MAID MARIAN
by Thomas Love Peacock
MAID MARIAN
CHAPTER I
Now come ye for peace here or come ye for war
—SCOTT
The abbot in his alb arrayed stood at the altar in the abbeychapel of Rubygill with all his plump sleek rosy friars in goodly lines disposed to solemnise the nuptials of the beautiful Matilda Fitzwater daughter of the Baron of Arlingford with the noble Robert FitzOoth Earl of Locksley and Huntingdon The abbey of Rubygill stood in a picturesque valley at a little distance from the western boundary of Sherwood Forest in a spot which seemed adapted by nature to be the retreat of monastic mortification being on the banks of a fine troutstream and in the midst of woodland coverts abounding with excellent game The bride with her father and attendant maidens entered the chapel but the earl had not arrived The baron was amazed and the bridemaidens were disconcerted Matilda feared that some evil had befallen her lover but felt no diminution of her confidence in his honour and love Through the open gates of the chapel she looked down the narrow road that wound along the side of the hill and her ear was the first that heard the distant trampling of horses and her eye was the first that caught the glitter of snowy plumes and the light of polished spears It is strange thought the baron that the earl should come in this martial array to his wedding but he had not long to meditate on the phenomenon for the foaming steeds swept up to the gate like a whirlwind and the earl breathless with speed and followed by a few of his yeomen advanced to his smiling bride It was then no time to ask questions for the organ was in full peal and the choristers were in full voice
The abbot began to intone the ceremony in a style of modulation impressively exalted his voice issuing most canonically from the roof of his mouth through the medium of a very musical nose newly tuned for the occasion But he had not proceeded far enough to exhibit all the variety and compass of this melodious instrument when a noise was heard at the gate and a party of armed men entered the chapel The song of the choristers died away in a shake of demisemiquavers contrary to all the rules of psalmody The organblower who was working his musical airpump with one hand and with two fingers and a thumb of the other insinuating a peepingplace through the curtain of the organgallery was struck motionless by the double operation of curiosity and fear while the organist intent only on his performance and spreading all his fingers to strike a swell of magnificent chords felt his harmonic spirit ready to desert his body on being answered by the ghastly rattle of empty keys and in the consequent agitato furioso of the internal movements of his feelings was preparing to restore harmony by the segue subito of an appoggiatura con foco with the corner of a book of anthems on the head of his neglectful assistant when his hand and his attention together were arrested by the scene below The voice of the abbot subsided into silence through a descending scale of longdrawn melody like the sound of the ebbing sea to the explorers of a cave In a few moments all was silence interrupted only by the iron tread of the armed intruders as it rang on the marble floor and echoed from the vaulted aisles
The leader strode up to the altar and placing himself opposite to the abbot and between the earl and Matilda in such a manner that the four together seemed to stand on the four points of a diamond exclaimed In the name of King Henry I forbid the ceremony and attach Robert Earl of Huntingdon as a traitor and at the same time he held his drawn sword between the lovers as if to emblem that royal authority which laid its temporal ban upon their contract The earl drew his own sword instantly and struck down the interposing weapon then clasped his left arm round Matilda who sprang into his embrace and held his sword before her with his right hand His yeomen ranged themselves at his side and stood with their swords drawn still and prepared like men determined to die in his defence The soldiers confident in superiority of numbers paused The abbot took advantage of the pause to introduce a word of exhortation My children said he if you are going to cut each others throats I entreat you in the name of peace and charity to do it out of the chapel
Sweet Matilda said the earl did you give your love to the Earl of Huntingdon whose lands touch the Ouse and the Trent or to Robert FitzOoth the son of his mother
Neither to the earl nor his earldom answered Matilda firmly but to Robert FitzOoth and his love
That I well knew said the earl and though the ceremony be incomplete we are not the less married in the eye of my only saint our Lady who will yet bring us together Lord Fitzwater to your care for the present I commit your daughter—Nay sweet Matilda part we must for a while but we will soon meet under brighter skies and be this the seal of our faith
He kissed Matildas lips and consigned her to the baron who glowered about him with an expression of countenance that showed he was mortally wroth with somebody but whatever he thought or felt he kept to himself The earl with a sign to his followers made a sudden charge on the soldiers with the intention of cutting his way through The soldiers were prepared for such an occurrence and a desperate skirmish succeeded Some of the women screamed but none of them fainted for fainting was not so much the fashion in those days when the ladies breakfasted on brawn and ale at sunrise as in our more refined age of green tea and muffins at noon Matilda seemed disposed to fly again to her lover but the baron forced her from the chapel The earls bowmen at the door sent in among the assailants a volley of arrows one of which whizzed past the ear of the abbot who in mortal fear of being suddenly translated from a ghostly friar into a friarly ghost began to roll out of the chapel as fast as his bulk and his holy robes would permit roaring Sacrilege with all his monks at his heels who were like himself more intent to go at once than to stand upon the order of their going The abbot thus pressed from behind and stumbling over his own drapery before fell suddenly prostrate in the doorway that connected the chapel with the abbey and was instantaneously buried under a pyramid of ghostly carcasses that fell over him and each other and lay a rolling chaos of animated rotundities sprawling and bawling in unseemly disarray and sending forth the names of all the saints in and out of heaven amidst the clashing of swords the ringing of bucklers the clattering of helmets the twanging of bowstrings the whizzing of arrows the screams of women the shouts of the warriors and the vociferations of the peasantry who had been assembled to the intended nuptials and who seeing a fair setto contrived to pick a quarrel among themselves on the occasion and proceeded with staff and cudgel to crack each others skulls for the good of the king and the earl One tall friar alone was untouched by the panic of his brethren and stood steadfastly watching the combat with his arms akembo the colossal emblem of an unarmed neutrality
At length through the midst of the internal confusion the earl by the help of his good sword the staunch valour of his men and the blessing of the Virgin fought his way to the chapelgate—his bowmen closed him in—he vaulted into his saddle clapped spurs to his horse rallied his men on the first eminence and exchanged his sword for a bow and arrow with which he did old execution among the pursuers who at last thought it most expedient to desist from offensive warfare and to retreat into the abbey where in the kings name they broached a pipe of the best wine and attached all the venison in the larder having first carefully unpacked the tuft of friars and set the fallen abbot on his legs
The friars it may be well supposed and such of the kings men as escaped unhurt from the affray found their spirits a cup too low and kept the flask moving from noon till night The peaceful brethren unused to the tumult of war had undergone from fear and discomposure an exhaustion of animal spirits that required extraordinary refection During the repast they interrogated Sir Ralph Montfaucon the leader of the soldiers respecting the nature of the earls offence
A complication of offences replied Sir Ralph superinduced on the original basis of foresttreason He began with hunting the kings deer in despite of all remonstrance followed it up by contempt of the kings mandates and by armed resistance to his power in defiance of all authority and combined with it the resolute withholding of payment of certain moneys to the abbot of Doncaster in denial of all law and has thus made himself the declared enemy of church and state and all for being too fond of venison And the knight helped himself to half a pasty
A heinous offender said a little round oily friar appropriating the portion of pasty which Sir Ralph had left
The earl is a worthy peer said the tall friar whom we have already mentioned in the chapel scene and the best marksman in England
Why this is flat treason brother Michael said the little round friar to call an attainted traitor a worthy peer
I pledge you said brother Michael The little friar smiled and filled his cup He will draw the long bow pursued brother Michael with any bold yeoman among them all
Dont talk of the long bow said the abbot who had the sound of the arrow still whizzing in his ear what have we pillars of the faith to do with the long bow
Be that as it may said Sir Ralph he is an outlaw from this moment
So much the worse for the law then said brother Michael The law will have a heavier miss of him than he will have of the law He will strike as much venison as ever and more of other game I know what I say but basta Let us drink
What other game said the little friar I hope he wont poach among our partridges
Poach not he said brother Michael if he wants your partridges he will strike them under your nose heres to you and drag your troutstream for you on a Thursday evening
Monstrous and starve us on fastday said the little friar
But that is not the game I mean said brother Michael
Surely son Michael said the abbot you do not mean to insinuate that the noble earl will turn freebooter
A man must live said brother Michael earl or no If the law takes his rents and beeves without his consent he must take beeves and rents where he can get them without the consent of the law This is the lex talionis
Truly said Sir Ralph I am sorry for the damsel she seems fond of this wild runagate
A mad girl a mad girl said the little friar
How a mad girl said brother Michael Has she not beauty grace wit sense discretion dexterity learning and valour
Learning exclaimed the little friar what has a woman to do with learning And valour who ever heard a woman commended for valour Meekness and mildness and softness and gentleness and tenderness and humility and obedience to her husband and faith in her confessor and domesticity or as learned doctors call it the faculty of stayathomeitiveness and embroidery and music and pickling and preserving and the whole complex and multiplex detail of the noble science of dinner as well in preparation for the table as in arrangement over it and in distribution around it to knights and squires and ghostly friars—these are female virtues but valour—why who ever heard——
She is the all in all said brother Michael gentle as a ringdove yet highsoaring as a falcon humble below her deserving yet deserving beyond the estimate of panegyric an exact economist in all superfluity yet a most bountiful dispenser in all liberality the chief regulator of her household the fairest pillar of her hall and the sweetest blossom of her bower having in all opposite proposings sense to understand judgment to weigh discretion to choose firmness to undertake diligence to conduct perseverance to accomplish and resolution to maintain For obedience to her husband that is not to be tried till she has one for faith in her confessor she has as much as the law prescribes for embroidery an Arachne for music a Siren and for pickling and preserving did not one of her jars of sugared apricots give you your last surfeit at Arlingford Castle
Call you that preserving said the little friar I call it destroying Call you it pickling Truly it pickled me My life was saved by miracle
By canary said brother Michael Canary is the only life preserver the true aurum potabile the universal panacea for all diseases thirst and short life Your life was saved by canary
Indeed reverend father said Sir Ralph if the young lady be half what you describe she must be a paragon but your commending her for valour does somewhat amaze me
She can fence said the little friar and draw the long bow and play at singlestick and quarterstaff
Yet mark you said brother Michael not like a virago or a hoyden or one that would crack a servingmans head for spilling gravy on her ruff but with such womanly grace and temperate selfcommand as if those manly exercises belonged to her only and were become for her sake feminine
You incite me said Sir Ralph to view her more nearly That madcap earl found me other employment than to remark her in the chapel
The earl is a worthy peer said brother Michael he is worth any fourteen earls on this side Trent and any seven on the other The reader will please to remember that Rubygill Abbey was north of Trent
His mettle will be tried said Sir Ralph There is many a courtier will swear to King Henry to bring him in dead or alive
They must look to the brambles then said brother Michael
The bramble the bramble the bonny forest bramble
Doth make a jest
Of silken vest
That will through greenwood scramble
The bramble the bramble the bonny forest bramble
Plague on your lungs son Michael said the abbot this is your old coil always roaring in your cups
I know what I say said brother Michael there is often more sense in an old song than in a new homily
The courtly pad doth amble
When his gay lord would ramble
But both may catch
An awkward scratch
If they ride among the bramble
The bramble the bramble the bonny forest bramble
Tall friar said Sir Ralph either you shoot the shafts of your merriment at random or you know more of the earls designs than beseems your frock
Let my frock said brother Michael answer for its own sins It is worn past covering mine It is too weak for a shield too transparent for a screen too thin for a shelter too light for gravity and too threadbare for a jest The wearer would be naught indeed who should misbeseem such a wedding garment
But wherefore does the sheep wear wool
That he in season sheared may be
And the shepherd be warm though his flock be cool
So Ill have a new cloak about me
CHAPTER II
Vray moyne si oncques en feut depuis que le monde moynant
moyna de moynerie—RABELAIS
