell.—I go, like a true knight, to
win the smiles of beauty.”

“Like a true knight?” repeated Fitzurse, looking after him; “like a
fool, I should say, or like a child, who will leave the most serious
and needful occupation, to chase the down of the thistle that drives
past him.—But it is with such tools that I must work;—and for whose
advantage?—For that of a Prince as unwise as he is profligate, and as
likely to be an ungrateful master as he has already proved a rebellious
son and an unnatural brother.—But he—he, too, is but one of the tools
with which I labour; and, proud as he is, should he presume to separate
his interest from mine, this is a secret which he shall soon learn.”

The meditations of the statesman were here interrupted by the voice of
the Prince from an interior apartment, calling out, “Noble Waldemar
Fitzurse!” and, with bonnet doffed, the future Chancellor (for to such
high preferment did the wily Norman aspire) hastened to receive the
orders of the future sovereign.

CHAPTER XVI

Far in a wild, unknown to public view,
From youth to age a reverend hermit grew;
The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,
His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well
Remote from man, with God he pass’d his days,
Prayer all his business—all his pleasure praise.

PARNELL

The reader cannot have forgotten that the event of the tournament was
decided by the exertions of an unknown knight, whom, on account of the
passive and indifferent conduct which he had manifested on the former
part of the day, the spectators had entitled, “Le Noir Faineant”. This
knight had left the field abruptly when the victory was achieved; and
when he was called upon to receive the reward of his valour, he was
nowhere to be found. In the meantime, while summoned by heralds and by
trumpets, the knight was holding his course northward, avoiding all
frequented paths, and taking the shortest road through the woodlands.
He paused for the night at a small hostelry lying out of the ordinary
route, where, however, he obtained from a wandering minstrel news of
the event of the tourney.

On the next morning the knight departed early, with the intention of
making a long journey; the condition of his horse, which he had
carefully spared during the preceding morning, being such as enabled
him to travel far without the necessity of much repose. Yet his purpose
was baffled by the devious paths through which he rode, so that when
evening closed upon him, he only found himself on the frontiers of the
West Riding of Yorkshire. By this time both horse and man required
refreshment, and it became necessary, moreover, to look out for some
place in which they might spend the night, which was now fast
approaching.

The place where the traveller found himself seemed unpropitious for
obtaining either shelter or refreshment, and he was likely to be
reduced to the usual expedient of knights-errant, who, on such
occasions, turned their horses to graze, and laid themselves down to
meditate on their lady-mistress, with an oak-tree for a canopy. But the
Black Knight either had no mistress to meditate upon, or, being as
indifferent in love as he seemed to be in war, was not sufficiently
occupied by passionate reflections upon her beauty and cruelty, to be
able to parry the effects of fatigue and hunger, and suffer love to act
as a substitute for the solid comforts of a bed and supper. He felt
dissatisfied, therefore, when, looking around, he found himself deeply
involved in woods, through which indeed there were many open glades,
and some paths, but such as seemed only formed by the numerous herds of
cattle which grazed in the forest, or by the animals of chase, and the
hunters who made prey of them.

The sun, by which the knight had chiefly directed his course, had now
sunk behind the Derbyshire hills on his left, and every effort which he
might make to pursue his journey was as likely to lead him out of his
road as to advance him on his route. After having in vain endeavoured
to select the most beaten path, in hopes it might lead to the cottage
of some herdsman, or the silvan lodge of a forester, and having
repeatedly found himself totally unable to determine on a choice, the
knight resolved to trust to the sagacity of his horse; experience
having, on former occasions, made him acquainted with the wonderful
talent possessed by these animals for extricating themselves and their
riders on such emergencies.

The good steed, grievously fatigued with so long a day’s journey under
a rider cased in mail, had no sooner found, by the slackened reins,
that he was abandoned to his own guidance, than he seemed to assume new
strength and spirit; and whereas, formerly he had scarce replied to the
spur, otherwise than by a groan, he now, as if proud of the confidence
reposed in him, pricked up his ears, and assumed, of his own accord, a
more lively motion. The path which the animal adopted rather turned off
from the course pursued by the knight during the day; but as the horse
seemed confident in his choice, the rider abandoned himself to his
discretion.

He was justified by the event; for the footpath soon after appeared a
little wider and more worn, and the tinkle of a small bell gave the
knight to understand that he was in the vicinity of some chapel or
hermitage.