The Earl of Huntingdon living in the vicinity of a royal forest and passionately attached to the chase from his infancy had long made as free with the kings deer as Lord Percy proposed to do with those of Lord Douglas in the memorable hunting of Cheviot It is sufficiently well known how severe were the forestlaws in those days and with what jealousy the kings of England maintained this branch of their prerogative but menaces and remonstrances were thrown away on the earl who declared that he would not thank Saint Peter for admission into Paradise if he were obliged to leave his bow and hounds at the gate King Henry the Second swore by Saint Botolph to make him rue his sport and having caused him to be duly and formally accused summoned him to London to answer the charge The earl deeming himself safer among his own vassals than among king Henrys courtiers took no notice of the mandate King Henry sent a force to bring him vi et armis to court The earl made a resolute resistance and put the kings force to flight under a shower of arrows an act which the courtiers declared to be treason At the same time the abbot of Doncaster sued up the payment of certain moneys which the earl whose revenue ran a losing race with his hospitality had borrowed at sundry times of the said abbot for the abbots and the bishops were the chief usurers of those days and as the end sanctifies the means were not in the least scrupulous of employing what would have been extortion in the profane to accomplish the pious purpose of bringing a blessing on the land by rescuing it from the frail hold of carnal and temporal into the firmer grasp of ghostly and spiritual possessors But the earl confident in the number and attachment of his retainers stoutly refused either to repay the money which he could not or to yield the forfeiture which he would not a refusal which in those days was an act of outlawry in a gentleman as it is now of bankruptcy in a base mechanic the gentleman having in our wiser times a more liberal privilege of gentility which enables him to keep his land and laugh at his creditor Thus the mutual resentments and interests of the king and the abbot concurred to subject the earl to the penalties of outlawry by which the abbot would gain his due upon the lands of Locksley and the rest would be confiscate to the king Still the king did not think it advisable to assail the earl in his own stronghold but caused a diligent watch to be kept over his motions till at length his rumoured marriage with the heiress of Arlingford seemed to point out an easy method of laying violent hands on the offender Sir Ralph Montfaucon a young man of good lineage and of an aspiring temper who readily seized the first opportunity that offered of recommending himself to King Henrys favour by manifesting his zeal in his service undertook the charge and how he succeeded we have seen
Sir Ralphs curiosity was strongly excited by the friars description of the young lady of Arlingford and he prepared in the morning to visit the castle under the very plausible pretext of giving the baron an explanation of his intervention at the nuptials Brother Michael and the little fat friar proposed to be his guides The proposal was courteously accepted and they set out together leaving Sir Ralphs followers at the abbey The knight was mounted on a spirited charger brother Michael on a large heavytrotting horse and the little fat friar on a plump softpaced galloway so correspondent with himself in size rotundity and sleekness that if they had been amalgamated into a centaur there would have been nothing to alter in their proportions
Do you know said the little friar as they wound along the banks of the stream the reason why laketrout is better than rivertrout and shyer withal
I was not aware of the fact said Sir Ralph
A most heterodox remark said brother Michael know you not that in all nice matters you should take the implication for absolute and without looking into the FACT WHETHER seek only the reason why But the fact is so on the word of a friar which what layman will venture to gainsay who prefers a down bed to a gridiron
The fact being so said the knight I am still at a loss for the reason nor would I undertake to opine in a matter of that magnitude since in all that appertains to the good things either of this world or the next my reverend spiritual guides are kind enough to take the trouble of thinking off my hands
Spoken said brother Michael with a sound Catholic conscience My little brother here is most profound in the matter of trout He has marked learned and inwardly digested the subject twice a week at least for fiveandthirty years I yield to him in this My strong points are venison and canary
The good qualities of a trout said the little friar are firmness and redness the redness indeed being the visible sign of all other virtues
Whence said brother Michael we choose our abbot by his nose
The rose on the nose doth all virtues disclose
For the outward grace shows
That the inward overflows
When it glows in the rose of a red red nose
Now said the little friar as is the firmness so is the redness and as is the redness so is the shyness
Marry why said brother Michael The solution is not physicalnatural but physicalhistorical or naturalsuperinductive And thereby hangs a tale which may be either said or sung
The damsel stood to watch the fight
By the banks of Kingslea Mere
And they brought to her feet her own true knight
Sorewounded on a bier
She knelt by him his wounds to bind
She washed them with many a tear
And shouts rose fast upon the wind
Which told that the foe was near
Oh let not he said while yet I live
The cruel foe me take
But with thy sweet lips a last kiss give
And cast me in the lake
Around his neck she wound her arms
And she kissed his lips so pale
And evermore the wars alarms
Came louder up the vale
She drew him to the lakes steep side
Where the red heath fringed the shore
She plunged with him beneath the tide
And they were seen no more
Their true blood mingled in Kingslea Mere
That to mingle on earth was fain
And the trout that swims in that crystal clear
Is tinged with the crimson stain
Thus you see how good comes of evil and how a holy friar may fare better on fastday for the violent death of two lovers two hundred years ago The inference is most consecutive that wherever you catch a redfleshed trout love lies bleeding under the water an occult quality which can only act in the stationary waters of a lake being neutralised by the rapid transition of those of a stream
And why is the trout shyer for that asked Sir Ralph
Do you not see said brother Michael The virtues of both lovers diffuse themselves through the lake The infusion of masculine valour makes the fish active and sanguineous the infusion of maiden modesty makes him coy and hard to win and you shall find through life the fish which is most easily hooked is not the best worth dishing But yonder are the towers of Arlingford
The little friar stopped He seemed suddenly struck with an awful thought which caused a momentary pallescence in his rosy complexion and after a brief hesitation he turned his galloway and told his companions he should give them good day
Why what is in the wind now brother Peter said Friar Michael
The lady Matilda said the little friar can draw the longbow She must bear no goodwill to Sir Ralph and if she should espy him from her tower she may testify her recognition with a clothyard shaft She is not so infallible a markswoman but that she might shoot at a crow and kill a pigeon She might peradventure miss the knight and hit me who never did her any harm
Tut tut man said brother Michael there is no such fear
Mass said the little friar but there is such a fear and very strong too You who have it not may keep your way and I who have it shall take mine I am not just now in the vein for being picked off at a long shot And saying these words he spurred up his fourfooted better half and galloped off as nimbly as if he had had an arrow singing behind him
Is this lady Matilda then so very terrible a damsel said Sir Ralph to brother Michael
By no means said the friar She has certainly a high spirit but it is the wing of the eagle without his beak or his claw She is as gentle as magnanimous but it is the gentleness of the summer wind which however lightly it wave the tuft of the pine carries with it the intimation of a power that if roused to its extremity could make it bend to the dust
From the warmth of your panegyric ghostly father said the knight I should almost suspect you were in love with the damsel
So I am said the friar and I care not who knows it but all in the way of honesty master soldier I am as it were her spiritual lover and were she a damsel errant I would be her ghostly esquire her friar militant I would buckle me in armour of proof and the devil might thresh me black with an iron flail before I would knock under in her cause Though they be not yet one canonically thanks to your soldiership the earl is her liege lord and she is his liege lady I am her father confessor and ghostly director I have taken on me to show her the way to the next world and how can I do that if I lose sight of her in this seeing that this is but the road to the other and has so many circumvolutions and ramifications of byeways and beaten paths all more thickly set than the true one with fingerposts and milestones not one of which tells truth that a traveller has need of some one who knows the way or the odds go hard against him that he will ever see the face of Saint Peter
But there must surely be some reason said Sir Ralph for father Peters apprehension
None said brother Michael but the apprehension itself fear being its own father and most prolific in selfpropagation The lady did it is true once signalize her displeasure against our little brother for reprimanding her in that she would go hunting amornings instead of attending matins She cut short the thread of his eloquence by sportively drawing her bowstring and loosing an arrow over his head he waddled off with singular speed and was in much awe of her for many months I thought he had forgotten it but let that pass In truth she would have had little of her lovers company if she had liked the chaunt of the choristers better than the cry of the hounds yet I know not for they were companions from the cradle and reciprocally fashioned each other to the love of the fern and the foxglove Had either been less sylvan the other might have been more saintly but they will now never hear matins but those of the lark nor reverence vaulted aisle but that of the greenwood canopy They are twin plants of the forest and are identified with its growth
For the slender beech and the sapling oak
That grow by the shadowy rill
You may cut down both at a single stroke
You may cut down which you will
But this you must know that as long as they grow
Whatever change may be
You never can teach either oak or beech
To be aught but a greenwood tree
CHAPTER III
Inflamed wrath in glowing breast—BUTLER
The knight and the friar arriving at Arlingford Castle and leaving their horses in the care of lady Matildas groom with whom the friar was in great favour were ushered into a stately apartment where they found the baron alone flourishing an enormous carvingknife over a brother baron—of beef—with as much vehemence of action as if he were cutting down an enemy The baron was a gentleman of a fierce and choleric temperament he was lineally descended from the redoubtable Fierabras of Normandy who came over to England with the Conqueror and who in the battle of Hastings killed with his own hand fourandtwenty Saxon cavaliers all on a row The very excess of the barons internal rage on the preceding day had smothered its external manifestation he was so equally angry with both parties that he knew not on which to vent his wrath He was enraged with the earl for having brought himself into such a dilemma without his privily and he was no less enraged with the kings men for their very unseasonable intrusion He could willingly have fallen upon both parties but he must necessarily have begun with one and he felt that on whichever side he should strike the first blow his retainers would immediately join battle He had therefore contented himself with forcing away his daughter from the scene of action In the course of the evening he had received intelligence that the earls castle was in possession of a party of the kings men who had been detached by Sir Ralph Montfaucon to seize on it during the earls absence The baron inferred from this that the earls case was desperate and those who have had the opportunity of seeing a rich friend fall suddenly into poverty may easily judge by their own feelings how quickly and completely the whole moral being of the earl was changed in the barons estimation The baron immediately proceeded to require in his daughters mind the same summary revolution that had taken place in his own and considered himself exceedingly illused by her noncompliance The lady had retired to her chamber and the baron had passed a supperless and sleepless night stalking about his apartments till an advanced hour of the morning when hunger compelled him to summon into his presence the spoils of the buttery which being the intended array of an uneaten wedding feast were more than usually abundant and on which when the knight and the friar entered he was falling with desperate valour He looked up at them fiercely with his mouth full of beef and his eyes full of flame and rising as ceremony required made an awful bow to the knight inclining himself forward over the table and presenting his carvingknife en militaire in a manner that seemed to leave it doubtful whether he meant to show respect to his visitor or to defend his provision but the doubt was soon cleared up by his politely motioning the knight to be seated on which the friar advanced to the table saying For what we are going to receive and commenced operations without further prelude by filling and drinking a goblet of wine The baron at the same time offered one to Sir Ralph with the look of a man in whom habitual hospitality and courtesy were struggling with the ebullitions of natural anger They pledged each other in silence and the baron having completed a copious draught continued working his lips and his throat as if trying to swallow his wrath as he had done his wine Sir Ralph not knowing well what to make of these ambiguous signs looked for instructions to the friar who by significant looks and gestures seemed to advise him to follow his example and partake of the good cheer before him without speaking till the baron should be more intelligible in his demeanour The knight and the friar accordingly proceeded to refect themselves after their ride the baron looking first at the one and then at the other scrutinising alternately the serious looks of the knight and the merry face of the friar till at length having calmed himself sufficiently to speak he said Courteous knight and ghostly father I presume you have some other business with me than to eat my beef and drink my canary and if so I patiently await your leisure to enter on the topic
Lord Fitzwater said Sir Ralph in obedience to my royal master King Henry I have been the unwilling instrument of frustrating the intended nuptials of your fair daughter yet will you I trust owe me no displeasure for my agency herein seeing that the noble maiden might otherwise by this time have been the bride of an outlaw
I am very much obliged to you sir said the baron very exceedingly obliged Your solicitude for my daughter is truly paternal and for a young man and a stranger very singular and exemplary and it is very kind withal to come to the relief of my insufficiency and inexperience and concern yourself so much in that which concerns you not
You misconceive the knight noble baron said the friar He urges not his reason in the shape of a preconceived intent but in that of a subsequent extenuation True he has done the lady Matilda great wrong——
How great wrong said the baron What do you mean by great wrong Would you have had her married to a wild flybynight that accident made an earl and nature a deerstealer that has not wit enough to eat venison without picking a quarrel with monarchy that flings away his own lands into the clutches of rascally friars for the sake of hunting in other mens grounds and feasting vagabonds that wear Lincoln green and would have flung away mine into the bargain if he had had my daughter What do you mean by great wrong
True said the friar great right I meant
Right exclaimed the baron what right has any man to do my daughter right but myself What right has any man to drive my daughters bridegroom out of the chapel in the middle of the marriage ceremony and turn all our merry faces into green wounds and bloody coxcombs and then come and tell me he has done us great right
True said the friar he has done neither right nor wrong
But he has said the baron he has done both and I will maintain it with my glove
It shall not need said Sir Ralph I will concede any thing in honour
And I said the baron will concede nothing in honour I will concede nothing in honour to any man
Neither will I Lord Fitzwater said Sir Ralph in that sense but hear me I was commissioned by the king to apprehend the Earl of Huntingdon I brought with me a party of soldiers picked and tried men knowing that he would not lightly yield I sent my lieutenant with a detachment to surprise the earls castle in his absence and laid my measures for intercepting him on the way to his intended nuptials but he seems to have had intimation of this part of my plan for he brought with him a large armed retinue and took a circuitous route which made him I believe somewhat later than his appointed hour When the lapse of time showed me that he had taken another track I pursued him to the chapel and I would have awaited the close of the ceremony if I had thought that either yourself or your daughter would have felt desirous that she should have been the bride of an outlaw
Who said sir cried the baron that we were desirous of any such thing But truly sir if I had a mind to the devil for a soninlaw I would fain see the man that should venture to interfere
That would I said the friar for I have undertaken to make her renounce the devil
She shall not renounce the devil said the baron unless I please You are very ready with your undertakings Will you undertake to make her renounce the earl who I believe is the devil incarnate Will you undertake that
Will I undertake said the friar to make Trent run westward or to make flame burn downward or to make a tree grow with its head in the earth and its root in the air
So then said the baron a girls mind is as hard to change as nature and the elements and it is easier to make her renounce the devil than a lover Are you a match for the devil and no match for a man
My warfare said the friar is not of this world I am militant not against man but the devil who goes about seeking what he may devour
Oh does he so said the baron then I take it that makes you look for him so often in my buttery Will you cast out the devil whose name is Legion when you cannot cast out the imp whose name is Love
Marriages said the friar are made in heaven Love is Gods work and therewith I meddle not
Gods work indeed said the baron when the ceremony was cut short in the church Could men have put them asunder if God had joined them together And the earl is now no earl but plain Robert FitzOoth therefore Ill none of him
He may atone said the friar and the king may mollify The earl is a worthy peer and the king is a courteous king
He cannot atone said Sir Ralph He has killed the kings men and if the baron should aid and abet he will lose his castle and land
Will I said the baron not while I have a drop of blood in my veins He that comes to take them shall first serve me as the friar serves my flasks of canary he shall drain me dry as hay Am I not disparaged Am I not outraged Is not my daughter vilified and made a mockery A girl halfmarried There was my butler brought home with a broken head My butler friar there is that may move your sympathy Friar the earlnoearl shall come no more to my daughter
Very good said the friar
It is not very good said the baron for I cannot get her to say so
I fear said Sir Ralph the young lady must be much distressed and discomposed
Not a whit sir said the baron She is as usual in a most provoking imperturbability and contradicts me so smilingly that it would enrage you to see her
I had hoped said Sir Ralph that I might have seen her to make my excuse in person for the hard necessity of my duty
He had scarcely spoken when the door opened and the lady made her appearance
CHAPTER IV
Are you mad or what are you that you squeak out your
catches without mitigation or remorse of voice
—Twelfth Night
Matilda not dreaming of visitors tripped into the apartment in a dress of forest green with a small quiver by her side and a bow and arrow in her hand Her hair black and glossy as the ravens wing curled like wandering clusters of dark ripe grapes under the edge of her round bonnet and a plume of black feathers fell back negligently above it with an almost horizontal inclination that seemed the habitual effect of rapid motion against the wind Her black eyes sparkled like sunbeams on a river a clear deep liquid radiance the reflection of ethereal fire—tempered not subdued in the medium of its living and gentle mirror Her lips were half opened to speak as she entered the apartment and with a smile of recognition to the friar and a courtesy to the stranger knight she approached the baron and said You are late at your breakfast father
I am not at breakfast said the baron I have been at supper my last nights supper for I had none
I am sorry said Matilda you should have gone to bed supperless
I did not go to bed supperless said the baron I did not go to bed at all and what are you doing with that green dress and that bow and arrow
I am going ahunting said Matilda
Ahunting said the baron What I warrant you to meet with the earl and slip your neck into the same noose
No said Matilda I am not going out of our own woods today
How do I know that said the baron What surety have I of that
Here is the friar said Matilda He will be surety
Not he said the baron he will undertake nothing but where the devil is a party concerned
Yes I will said the friar I will undertake any thing for the lady Matilda
No matter for that said the baron she shall not go hunting to day
Why father said Matilda if you coop me up here in this odious castle I shall pine and die like a lonely swan on a pool
No said the baron the lonely swan does not die on the pool If there be a river at hand she flies to the river and finds her a mate and so shall not you
But said Matilda you may send with me any or as many of your grooms as you will
My grooms said the baron are all false knaves There is not a rascal among them but loves you better than me Villains that I feed and clothe
Surely said Matilda it is not villany to love me if it be I should be sorry my father were an honest man The baron relaxed his muscles into a smile Or my lover either added Matilda The baron looked grim again
For your lover said the baron you may give God thanks of him He is as arrant a knave as ever poached
What for hunting the kings deer said Matilda Have I not heard you rail at the forest laws by the hour
Did you ever hear me said the baron rail myself out of house and land If I had done that then were I a knave
My lover said Matilda is a brave man and a true man and a generous man and a young man and a handsome man aye and an honest man too
How can he be an honest man said the baron when he has neither house nor land which are the better part of a man
They are but the husk of a man said Matilda the worthless coat of the chesnut the man himself is the kernel
The man is the grape stone said the baron and the pulp of the melon The house and land are the true substantial fruit and all that give him savour and value
He will never want house or land said Matilda while the meeting boughs weave a green roof in the wood and the free range of the hart marks out the bounds of the forest
Vert and venison vert and venison exclaimed the baron Treason and flat rebellion Confound your smiling face what makes you look so goodhumoured What you think I cant look at you and be in a passion You think so do you We shall see Have you no fear in talking thus when here is the kings liegeman come to take us all into custody and confiscate our goods and chattels
Nay Lord Fitzwater said Sir Ralph you wrong me in your report My visit is one of courtesy and excuse not of menace and authority
There it is said the baron every one takes a pleasure in contradicting me Here is this courteous knight who has not opened his mouth three times since he has been in my house except to take in provision cuts me short in my story with a flat denial
Oh I cry you mercy sir knight said Matilda I did not mark you before I am your debtor for no slight favour and so is my liege lord
Her liege lord exclaimed the baron taking large strides across the chamber
Pardon me gentle lady said Sir Ralph Had I known you before yesterday I would have cut off my right hand ere it should have been raised to do you displeasure
Oh sir said Matilda a good man may be forced on an ill office but I can distinguish the man from his duty She presented to him her hand which he kissed respectfully and simultaneously with the contact thirtytwo invisible arrows plunged at once into his heart one from every point of the compass of his pericardia
Well father added Matilda I must go to the woods
Must you said the baron I say you must not
But I am going said Matilda
But I will have up the drawbridge said the baron
But I will swim the moat said Matilda
But I will secure the gates said the baron
But I will leap from the battlement said Matilda
But I will lock you in an upper chamber said the baron
But I will shred the tapestry said Matilda and let myself down
But I will lock you in a turret said the baron where you shall only see light through a loophole
But through that loophole said Matilda will I take my flight like a young eagle from its eerie and father while I go out freely I will return willingly but if once I slip out through a loophole—— She paused a moment and then added singing—
The love that follows fain
Will never its faith betray
But the faith that is held in a chain
Will never be found again
If a single link give way
The melody acted irresistibly on the harmonious propensities of the friar who accordingly sang in his turn—
For hark hark hark
The dog doth bark
That watches the wild deers lair
The hunter awakes at the peep of the dawn
But the lair it is empty the deer it is gone
And the hunter knows not where
Matilda and the friar then sang together—
Then follow oh follow the hounds do cry
The red sun flames in the eastern sky
The stag bounds over the hollow
He that lingers in spirit or loiters in hall
Shall see us no more till the evening fall
And no voice but the echo shall answer his call
Then follow oh follow follow
Follow oh follow follow
During the process of this harmony the barons eyes wandered from his daughter to the friar and from the friar to his daughter again with an alternate expression of anger differently modified when he looked on the friar it was anger without qualification when he looked on his daughter it was still anger but tempered by an expression of involuntary admiration and pleasure These rapid fluctuations of the barons physiognomy—the habitual reckless resolute merriment in the jovial face of the friar—and the cheerful elastic spirits that played on the lips and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda—would have presented a very amusing combination to Sir Ralph if one of the three images in the group had not absorbed his total attention with feelings of intense delight very nearly allied to pain The barons wrath was somewhat counteracted by the reflection that his daughters good spirits seemed to show that they would naturally rise triumphant over all disappointments and he had had sufficient experience of her humour to know that she might sometimes be led but never could be driven Then too he was always delighted to hear her sing though he was not at all pleased in this instance with the subject of her song Still he would have endured the subject for the sake of the melody of the treble but his mind was not sufficiently attuned to unison to relish the harmony of the bass The friars accompaniment put him out of all patience and—So he exclaimed this is the way you teach my daughter to renounce the devil is it A hunting friar truly Who ever heard before of a hunting friar A profane roaring bawling bumperbibbing neckbreaking catchsinging friar
Under favour bold baron said the friar but the friar was warm with canary and in his singing vein and he could not go on in plain unmusical prose He therefore sang in a new tune—
Though I be now a grey grey friar
Yet I was once a hale young knight
The cry of my dogs was the only choir
In which my spirit did take delight
Little I recked of matin bell
But drowned its toll with my clanging horn
And the only beads I loved to tell
Were the beads of dew on the spangled thorn
The baron was going to storm but the friar paused and Matilda sang in repetition—
Little I reck of matin bell
But drown its toll with my clanging horn
And the only beads I love to tell
Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn
And then she and the friar sang the four lines together and rang the changes upon them alternately
Little I reck of matin bell
sang the friar
A precious friar said the baron
But drown its toll with my clanging horn sang Matilda
More shame for you said the baron
And the only beads I love to tell
Are the beads of dew on the spangled thorn
sang Matilda and the friar together
Penitent and confessor said the baron a hopeful pair truly
The friar went on—
An archer keen I was withal
As ever did lean on greenwood tree
And could make the fleetest roebuck fall
A good three hundred yards from me
Though changeful time with hand severe
Has made me now these joys forego
Yet my heart bounds wheneer I hear
Yoicks hark away and tally ho
Matilda chimed in as before
Are you mad said the baron Are you insane Are you possessed What do you mean What in the devils name do you both mean
Yoicks hark away and tally ho
roared the friar
The barons pentup wrath had accumulated like the waters above the dam of an overshot mill The pondhead of his passion being now filled to the utmost limit of its capacity and beginning to overflow in the quivering of his lips and the flashing of his eyes he pulled up all the flashboards at once and gave loose to the full torrent of his indignation by seizing like furious Ajax not a messy stone more than two modern men could raise but a vast dish of beef more than fifty ancient yeomen could eat and whirled it like a coit in terrorem over the head of the friar to the extremity of the apartment
Where it on oaken floor did settle
With mighty din of ponderous metal
Nay father said Matilda taking the barons hand do not harm the friar he means not to offend you My gaiety never before displeased you Least of all should it do so now when I have need of all my spirits to outweigh the severity of my fortune
As she spoke the last words tears started into her eyes which as if ashamed of the involuntary betraying of her feelings she turned away to conceal The baron was subdued at once He kissed his daughter held out his hand to the friar and said Sing on in Gods name and crack away the flasks till your voice swims in canary Then turning to Sir Ralph he said You see how it is sir knight Matilda is my daughter but she has me in leadingstrings that is the truth of it
CHAPTER V
T is true no lover has that power
To enforce a desperate amour
As he that has two strings to his bow
And burns for love and money too—BUTLER