Accordingly, he soon reached an open plat of turf, on the opposite side
of which, a rock, rising abruptly from a gently sloping plain, offered
its grey and weatherbeaten front to the traveller. Ivy mantled its
sides in some places, and in others oaks and holly bushes, whose roots
found nourishment in the cliffs of the crag, waved over the precipices
below, like the plumage of the warrior over his steel helmet, giving
grace to that whose chief expression was terror. At the bottom of the
rock, and leaning, as it were, against it, was constructed a rude hut,
built chiefly of the trunks of trees felled in the neighbouring forest,
and secured against the weather by having its crevices stuffed with
moss mingled with clay. The stem of a young fir-tree lopped of its
branches, with a piece of wood tied across near the top, was planted
upright by the door, as a rude emblem of the holy cross. At a little
distance on the right hand, a fountain of the purest water trickled out
of the rock, and was received in a hollow stone, which labour had
formed into a rustic basin. Escaping from thence, the stream murmured
down the descent by a channel which its course had long worn, and so
wandered through the little plain to lose itself in the neighbouring
wood.

Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of which
the roof had partly fallen in. The building, when entire, had never
been above sixteen feet long by twelve feet in breadth, and the roof,
low in proportion, rested upon four concentric arches which sprung from
the four corners of the building, each supported upon a short and heavy
pillar. The ribs of two of these arches remained, though the roof had
fallen down betwixt them; over the others it remained entire. The
entrance to this ancient place of devotion was under a very low round
arch, ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding,
resembling shark’s teeth, which appears so often in the more ancient
Saxon architecture. A belfry rose above the porch on four small
pillars, within which hung the green and weatherbeaten bell, the feeble
sounds of which had been some time before heard by the Black Knight.

The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight before
the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of lodging for the
night; since it was a special duty of those hermits who dwelt in the
woods, to exercise hospitality towards benighted or bewildered
passengers.

Accordingly, the knight took no time to consider minutely the
particulars which we have detailed, but thanking Saint Julian (the
patron of travellers) who had sent him good harbourage, he leaped from
his horse and assailed the door of the hermitage with the butt of his
lance, in order to arouse attention and gain admittance.

It was some time before he obtained any answer, and the reply, when
made, was unpropitious.

“Pass on, whosoever thou art,” was the answer given by a deep hoarse
voice from within the hut, “and disturb not the servant of God and St
Dunstan in his evening devotions.”

“Worthy father,” answered the knight, “here is a poor wanderer
bewildered in these woods, who gives thee the opportunity of exercising
thy charity and hospitality.”

“Good brother,” replied the inhabitant of the hermitage, “it has
pleased Our Lady and St Dunstan to destine me for the object of those
virtues, instead of the exercise thereof. I have no provisions here
which even a dog would share with me, and a horse of any tenderness of
nurture would despise my couch—pass therefore on thy way, and God speed
thee.”

“But how,” replied the knight, “is it possible for me to find my way
through such a wood as this, when darkness is coming on? I pray you,
reverend father as you are a Christian, to undo your door, and at least
point out to me my road.”

“And I pray you, good Christian brother,” replied the anchorite, “to
disturb me no more. You have already interrupted one ‘pater’, two
‘aves’, and a ‘credo’, which I, miserable sinner that I am, should,
according to my vow, have said before moonrise.”

“The road—the road!” vociferated the knight, “give me directions for
the road, if I am to expect no more from thee.”

“The road,” replied the hermit, “is easy to hit. The path from the wood
leads to a morass, and from thence to a ford, which, as the rains have
abated, may now be passable. When thou hast crossed the ford, thou wilt
take care of thy footing up the left bank, as it is somewhat
precipitous; and the path, which hangs over the river, has lately, as I
learn, (for I seldom leave the duties of my chapel,) given way in
sundry places. Thou wilt then keep straight forward—-”

“A broken path—a precipice—a ford, and a morass!” said the knight
interrupting him,—“Sir Hermit, if you were the holiest that ever wore
beard or told bead, you shall scarce prevail on me to hold this road
to-night. I tell thee, that thou, who livest by the charity of the
country—ill deserved, as I doubt it is—hast no right to refuse shelter
to the wayfarer when in distress. Either open the door quickly, or, by
the rood, I will beat it down and make entry for myself.”

“Friend wayfarer,” replied the hermit, “be not importunate; if thou
puttest me to use the carnal weapon in mine own defence, it will be
e’en the worse for you.”

At this moment a distant noise of barking and growling, which the
traveller had for some time heard, became extremely loud and furious,
and made the knight suppose that the hermit, alarmed by his threat of