The friar had often had experience of the barons testy humour but it had always before confined itself to words in which the habit of testiness often mingled more expression of displeasure than the internal feeling prompted He knew the baron to be hot and choleric but at the same time hospitable and generous passionately fond of his daughter often thwarting her in seeming but always yielding to her in fact The early attachment between Matilda and the Earl of Huntingdon had given the baron no serious reason to interfere with her habits and pursuits which were so congenial to those of her lover and not being overburdened with orthodoxy that is to say not being seasoned with more of the salt of the spirit than was necessary to preserve him from excommunication confiscation and philotheoparoptesism 1 he was not sorry to encourage his daughters choice of her confessor in brother Michael who had more jollity and less hypocrisy than any of his fraternity and was very little anxious to disguise his love of the good things of this world under the semblance of a sanctified exterior The friar and Matilda had often sung duets together and had been accustomed to the barons chiming in with a stormy capriccio which was usually charmed into silence by some sudden turn in the witching melodies of Matilda They had therefore naturally calculated as far as their wild spirits calculated at all on the same effects from the same causes But the circumstances of the preceding day had made an essential alteration in the case The baron knew well from the intelligence he had received that the earls offence was past remission which would have been of less moment but for the awful fact of his castle being in the possession of the kings forces and in those days possession was considerably more than eleven points of the law The baron was therefore convinced that the earls outlawry was infallible and that Matilda must either renounce her lover or become with him an outlaw and a fugitive In proportion therefore to the barons knowledge of the strength and duration of her attachment was his fear of the difficulty of its ever being overcome her love of the forest and the chase which he had never before discouraged now presented itself to him as matter of serious alarm and if her cheerfulness gave him hope on the one hand by indicating a spirit superior to all disappointments it was suspicious to him on the other as arising from some latent certainty of being soon united to the earl All these circumstances concurred to render their songs of the vanished deer and greenwood archery and Yoicks and Harkaway extremely malapropos and to make his anger boil and bubble in the cauldron of his spirit till its more than ordinary excitement burst forth with sudden impulse into active manifestation
But as it sometimes happens from the might
Of rage in minds that can no farther go
As high as they have mounted in despite
In their remission do they sink as low
To our bold baron did it happen so 2
For his discobolic exploit proved the climax of his rage and was succeeded by an immediate sense that he had passed the bounds of legitimate passion and he sunk immediately from the very pinnacle of opposition to the level of implicit acquiescence The friars spirits were not to be marred by such a little incident He was halfinclined at first to return the barons compliment but his love of Matilda checked him and when the baron held out his hand the friar seized it cordially and they drowned all recollection of the affair by pledging each other in a cup of canary
The friar having stayed long enough to see every thing replaced on a friendly footing rose and moved to take his leave Matilda told him he must come again on the morrow for she had a very long confession to make to him This the friar promised to do and departed with the knight
Sir Ralph on reaching the abbey drew his followers together and led them to Locksley Castle which he found in the possession of his lieutenant whom he again left there with a sufficient force to hold it in safe keeping in the kings name and proceeded to London to report the results of his enterprise
Now Henry our royal king was very wroth at the earls evasion and swore by Saint ThomasaBecket whom he had himself translated into a saint by having him knocked on the head that he would give the castle and lands of Locksley to the man who should bring in the earl Hereupon ensued a process of thought in the mind of the knight The eyes of the fair huntress of Arlingford had left a wound in his heart which only she who gave could heal He had seen that the baron was no longer very partial to the outlawed earl but that he still retained his old affection for the lands and castle of Locksley Now the lands and castle were very fair things in themselves and would be pretty appurtenances to an adventurous knight but they would be doubly valuable as certain passports to the fathers favour which was one step towards that of the daughter or at least towards obtaining possession of her either quietly or perforce for the knight was not so nice in his love as to consider the ladys free grace a sine qua non and to think of being by any means whatever the lord of Locksley and Arlingford and the husband of the bewitching Matilda was to cut in the shades of futurity a vista very tempting to a soldier of fortune He set out in high spirits with a chosen band of followers and beat up all the country far and wide around both the Ouse and the Trent but fortune did not seem disposed to second his diligence for no vestige whatever could he trace of the earl His followers who were only paid with the wages of hope began to murmur and fall off for as those unenlightened days were ignorant of the happy invention of paper machinery by which one promise to pay is satisfactorily paid with another promise to pay and that again with another in infinite series they would not as their wiser posterity has done take those tenders for true pay which were not sterling so that one fine morning the knight found himself sitting on a pleasant bank of the Trent with only a solitary squire who still clung to the shadow of preferment because he did not see at the moment any better chance of the substance
The knight did not despair because of the desertion of his followers he was well aware that he could easily raise recruits if he could once find trace of his game he therefore rode about indefatigably over hill and dale to the great sharpening of his own appetite and that of his squire living gallantly from inn to inn when his purse was full and quartering himself in the kings name on the nearest ghostly brotherhood when it happened to be empty An autumn and a winter had passed away when the course of his perlustations brought him one evening into a beautiful sylvan valley where he found a number of young women weaving garlands of flowers and singing over their pleasant occupation He approached them and courteously inquired the way to the nearest town
There is no town within several miles was the answer
A village then if it be but large enough to furnish an inn
There is Gamwell just by but there is no inn nearer than the nearest town
An abbey then
There is no abbey nearer than the nearest inn
A house then or a cottage where I may obtain hospitality for the night
Hospitality said one of the young women you have not far to seek for that Do you not know that you are in the neighbourhood of GamwellHall
So far from it said the knight that I never heard the name of GamwellHall before
Never heard of GamwellHall exclaimed all the young women together who could as soon have dreamed of his never having heard of the sky
Indeed no said Sir Ralph but I shall be very happy to get rid of my ignorance
And so shall I said his squire for it seems that in this case knowledge will for once be a cure for hunger wherewith I am grievously afflicted
And why are you so busy my pretty damsels weaving these garlands said the knight
Why do you not know sir said one of the young women that tomorrow is Gamwell feast
The knight was again obliged with all humility to confess his ignorance
Oh sir said his informant then you will have something to see that I can tell you for we shall choose a Queen of the May and we shall crown her with flowers and place her in a chariot of flowers and draw it with lines of flowers and we shall hang all the trees with flowers and we shall strew all the ground with flowers and we shall dance with flowers and in flowers and on flowers and we shall be all flowers
That you will said the knight and the sweetest and brightest of all the flowers of the May my pretty damsels On which all the pretty damsels smiled at him and each other
And there will be all sorts of Maygames and there will be prizes for archery and there will be the knights ale and the foresters venison and there will be Kit Scrapesqueak with his fiddle and little Tom Whistlerap with his fife and tabor and Sam Trumtwang with his harp and Peter Muggledrone with his bagpipe and how I shall dance with Will Whitethorn added the girl clapping her hands as she spoke and bounding from the ground with the pleasure of the anticipation
A tall athletic young man approached to whom the rustic maidens courtesied with great respect and one of them informed Sir Ralph that it was young Master William Gamwell The young gentleman invited and conducted the knight to the hall where he introduced him to the old knight his father and to the old lady his mother and to the young lady his sister and to a number of bold yeomen who were laying siege to beef brawn and plum pie around a ponderous table and taking copious draughts of old October A motto was inscribed over the interior door—
EAT DRINK AND BE MERRY
an injunction which Sir Ralph and his squire showed remarkable alacrity in obeying Old Sir Guy of Gamwell gave Sir Ralph a very cordial welcome and entertained him during supper with several of his best stories enforced with an occasional slap on the back and pointed with a peg in the ribs a species of vivacious eloquence in which the old gentleman excelled and which is supposed by many of that pleasant variety of the human spectes known by the name of choice fellows and comical dogs to be the genuine tangible shape of the cream of a good joke
CHAPTER VI
What shall we have incision shall we embrew
—Henry IV
Old Sir Guy of Gamwell and young William Gamwell and fair Alice Gamwell and Sir Ralph Montfaucon and his squire rode together the next morning to the scene of the feast They arrived on a village green surrounded with cottages peeping from among the trees by which the green was completely encircled The whole circle was hung round with one continuous garland of flowers depending in irregular festoons from the branches In the centre of the green was a Maypole hidden in boughs and garlands and a multitude of roundfaced bumpkins and cherrychecked lasses were dancing around it to the quadruple melody of Scrapesqueak Whistlerap Trumtwang and Muggledrone harmony we must not call it for though they had agreed to a partnership in point of tune each like a true painstaking man seemed determined to have his time to himself Muggledrone played allegretto Trumtwang allegro Whistlerap presto and Scrapesqueak prestissimo There was a kind of mathematical proportion in their discrepancy while Muggledrone played the tune four times Trumtwang played it five Whistlerap six and Scrapesqueak eight for the latter completely distanced all his competitors and indeed worked his elbow so nimbly that its outline was scarcely distinguishable through the mistiness of its rapid vibration
While the knight was delighting his eyes and ears with these pleasant sights and sounds all eyes were turned in one direction and Sir Ralph looking round saw a fair lady in green and gold come riding through the trees accompanied by a portly friar in grey and several fair damsels and gallant grooms On their nearer approach he recognised the lady Matilda and her ghostly adviser brother Michael A party of foresters arrived from another direction and then ensued cordial interchanges of greeting and collisions of hands and lips among the Gamwells and the newcomers—How does my fair coz Mawd and How does my sweet coz Mawd and How does my wild coz Mawd And Eh jolly friar your hand old boy and Here honest friar and To me merry friar and By your favour mistress Alice and Hey cousin Robin and Hey cousin Will and Ods life merry Sir Guy you grow younger every year—as the old knight shook them all in turn with one hand and slapped them on the back with the other in token of his affection A number of young men and women advanced some drawing and others dancing round a floral car and having placed a crown of flowers on Matildas head they saluted her Queen of the May and drew her to the place appointed for the rural sports
A hogshead of ale was abroach under an oak and a fire was blazing in an open space before the trees to roast the fat deer which the foresters brought The sports commenced and after an agreeable series of bowling coiling pitching hurling racing leaping grinning wrestling or friendly dislocation of joints and cudgelplaying or amicable cracking of skulls the trial of archery ensued The conqueror was to be rewarded with a golden arrow from the hand of the Queen of the May who was to be his partner in the dance till the close of the feast This stimulated the knights emulation young Gamwell supplied him with a bow and arrow and he took his station among the foresters but had the mortification to be outshot by them all and to see one of them lodge the point of his arrow in the golden ring of the centre and receive the prize from the hand of the beautiful Matilda who smiled on him with particular grace The jealous knight scrutinised the successful champion with great attention and surely thought he had seen that face before In the mean time the forester led the lady to the station The luckless Sir Ralph drank deep draughts of love from the matchless grace of her attitudes as taking the bow in her left hand and adjusting the arrow with her right advancing her left foot and gently curving her beautiful figure with a slight motion of her head that waved her black feathers and her ringleted hair she drew the arrow to its head and loosed it from her open fingers The arrow struck within the ring of gold so close to that of the victorious forester that the points were in contact and the feathers were intermingled Great acclamations succeeded and the forester led Matilda to the dance Sir Ralph gazed on her fascinating motions till the torments of baffled love and jealous rage became unendurable and approaching young Gamwell he asked him if he knew the name of that forester who was leading the dance with the Queen of the May
Robin I believe said young Gamwell carelessly I think they call him Robin
Is that all you know of him said Sir Ralph
What more should I know of him said young Gamwell
Then I can tell you said Sir Ralph he is the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon on whose head is set so large a price
Ay is he said young Gamwell in the same careless manner
He were a prize worth the taking said Sir Ralph
No doubt said young Gamwell
How think you said Sir Ralph are the foresters his adherents
I cannot say said young Gamwell
Is your peasantry loyal and welldisposed said Sir Ralph
Passing loyal said young Gamwell
If I should call on them in the kings name said Sir Ralph think you they would aid and assist
Most likely they would said young Gamwell one side or the other
Ay but which side said the knight
That remains to be tried said young Gamwell
I have King Henrys commission said the knight to apprehend this earl that was How would you advise me to act being as you see without attendant force
I would advise you said young Gamwell to take yourself off without delay unless you would relish the taste of a volley of arrows a shower of stones and a hailstorm of cudgelblows which would not be turned aside by a God save King Henry
Sir Ralphs squire no sooner heard this and saw by the looks of the speaker that he was not likely to prove a false prophet than he clapped spurs to his horse and galloped off with might and main This gave the knight a good excuse to pursue him which he did with great celerity calling Stop you rascal When the squire fancied himself safe out of the reach of pursuit he checked his speed and allowed the knight to come up with him They rode on several miles in silence till they discovered the towers and spires of Nottingham where the knight introduced himself to the sheriff and demanded an armed force to assist in the apprehension of the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon The sheriff who was willing to have his share of the prize determined to accompany the knight in person and regaled him and his man with good store of the best after which they with a stout retinue of fifty men took the way to Gamwell feast
Gods my life said the sheriff as they rode along I had as lief you would tell me of a service of plate I much doubt if this outlawed earl this forester Robin be not the man they call Robin Hood who has quartered himself in Sherwood Forest and whom in endeavouring to apprehend I have fallen divers times into disasters He has gotten together a band of disinherited prodigals outlawed debtors excommunicated heretics elder sons that have spent all they had and younger sons that never had any thing to spend and with these he kills the kings deer and plunders wealthy travellers of fivesixths of their money but if they be abbots or bishops them he despoils utterly
The sheriff then proceeded to relate to his companion the adventure of the abbot of Doubleflask which some grave historians have related of the abbot of Saint Marys and others of the bishop of Hereford how the abbot returning to his abbey in company with his high selerer who carried in his portmanteau the rents of the abbeylands and with a numerous train of attendants came upon four seeming peasants who were roasting the kings venison by the kings highway how in just indignation at this flagrant infringement of the forest laws he asked them what they meant and they answered that they meant to dine how he ordered them to be seized and bound and led captive to Nottingham that they might know wildflesh to have been destined by Providence for licensed and privileged appetites and not for the base hunger of unqualified knaves how they prayed for mercy and how the abbot swore by Saint Charity that he would show them none how one of them thereupon drew a bugle horn from under his smockfrock and blew three blasts on which the abbot and his train were instantly surrounded by sixty bowmen in green how they tied him to a tree and made him say mass for their sins how they unbound him and sate him down with them to dinner and gave him venison and wildfowl and wine and made him pay for his fare all the money in his high selerers portmanteau and enforced him to sleep all night under a tree in his cloak and to leave the cloak behind him in the morning how the abbot light in pocket and heavy in heart raised the country upon Robin Hood for so he had heard the chief forester called by his men and hunted him into an old womans cottage how Robin changed dresses with the old woman and how the abbot rode in great triumph to Nottingham having in custody an old woman in a green doublet and breeches how the old woman discovered herself how the merrymen of Nottingham laughed at the abbot how the abbot railed at the old woman and how the old woman outrailed the abbot telling him that Robin had given her food and fire through the winter which no abbot would ever do but would rather take it from her for what he called the good of the church by which he meant his own laziness and gluttony and that she knew a true man from a false thief and a free forester from a greedy abbot
Thus you see added the sheriff how this villain perverts the deluded people by making them believe that those who tithe and toll upon them for their spiritual and temporal benefit are not their best friends and fatherly guardians for he holds that in giving to boors and old women what he takes from priests and peers he does but restore to the former what the latter had taken from them and this the impudent varlet calls distributive justice Judge now if any loyal subject can be safe in such neighbourhood
While the sheriff was thus enlightening his companion concerning the offenders and whetting his own indignation against them the sun was fast sinking to the west They rode on till they came in view of a bridge which they saw a party approaching from the opposite side and the knight presently discovered that the party consisted of the lady Matilda and friar Michael young Gamwell cousin Robin and about halfadozen foresters The knight pointed out the earl to the sheriff who exclaimed Here then we have him an easy prey and they rode on manfully towards the bridge on which the other party made halt
Who be these said the friar that come riding so fast this way Now as God shall judge me it is that false knight Sir Ralph Montfaucon and the sheriff of Nottingham with a posse of men We must make good our post and let them dislodge us if they may
The two parties were now near enough to parley and the sheriff and the knight advancing in the front of the cavalcade called on the lady the friar young Gamwell and the foresters to deliver up that falsetraitor Robert formerly Earl of Huntingdon Robert himself made answer by letting fly an arrow that struck the ground between the fore feet of the sheriffs horse The horse reared up from the whizzing and lodged the sheriff in the dust and at the same time the fair Matilda favoured the knight with an arrow in his right arm that compelled him to withdraw from the affray His men lifted the sheriff carefully up and replaced him on his horse whom he immediately with great rage and zeal urged on to the assault with his fifty men at his heels some of whom were intercepted in their advance by the arrows of the foresters and Matilda while the friar with an eightfoot staff dislodged the sheriff a second time and laid on him with all the vigour of the church militant on earth in spite of his ejaculations of Hey friar Michael What means this honest friar Hold ghostly friar Hold holy friar—till Matilda interposed and delivered the battered sheriff to the care of the foresters The friar continued flourishing his staff among the sheriffs men knocking down one breaking the ribs of another dislocating the shoulder of a third flattening the nose of a fourth cracking the skull of a fifth and pitching a sixth into the river till the few who were lucky enough to escape with whole bones clapped spurs to their horses and fled for their lives under a farewell volley of arrows
Sir Ralphs squire meanwhile was glad of the excuse of attending his masters wound to absent himself from the battle and put the poor knight to a great deal of unnecessary pain by making as long a business as possible of extracting the arrow which he had not accomplished when Matilda approaching extracted it with great facility and bound up the wound with her scarf saying I reclaim my arrow sir knight which struck where I aimed it to admonish you to desist from your enterprise I could as easily have lodged it in your heart
It did not need said the knight with rueful gallantry you have lodged one there already
If you mean to say that you love me said Matilda it is more than I ever shall you but if you will show your love by no further interfering with mine you will at least merit my gratitude
The knight made a wry face under the double pain of heart and body caused at the same moment by the material or martial and the metaphorical or erotic arrow of which the latter was thus barbed by a declaration more candid than flattering but he did not choose to put in any such claim to the ladys gratitude as would bar all hopes of her love he therefore remained silent and the lady and her escort leaving him and the sheriff to the care of the squire rode on till they came in sight of Arlingford Castle when they parted in several directions The friar rode off alone and after the foresters had lost sight of him they heard his voice through the twilight singing—
A staff a staff of a young oak graff
That is both stoure and stiff
Is all a good friar can needs desire
To shrive a proud sheriffe
And thou fine fellowe who hast tasted so
Of the foresters greenwood game
Wilt be in no haste thy time to waste
In seeking more taste of the same
Or this can I read thee and riddle thee well
Thou hadst better by far be the devil in hell
Than the sheriff of Nottinghame
CHAPTER VII
Now master sheriff whats your will with me
—Henry IV
Matilda had carried her point with the baron of ranging at liberty whithersoever she would under her positive promise to return home she was a sort of prisoner on parole she had obtained this indulgence by means of an obsolete habit of always telling the truth and keeping her word which our enlightened age has discarded with other barbarisms but which had the effect of giving her father so much confidence in her that he could not help considering her word a better security than locks and bars
The baron had been one of the last to hear of the rumours of the new outlaws of Sherwood as Matilda had taken all possible precautions to keep those rumours from his knowledge fearing that they might cause the interruption of her greenwood liberty and it was only during her absence at Gamwell feast that the butler being thrown off his guard by liquor forgot her injunctions and regaled the baron with a long story of the right merry adventure of Robin Hood and the abbot of Doubleflask
The baron was one morning as usual cutting his way valorously through a rampart of cold provision when his ears were suddenly assailed by a tremendous alarum and sallying forth and looking from his castle wall he perceived a large party of armed men on the other side of the moat who were calling on the warder in the kings name to lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis which had both been secured by Matildas order The baron walked along the battlement till he came opposite to these unexpected visitors who as soon as they saw him called out Lower the drawbridge in the kings name
For what in the devils name said the baron
The sheriff of Nottingham said one lies in bed grievously bruised and many of his men are wounded and several of them slain and Sir Ralph Montfaucon knight is sore wounded in the arm and we are charged to apprehend William Gamwell the younger of Gamwell Hall and father Michael of Rubygill Abbey and Matilda Fitzwater of Arlingford Castle as agents and accomplices in the said breach of the kings peace
Breach of the kings fiddlestick answered the baron What do you mean by coming here with your cock and bull stories of my daughter grievously bruising the sheriff of Nottingham You are a set of vagabond rascals in disguise and I hear by the bye there is a gang of thieves that has just set up business in Sherwood Forest a pretty presence indeed to get into my castle with force and arms and make a famine in my buttery and a drought in my cellar and a void in my strong box and a vacuum in my silver scullery
Lord Fitzwater cried one take heed how you resist lawful authority we will prove ourselves——
You will prove yourselves arrant knaves I doubt not answered the baron but villains you shall be more grievously bruised by me than ever was the sheriff by my daughter a pretty tale truly if you do not forthwith avoid my territory
By this time the barons men had flocked to the battlements with longbows and crossbows slings and stones and Matilda with her bow and quiver at their head The assailants finding the castle so well defended deemed it expedient to withdraw till they could return in greater force and rode off to Rubygill Abbey where they made known their errand to the father abbot who having satisfied himself of their legitimacy and conned over the allegations said that doubtless brother Michael had heinously offended but it was not for the civil law to take cognizance of the misdoings of a holy friar that he would summon a chapter of monks and pass on the offender a sentence proportionate to his offence The ministers of civil justice said that would not do The abbot said it would do and should and bade them not provoke the meekness of his catholic charity to lay them under the curse of Rome This threat had its effect and the party rode off to GamwellHall where they found the Gamwells and their men just sitting down to dinner which they saved them the trouble of eating by consuming it in the kings name themselves having first seized and bound young Gamwell all which they accomplished by dint of superior numbers in despite of a most vigorous stand made by the Gamwellites in defence of their young master and their provisions
The baron meanwhile after the ministers of justice had departed interrogated Matilda concerning the alleged fact of the grievous bruising of the sheriff of Nottingham Matilda told him the whole history of Gamwell feast and of their battle on the bridge which had its origin in a design of the sheriff of Nottingham to take one of the foresters into custody
Ay ay said the baron and I guess who that forester was but truly this friar is a desperate fellow I did not think there could have been so much valour under a grey frock And so you wounded the knight in the arm You are a wild girl Mawd—a chip of the old block Mawd A wild girl and a wild friar and three or four foresters wild lads all to keep a bridge against a tame knight and a tame sheriff and fifty tame varlets by this light the like was never heard But do you know Mawd you must not go about so any more sweet Mawd you must stay at home you must ensconce for there is your tame sheriff on the one hand that will take you perforce and there is your wild forester on the other hand that will take you without any force at all Mawd your wild forester Robin cousin Robin Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest that beats and binds bishops spreads nets for archbishops and hunts a fat abbot as if he were a buck excellent game no doubt but you must hunt no more in such company I see it now truly I might have guessed before that the bold outlaw Robin the most courteous Robin the new thief of Sherwood Forest was your lover the earl that has been I might have guessed it before and what led you so much to the woods but you hunt no more in such company No more May games and Gamwell feasts My lands and castle would be the forfeit of a few more such pranks and I think they are as well in my hands as the kings quite as well
You know father said Matilda the condition of keeping me at home I get out if I can and not on parole
Ay ay said the baron if you can very true watch and ward Mawd watch and ward is my word if you can is yours The mark is set and so start fair
The baron would have gone on in this way for an hour but the friar made his appearance with a long oak staff in his hand singing—
Drink and sing and eat and laugh
And so go forth to battle
For the top of a skull and the end of a staff
Do make a ghostly rattle
Ho ho friar said the baron—singing friar laughing friar roaring friar fighting friar hacking friar thwacking friar cracking cracking cracking friar jokecracking bottlecracking skullcracking friar
And ho ho said the friar—bold baron old baron sturdy baron wordy baron long baron strong baron mighty baron flighty baron mazed baron crazed baron hacked baron thwacked baron cracked cracked cracked baron bonecracked sconcecracked braincracked baron
What do you mean said the baron bully friar by calling me hacked and thwacked
Were you not in the wars said the friar where he who escapes untracked does more credit to his heels than his arms I pay tribute to your valour in calling you hacked and thwacked
I never was thwacked in my life said the baron I stood my ground manfully and covered my body with my sword If I had had the luck to meet with a fighting friar indeed I might have been thwacked and soundly too but I hold myself a match for any two laymen it takes nine fighting laymen to make a fighting friar
Whence come you now holy father asked Matilda
From Rubygill Abbey said the friar whither I never return
For I must seek some hermit cell
Where I alone my beads may tell
And on the wight who that way fares
Levy a toll for my ghostly prayrs
Levy a toll levy a toll
Levy a toll for my ghostly prayrs
What is the matter then father said Matilda
This is the matter said the friar my holy brethren have held a chapter on me and sentenced me to seven years privation of wine I therefore deemed it fitting to take my departure which they would fain have prohibited I was enforced to clear the way with my staff I have grievously beaten my dearly beloved brethren I grieve thereat but they enforced me thereto I have beaten them much I mowed them down to the right and to the left and left them like an illreaped field of wheat ear and straw pointing all ways scattered in singleness and jumbled in masses and so bade them farewell saying Peace be with you But I must not tarry lest danger be in my rear therefore farewell sweet Matilda and farewell noble baron and farewell sweet Matilda again the alpha and omega of father Michael the first and the last
Farewell father said the baron a little softened and God send you be never assailed by more than fifty men at a time
Amen said the friar to that good wish
And we shall meet again father I trust said Matilda
When the storm is blown over said the baron
Doubt it not said the friar though flooded Trent were between us and fifty devils guarded the bridge
He kissed Matildas forehead and walked away without a song
CHAPTER VIII
Let gallows gape for dog let man go free
—Henry V
A page had been brought up in GamwellHall who while he was little had been called Little John and continued to be so called after he had grown to be a foot taller than any other man in the house He was full seven feet high His latitude was worthy of his longitude and his strength was worthy of both and though an honest man by profession he had practiced archery on the kings deer for the benefit of his masters household and for the improvement of his own eye and hand till his aim had become infallible within the range of two miles He had fought manfully in defence of his young master took his captivity exceedingly to heart and fell into bitter grief and boundless rage when he heard that he had been tried in Nottingham and sentenced to die Alice Gamwell at Little Johns request wrote three letters of one tenour and Little John having attached them to three blunt arrows saddled the fleetest steed in old Sir Guy of Gamwells stables mounted and rode first to Arlingford Castle where he shot one of the three arrows over the battlements then to Rubygill Abbey where he shot the second into the abbeygarden then back past GamwellHall to the borders of Sherwood Forest where he shot the third into the wood Now the first of these arrows lighted in the nape of the neck of Lord Fitzwater and lodged itself firmly between his skin and his collar the second rebounded with the hollow vibration of a drumstick from the shaven sconce of the abbot of Rubygill and the third pitched perpendicularly into the centre of a venison pasty in which Robin Hood was making incision
Matilda ran up to her father in the court of Arlingford Castle seized the arrow drew off the letter and concealed it in her bosom before the baron had time to look round which he did with many expressions of rage against the impudent villain who had shot a blunt arrow into the nape of his neck
But you know father said Matilda a sharp arrow in the same place would have killed you therefore the sending a blunt one was very considerate
Considerate with a vengeance said the baron Where was the consideration of sending it at all This is some of your foresters pranks He has missed you in the forest since I have kept watch and ward over you and by way of a lovetoken and a remembrance to you takes a random shot at me
The abbot of Rubygill picked up the missilemissive or messenger arrow which had rebounded from his shaven crown with a very unghostly malediction on the sender which he suddenly checked with a pious and consolatory reflection on the goodness of Providence in having blessed him with such a thickness of skull to which he was now indebted for temporal preservation as he had before been for spiritual promotion He opened the letter which was addressed to father Michael and found it to contain an intimation that William Gamwell was to be hanged on Monday at Nottingham
And I wish said the abbot father Michael were to be hanged with him an ungrateful monster after I had rescued him from the fangs of civil justice to reward my lenity by not leaving a bone unbruised among the holy brotherhood of Rubygill
Robin Hood extracted from his venison pasty a similar intimation of the evil destiny of his cousin whom he determined if possible to rescue from the jaws of Cerberus
The sheriff of Nottingham though still sore with his bruises was so intent on revenge that he raised himself from his bed to attend the execution of William Gamwell He rode to the august structure of retributive Themis as the French call a gallows in all the pride and pomp of shrievalty and with a splendid retinue of wellequipped knaves and varlets as our ancestors called honest servingmen
Young Gamwell was brought forth with his arms pinioned behind him his sister Alice and his father Sir Guy attending him in disconsolate mood He had rejected the confessor provided by the sheriff and had insisted on the privilege of choosing his own whom Little John had promised to bring Little John however had not made his appearance when the fatal procession began its march but when they reached the place of execution Little John appeared accompanied by a ghostly friar
Sheriff said young Gamwell let me not die with my hands pinioned give me a sword and set any odds of your men against me and let me die the death of a man like the descendant of a noble house which has never yet been stained with ignominy
No no said the sheriff I have had enough of setting odds against you I have sworn you shall be hanged and hanged you shall be
Then God have mercy on me said young Gamwell and now holy friar shrive my sinful soul
The friar approached
Let me see this friar said the sheriff if he be the friar of the bridge I had as lief have the devil in Nottingham but he shall find me too much for him here
The friar of the bridge said Little John as you very well know sheriff was father Michael of Rubygill Abbey and you may easily see that this is not the man
I see it said the sheriff and God be thanked for his absence
Young Gamwell stood at the foot of the ladder The friar approached him opened his book groaned turned up the whites of his eyes tossed up his arms in the air and said Dominus vobiscum He then crossed both his hands on his breast under the folds of his holy robes and stood a few moments as if in inward prayer A deep silence among the attendant crowd accompanied this action of the friar interrupted only by the hollow tone of the deathbell at long and dreary intervals Suddenly the friar threw off his holy robes and appeared a forester clothed in green with a sword in his right hand and a horn in his left With the sword he cut the bonds of William Gamwell who instantly snatched a sword from one of the sheriffs men and with the horn he blew a loud blast which was answered at once by four bugles from the quarters of the four winds and from each quarter came fiveandtwenty bowmen running all on a row
Treason treason cried the sheriff Old Sir Guy sprang to his sons side and so did Little John and the four setting back to back kept the sheriff and his men at bay till the bowmen came within shot and let fly their arrows among the sheriffs men who after a brief resistance fled in all directions The forester who had personated the friar sent an arrow after the flying sheriff calling with a strong voice To the sheriffs left arm as a keepsake from Robin Hood The arrow reached its destiny the sheriff redoubled his speed and with the one arrow in his arm did not stop to breathe till he was out of reach of another
The foresters did not waste time in Nottingham but were soon at a distance from its walls Sir Guy returned with Alice to GamwellHall but thinking he should not be safe there from the share he had had in his sons rescue they only remained long enough to supply themselves with clothes and money and departed under the escort of Little John to another seat of the Gamwells in Yorkshire Young Gamwell taking it for granted that his offence was past remission determined on joining Robin Hood and accompanied him to the forest where it was deemed expedient that he should change his name and he was rechristened without a priest and with wine instead of water by the immortal name of Scarlet
CHAPTER IX
Who set my man i the stocks——
I set him there Sir but his own disorders
Deserved much less advancement—Lear
The baron was inflexible in his resolution not to let Matilda leave the castle The letter which announced to her the approaching fate of young Gamwell filled her with grief and increased the irksomeness of a privation which already preyed sufficiently on her spirits and began to undermine her health She had no longer the consolation of the society of her old friend father Michael the little fat friar of Rubygill was substituted as the castle confessor not without some misgivings in his ghostly bosom but he was more allured by the sweet savour of the good things of this world at Arlingford Castle than deterred by his awe of the lady Matilda which nevertheless was so excessive from his recollection of the twang of the bowstring that he never ventured to find her in the wrong much less to enjoin any thing in the shape of penance as was the occasional practice of holy confessors with or without cause for the sake of pious discipline and what was in those days called social order namely the preservation of the privileges of the few who happened to have any at the expense of the swinish multitude who happened to have none except that of working and being shot at for the benefit of their betters which is obviously not the meaning of social order in our more enlightened times let us therefore be grateful to Providence and sing Te Deum laudamus in chorus with the Holy Alliance
The little friar however though he found the lady spotless found the butler a great sinner at least so it was conjectured from the length of time he always took to confess him in the buttery
Matilda became every day more pale and dejected her spirit which could have contended against any strenuous affliction pined in the monotonous inaction to which she was condemned While she could freely range the forest with her lover in the morning she had been content to return to her fathers castle in the evening thus preserving underanged the balance of her duties habits and affections not without a hope that the repeal of her lovers outlawry might be eventually obtained by a judicious distribution of some of his forest spoils among the holy fathers and saints thatweretobe—pious proficients in the ecclesiastic art equestrian who rode the conscience of King Henry with doublecurb bridles and kept it well in hand when it showed mettle and seemed inclined to rear and plunge But the affair at Gamwell feast threw many additional difficulties in the way of the accomplishment of this hope and very shortly afterwards King Henry the Second went to make up in the next world his quarrel with ThomasaBecket and Richard Coeur de Lion made all England resound with preparations for the crusade to the great delight of many zealous adventurers who eagerly flocked under his banner in the hope of enriching themselves with Saracen spoil which they called fighting the battles of God Richard who was not remarkably scrupulous in his financial operations was not likely to overlook the lands and castle of Locksley which he appropriated immediately to his own purposes and sold to the highest bidder Now as the repeal of the outlawry would involve the restitution of the estates to the rightful owner it was obvious that it could never be expected from that most legitimate and most Christian king Richard the First of England the archcrusader and antijacobin by excellence—the very type flower cream pink symbol and mirror of all the Holy Alliances that have ever existed on earth excepting that he seasoned his superstition and love of conquest with a certain condiment of romantic generosity and chivalrous selfdevotion with which his imitators in all other points have found it convenient to dispense To give freely to one man what he had taken forcibly from another was generosity of which he was very capable but to restore what he had taken to the man from whom he had taken it was something that wore too much of the cool physiognomy of justice to be easily reconcileable to his kingly feelings He had besides not only sent all King Henrys saints about their business or rather about their nobusiness—their faineantise—but he had laid them under rigorous contribution for the purposes of his holy war and having made them refund to the piety of the successor what they had extracted from the piety of the precursor he compelled them in addition to give him their blessing for nothing Matilda therefore from all these circumstances felt little hope that her lover would be any thing but an outlaw for life
The departure of King Richard from England was succeeded by the episcopal regency of the bishops of Ely and Durham Longchamp bishop of Ely proceeded to show his sense of Christian fellowship by arresting his brother bishop and despoiling him of his share in the government and to set forth his humility and lovingkindness in a retinue of nobles and knights who consumed in one nights entertainment some five years revenue of their entertainer and in a guard of fifteen hundred foreign soldiers whom he considered indispensable to the exercise of a vigour beyond the law in maintaining wholesome discipline over the refractory English The ignorant impatience of the swinish multitude with these fruits of good living brought forth by one of the meek who had inherited the earth displayed itself in a general ferment of which Prince John took advantage to make the experiment of getting possession of his brothers crown in his absence He began by calling at Reading a council of barons whose aspect induced the holy bishop to disguise himself some say as an old woman which in the twelfth century perhaps might have been a disguise for a bishop and make his escape beyond sea Prince John followed up his advantage by obtaining possession of several strong posts and among others of the castle of Nottingham
While John was conducting his operations at Nottingham he rode at times past the castle of Arlingford He stopped on one occasion to claim Lord Fitzwaters hospitality and made most princely havoc among his venison and brawn Now it is a matter of record among divers great historians and learned clerks that he was then and there grievously smitten by the charms of the lovely Matilda and that a few days after he despatched his travelling minstrel or laureate Harpiton 3 whom he retained at moderate wages to keep a journal of his proceedings and prove them all just and legitimate to the castle of Arlingford to make proposals to the lady This Harpiton was a very useful person He was always ready not only to maintain the cause of his master with his pen and to sing his eulogies to his harp but to undertake at a moments notice any kind of courtly employment called dirty work by the profane which the blessings of civil government namely his masters pleasure and the interests of social order namely his own emolument might require In short
Il eut lemploi qui certes nest pas mince
Et qua la cour ou tout se peint en beau
On appelloit etre lami du prince
Mais qua la ville et surtout en province
Les gens grossiers ont nomme maquereau
Prince John was of opinion that the love of a prince actual and king expectant was in itself a sufficient honour to the daughter of a simple baron and that the right divine or royalty would make it sufficiently holy without the rite divine of the church He was therefore graciously pleased to fall into an exceeding passion when his confidential messenger returned from his embassy in piteous plight having been by the barons order first tossed in a blanket and set in the stocks to cool and afterwards ducked in the moat and set again in the stocks to dry John swore to revenge horribly this flagrant outrage on royal prerogative and to obtain possession of the lady by force of arms and accordingly collected a body of troops and marched upon Arlingford castle A letter conveyed as before on the point of a blunt arrow announced his approach to Matilda and lord Fitzwater had just time to assemble his retainers collect a hasty supply of provision raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis when the castle was surrounded by the enemy The little fat friar who during the confusion was asleep in the buttery found himself on awaking inclosed in the besieged castle and dolefully bewailed his evil chance
CHAPTER X
A noble girl i faith Heart I think I fight with a
familiar or the ghost of a fencer Call you this an
amorous visage Heres blood that would have served me these
seven years in broken heads and cut fingers and now it
runs out all together—MIDDLETON Roaring Girl
Prince John sat down impatiently before Arlingford castle in the hope of starving out the besieged but finding the duration of their supplies extend itself in an equal ratio with the prolongation of his hope he made vigorous preparations for carrying the place by storm He constructed an immense machine on wheels which being advanced to the edge of the moat would lower a temporary bridge of which one end would rest on the bank and the other on the battlements and which being well furnished with stepping boards would enable his men to ascend the inclined plane with speed and facility Matilda received intimation of this design by the usual friendly channel of a blunt arrow which must either have been sent from some secret friend in the princes camp or from some vigorous archer beyond it the latter will not appear improbable when we consider that Robin Hood and Little John could shoot two English miles and an inch pointblank
Come scrive Turpino che non erra
The machine was completed and the ensuing morning fixed for the assault Six men relieved at intervals kept watch over it during the night Prince John retired to sleep congratulating himself in the expectation that another day would place the fair culprit at his princely mercy His anticipations mingled with the visions of his slumber and he dreamed of wounds and drums and sacking and firing the castle and bearing off in his arms the beautiful prize through the midst of fire and smoke In the height of this imaginary turmoil he awoke and conceived for a few moments that certain sounds which rang in his ears were the continuation of those of his dream in that sort of halfconsciousness between sleeping and waking when reality and phantasy meet and mingle in dim and confused resemblance He was however very soon fully awake to the fact of his guards calling on him to arm which he did in haste and beheld the machine in flames and a furious conflict raging around it He hurried to the spot and found that his camp had been suddenly assailed from one side by a party of foresters and that the barons people had made a sortie on the other and that they had killed the guards and set fire to the machine before the rest of the camp could come to the assistance of their fellows
The night was in itself intensely dark and the firelight shed around it a vivid and unnatural radiance On one side the crimson light quivered by its own agitation on the waveless moat and on the bastions and buttresses of the castle and their shadows lay in massy blackness on the illuminated walls on the other it shone upon the woods streaming far within among the open trunks or resting on the closer foliage The circumference of darkness bounded the scene on all sides and in the centre raged the war shields helmets and bucklers gleaming and glittering as they rang and clashed against each other plumes confusedly tossing in the crimson light and the messy light and shade that fell on the faces of the combatants giving additional energy to their ferocious expression
John drawing nearer to the scene of action observed two young warriors fighting side by side one of whom wore the habit of a forester the other that of a retainer of Arlingford He looked intently on them both their position towards the fire favoured the scrutiny and the hawks eye of love very speedily discovered that the latter was the fair Matilda The forester he did not know but he had sufficient tact to discern that his success would be very much facilitated by separating her from this companion above all others He therefore formed a party of men into a wedge only taking especial care not to be the point of it himself and drove it between them with so much precision that they were in a moment far asunder
Lady Matilda said John yield yourself my prisoner
If you would wear me prince said Matilda you must win me and without giving him time to deliberate on the courtesy of fighting with the lady of his love she raised her sword in the air and lowered it on his head with an impetus that would have gone nigh to fathom even that extraordinary depth of brain which always by divine grace furnishes the interior of a headroyal if he had not very dexterously parried the blow Prince John wished to disarm and take captive not in any way to wound or injure least of all to kill his fair opponent Matilda was only intent to get rid of her antagonist at any rate the edge of her weapon painted his complexion with streaks of very unloverlike crimson and she would probably have marred Johns hand for ever signing Magna Charta but that he was backed by the advantage of numbers and that her sword broke short on the boss of his buckler John was following up his advantage to make a captive of the lady when he was suddenly felled to the earth by an unseen antagonist Some of his men picked him carefully up and conveyed him to his tent stunned and stupified
When he recovered he found Harpiton diligently assisting in his recovery more in the fear of losing his place than in that of losing his master the princes first inquiry was for the prisoner he had been on the point of taking at the moment when his habeas corpus was so unseasonably suspended He was told that his people had been on the point of securing the said prisoner when the devil suddenly appeared among them in the likeness of a tall friar having his grey frock cinctured with a swordbelt and his crown which whether it were shaven or no they could not see surmounted with a helmet and flourishing an eightfoot staff with which he laid about him to the right and to the left knocking down the prince and his men as if they had been so many ninepins in fine he had rescued the prisoner and made a clear passage through friend and foe and in conjunction with a chosen party of archers had covered the retreat of the barons men and the foresters who had all gone off in a body towards Sherwood forest
Harpiton suggested that it would be desirable to sack the castle and volunteered to lead the van on the occasion as the defenders were withdrawn and the exploit seemed to promise much profit and little danger John considered that the castle would in itself be a great acquisition to him as a stronghold in furtherance of his design on his brothers throne and was determining to take possession with the first light of morning when he had the mortification to see the castle burst into flames in several places at once A piteous cry was heard from within and while the prince was proclaiming a reward to any one who would enter into the burning pile and elucidate the mystery of the doleful voice forth waddled the little fat friar in an agony of fear out of the fire into the fryingpan for he was instantly taken into custody and carried before Prince John wringing his hands and tearing his hair
Are you the friar said Prince John in a terrible voice that laid me prostrate in battle mowed down my men like grass rescued my captive and covered the retreat of my enemies And not content with this have you now set fire to the castle in which I intended to take up my royal quarters
The little friar quaked like a jelly he fell on his knees and attempted to speak but in his eagerness to vindicate himself from this accumulation of alarming charges he knew not where to begin his ideas rolled round upon each other like the radii of a wheel the words he desired to utter instead of issuing as it were in a right line from his lips seemed to conglobate themselves into a sphere turning on its own axis in his throat after several ineffectual efforts his utterance totally failed him and he remained gasping with his mouth open his lips quivering his hands clasped together and the whites of his eyes turned up towards the prince with an expression most ruefully imploring
Are you that friar repeated the prince
Several of the bystanders declared that he was not that friar The little friar encouraged by this patronage found his voice and pleaded for mercy The prince questioned him closely concerning the burning of the castle The little friar declared that he had been in too great fear during the siege to know much of what was going forward except that he had been conscious during the last few days of a lamentable deficiency of provisions and had been present that very morning at the broaching of the last butt of sack Harpiton groaned in sympathy The little friar added that he knew nothing of what had passed since till he heard the flames roaring at his elbow
Take him away Harpiton said the prince fill him with sack and turn him out
Never mind the sack said the little friar turn me out at once
A sad chance said Harpiton to be turned out without sack
But what Harpiton thought a sad chance the little friar thought a merry one and went bounding like a fat buck towards the abbey of Rubygill
An arrow with a letter attached to it was shot into the camp and carried to the prince The contents were these—
Prince John—I do not consider myself to have resisted lawful authority in defending my castle against you seeing that you are at present in a state of active rebellion against your liege sovereign Richard and if my provisions had not failed me I would have maintained it till doomsday As it is I have so well disposed my combustibles that it shall not serve you as a strong hold in your rebellion If you hunt in the chases of Nottinghamshire you may catch other game than my daughter Both she and I are content to be houseless for a time in the reflection that we have deserved your enmity and the friendship of CoeurdeLion
FITZWATER
CHAPTER XI
—Tuck the merry friar who many a sermon made In praise of
Robin Hood his outlaws and their trade—DRAYTON
The baron with some of his retainers and all the foresters halted at daybreak in Sherwood forest The foresters quickly erected tents and prepared an abundant breakfast of venison and ale
Now Lord Fitzwater said the chief forester recognise your soninlaw that was to have been in the outlaw Robin Hood
Ay ay said the baron I have recognised you long ago
And recognise your young friend Gamwell said the second in the outlaw Scarlet
And Little John the page said the third in Little John the outlaw
And Father Michael of Rubygill Abbey said the friar in Friar Tuck of Sherwood forest Truly I have a chapel here hard by in the shape of a hollow tree where I put up my prayers for travellers and Little John holds the plate at the door for good praying deserves good paying
I am in fine company said the baron
In the very best of company said the friar in the high court of Nature and in the midst of her own nobility Is it not so This goodly grove is our palace the oak and the beech are its colonnade and its canopy the sun and the moon and the stars are its everlasting lamps the grass and the daisy and the primrose and the violet are its manycoloured floor of green white yellow and blue the mayflower and the woodbine and the eglantine and the ivy are its decorations its curtains and its tapestry the lark and the thrush and the linnet and the nightingale are its unhired minstrels and musicians Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army to say nothing of the free choice of his people which he has indeed but I pass it by as an illegitimate basis of power He holds his dominion over the forest and its horned multitude of citizendeer and its swinish multitude or peasantry of wild boars by right of conquest and force of arms He levies contributions among them by the free consent of his archers their virtual representatives If they should find a voice to complain that we are tyrants and usurpers to kill and cook them up in their assigned and native dwellingplace we should most convincingly admonish them with point of arrow that they have nothing to do with our laws but to obey them Is it not written that the fat ribs of the herd shall be fed upon by the mighty in the land And have not they withal my blessing my orthodox canonical and archiepiscopal blessing Do I not give thanks for them when they are well roasted and smoking under my nose What title had William of Normandy to England that Robin of Locksley has not to merry Sherwood William fought for his claim So does Robin With whom both With any that would or will dispute it William raised contributions So does Robin From whom both From all that they could or can make pay them Why did any pay them to William Why do any pay them to Robin For the same reason to both because they could not or cannot help it They differ indeed in this that William took from the poor and gave to the rich and Robin takes from the rich and gives to the poor and therein is Robin illegitimate though in all else he is true prince Scarlet and John are they not peers of the forest lords temporal of Sherwood And am not I lord spiritual Am I not archbishop Am I not pope Do I not consecrate their banner and absolve their sins Are not they state and am not I church Are not they state monarchical and am not I church militant Do I not excommunicate our enemies from venison and brawn and by r Lady when need calls beat them down under my feet The state levies tax and the church levies tithe Even so do we Mass we take all at once What then It is tax by redemption and tithe by commutation Your William and Richard can cut and come again but our Robin deals with slippery subjects that come not twice to his exchequer What need we then to constitute a court except a fool and a laureate For the fool his only use is to make false knaves merry by art and we are true men and are merry by nature For the laureate his only office is to find virtues in those who have none and to drink sack for his pains We have quite virtue enough to need him not and can drink our sack for ourselves Well preached friar said Robin Hood yet there is one thing wanting to constitute a court and that is a queen And now lovely Matilda look round upon these sylvan shades where we have so often roused the stag from his ferny covert The rising sun smiles upon us through the stems of that beechen knoll Shall I take your hand Matilda in the presence of this my court Shall I crown you with our wildwood coronal and hail you queen of the forest Will you be the queen Matilda of your own true king Robin
Matilda smiled assent
Not Matilda said the friar the rules of our holy alliance require new birth We have excepted in favour of Little John because he is great John and his name is a misnomer I sprinkle not thy forehead with water but thy lips with wine and baptize thee MARIAN
Here is a pretty conspiracy exclaimed the baron Why you villanous friar think you to nickname and marry my daughter before my face with impunity
Even so bold baron said the friar we are strongest here Say you might overcomes right I say no There is no right but might and to say that might overcomes right is to say that right overcomes itself an absurdity most palpable Your right was the stronger in Arlingford and ours is the stronger in Sherwood Your right was right as long as you could maintain it so is ours So is King Richards with all deference be it spoken and so is King Saladins and their two mights are now committed in bloody fray and that which overcomes will be right just as long as it lasts and as far as it reaches And now if any of you know any just impediment——
Fire and fury said the baron
Fire and fury said the friar are modes of that might which constitutes right and are just impediments to any thing against which they can be brought to bear They are our good allies upon occasion and would declare for us now if you should put them to the test
Father said Matilda you know the terms of our compact from the moment you restrained my liberty you renounced your claim to all but compulsory obedience The friar argues well Right ends with might Thick walls dreary galleries and tapestried chambers were indifferent to me while I could leave them at pleasure but have ever been hateful to me since they held me by force May I never again have roof but the blue sky nor canopy but the green leaves nor barrier but the forestbounds with the foresters to my train Little John to my page Friar Tuck to my ghostly adviser and Robin Hood to my liege lord I am no longer lady Matilda Fitzwater of Arlingford Castle but plain Maid Marian of Sherwood Forest
Long live Maid Marian reechoed the foresters
Oh false girl said the baron do you renounce your name and parentage
Not my parentage said Marian but my name indeed do not all maids renounce it at the altar
The altar said the baron grant me patience what do you mean by the altar
Pile green turf said the friar wreathe it with flowers and crown it with fruit and we will show the noble baron what we mean by the altar
The foresters did as the friar directed
Now Little John said the friar on with the cloak of the abbot of Doubleflask I appoint thee my clerk thou art here duly elected in full mote
I wish you were all in full moat together said the baron and smooth wall on both sides
Punnest thou said the friar A heinous antichristian offence Why antichristian Because anticatholic Why anticatholic Because antiroman Why antiroman Because Carthaginian Is not pun from Punic punica fides the very quintessential quiddity of bad faith doublevisaged doubletongued He that will make a pun will—— I say no more Fie on it Stand forth clerk Who is the brides father
There is no brides father said the baron I am the father of Matilda Fitzwater
There is none such said the friar This is the fair Maid Marian Will you make a virtue of necessity or will you give laws to the flowing tide Will you give her or shall Robin take her Will you be her true natural father or shall I commute paternity Stand forth Scarlet
Stand back sirrah Scarlet said the baron My daughter shall have no father but me Needs must when the devil drives
No matter who drives said the friar so that like a welldisposed subject you yield cheerful obedience to those who can enforce it
Mawd sweet Mawd said the baron will you then forsake your poor old father in his distress with his castle in ashes and his enemy in power
Not so father said Marian I will always be your true daughter I will always love and serve and watch and defend you but neither will I forsake my plighted love and my own liege lord who was your choice before he was mine for you made him my associate in infancy and that he continued to be mine when he ceased to be yours does not in any way show remissness in my duties or falling off in my affections And though I here plight my troth at the altar to Robin in the presence of this holy priest and pious clerk yet Father when Richard returns from Palestine he will restore you to your barony and perhaps for your sake your daughters husband to the earldom of Huntingdon should that never be should it be the will of fate that we must live and die in the greenwood I will live and die MAID MARIAN 4
A pretty resolution said the baron if Robin will let you keep it
I have sworn it said Robin Should I expose her tenderness to the perils of maternity when life and death may hang on shifting at a moments notice from Sherwood to Barnsdale and from Barnsdale to the seashore And why should I banquet when my merry men starve Chastity is our forest law and even the friar has kept it since he has been here
Truly so said the friar for temptation dwells with ease and luxury but the hunter is Hippolytus and the huntress is Dian And now dearly beloved——
The friar went through the ceremony with great unction and Little John was most clerical in the intonation of his responses After which the friar sang and Little John fiddled and the foresters danced Robin with Marian and Scarlet with the baron and the venison smoked and the ale frothed and the wine sparkled and the sun went down on their unwearied festivity which they wound up with the following song the friar leading and the foresters joining chorus
Oh bold Robin Hood is a forester good
As ever drew bow in the merry greenwood
At his bugles shrill singing the echoes are ringing
The wild deer are springing for many a rood
Its summons we follow through brake over hollow
The thriceblown shrill summons of bold Robin Hood
And what eye hath eer seen such a sweet Maiden Queen
As Marian the pride of the foresters green
A sweet gardenflower she blooms in the bower
Where alone to this hour the wild rose has been
We hail her in duty the queen of all beauty
We will live we will die by our sweet Maiden queen
And heres a grey friar good as heart can desire
To absolve all our sins as the case may require
Who with courage so stout lays his oakplant about
And puts to the rout all the foes of his choir
For we are his choristers we merry foresters
Chorussing thus with our militant friar
And Scarlet cloth bring his good yewbough and string
Prime minister is he of Robin our king
No mark is too narrow for little Johns arrow
That hits a cock sparrow a mile on the wing
Robin and Marion Scarlet and Little John
Long with their glory old Sherwood shall ring
Each a good liver for wellfeathered quiver
Doth furnish brawn venison and fowl of the river
But the best game we dish up it is a fat bishop
When his angels we fish up he proves a free giver
For a prelate so lowly has angels more holy
And should this worlds false angels to sinners deliver
Robin and Marion Scarlet and Little John
Drink to them one by one drink as ye sing
Robin and Marion Scarlet and Little John
Echo to echo through Sherwood shall fling
Robin and Marion Scarlet and Little John
Long with their glory old Sherwood shall ring
CHAPTER XII
A single volume paramount a code
A master spirit a determined road
—WORDSWORTH
The next morning Robin Hood convened his foresters and desired Little John for the barons edification to read over the laws of their forest society Little John read aloud with a stentorophonic voice
At a high court of foresters held under the greenwood tree an hour after sunrise Robin Hood President William Scarlet VicePresident Little John Secretary the following articles moved by Friar Tuck in his capacity of Peer Spiritual and seconded by Much the Miller were unanimously agreed to
The principles of our society are six Legitimacy Equity Hospitality Chivalry Chastity and Courtesy
The articles of Legitimacy are four
I Our government is legitimate and our society is founded on the one golden rule of right consecrated by the universal consent of mankind and by the practice of all ages individuals and nations namely To keep what we have and to catch what we can
II Our government being legitimate all our proceedings shall be legitimate wherefore we declare war against the whole world and every forester is by this legitimate declaration legitimately invested with a roving commission to make lawful prize of every thing that comes in his way
III All forest laws but our own we declare to be null and void
IV All such of the old laws of England as do not in any way interfere with or militate against the views of this honourable assembly we will loyally adhere to and maintain The rest we declare null and void as far as relates to ourselves in all cases wherein a vigour beyond the law may be conducive to our own interest and preservation
The articles of Equity are three
I The balance of power among the people being very much deranged by one having too much and another nothing we hereby resolve ourselves into a congress or court of equity to restore as far as in us lies the said natural balance of power by taking from all who have too much as much of the said too much as we can lay our hands on and giving to those who have nothing such a portion thereof as it may seem to us expedient to part with
II In all cases a quorum of foresters shall constitute a court of equity and as many as may be strong enough to manage the matter in hand shall constitute a quorum
III All usurers monks courtiers and other drones of the great hive of society who shall be found laden with any portion of the honey whereof they have wrongfully despoiled the industrious bee shall be rightfully despoiled thereof in turn and all bishops and abbots shall be bound and beaten 5 especially the abbot of Doncaster as shall also all sheriffs especially the sheriff of Nottingham
The articles of Hospitality are two
I Postmen carriers and marketfolk peasants and mechanics farmers and millers shall pass through our forest dominions without let or molestation
II All other travellers through the forest shall be graciously invited to partake of Robins hospitality and if they come not willingly they shall be compelled and the rich man shall pay well for his fare and the poor man shall feast scot free and peradventure receive bounty in proportion to his desert and necessity
The article of Chivalry is one
I Every forester shall to the extent of his power aid and protect maids widows and orphans and all weak and distressed persons whomsoever and no woman shall be impeded or molested in any way nor shall any company receive harm which any woman is in
The article of Chastity is one
I Every forester being Dianas forester and minion of the moon shall commend himself to the grace of the Virgin and shall have the gift of continency on pain of expulsion that the article of chivalry may be secure from infringement and maids wives and widows pass without fear through the forest
The article of Courtesy is one
I No one shall miscall a forester He who calls Robin Robert of Huntingdon or salutes him by any other title or designation whatsoever except plain Robin Hood or who calls Marian Matilda Fitzwater or salutes her by any other title or designation whatsoever except plain Maid Marian and so of all others shall for every such offence forfeit a mark to be paid to the friar
And these articles we swear to keep as we are good men and true Carried by acclamation God save King Richard
LITTLE JOHN Secretary
Excellent laws said the baron excellent by the holy rood William of Normandy with my great great grandfather Fierabras at his elbow could not have made better And now sweet Mawd——
A fine a fine cried the friar a fine by the article of courtesy
Ods life said the baron shall I not call my own daughter Mawd Methinks there should be a special exception in my favour
It must not be said Robin Hood our constitution admits no privilege
But I will commute said the friar for twenty marks a year duly paid into my ghostly pocket you shall call your daughter Mawd two hundred times a day
Gramercy said the baron and I agree honest friar when I can get twenty marks to pay for till Prince John be beaten from Nottingham my rents are like to prove but scanty
I will trust said the friar and thus let us ratify the stipulation so shall our laws and your infringement run together in an amicable parallel
But said Little John this is a bad precedent master friar It is turning discipline into profit penalty into perquisite public justice into private revenue It is rank corruption master friar
Why are laws made said the friar For the profit of somebody Of whom Of him who makes them first and of others as it may happen Was not I legislator in the last article and shall I not thrive by my own law
Well then sweet Mawd said the baron I must leave you Mawd your life is very well for the young and the hearty but it squares not with my age or my humour I must house Mawd I must find refuge but where That is the question
Where Sir Guy of Gamwell has found it said Robin Hood near the borders of Barnsdale There you may dwell in safety with him and fair Alice till King Richard return and Little John shall give you safe conduct You will have need to travel with caution in disguise and without attendants for Prince John commands all this vicinity and will doubtless lay the country for you and Marian Now it is first expedient to dismiss your retainers If there be any among them who like our life they may stay with us in the greenwood the rest may return to their homes
Some of the barons men resolved to remain with Robin and Marian and were furnished accordingly with suits of green of which Robin always kept good store
Marian now declared that as there was danger in the way to Barnsdale she would accompany Little John and the baron as she should not be happy unless she herself saw her father placed in security Robin was very unwilling to consent to this and assured her that there was more danger for her than the baron but Marian was absolute
If so then said Robin I shall be your guide instead of Little John and I shall leave him and Scarlet jointregents of Sherwood during my absence and the voice of Friar Tuck shall be decisive between them if they differ in nice questions of state policy Marian objected to this that there was more danger for Robin than either herself or the baron but Robin was absolute in his turn
Talk not of my voice said the friar for if Marian be a damsel errant I will be her ghostly esquire
Robin insisted that this should not be for number would only expose them to greater risk of detection The friar after some debate reluctantly acquiesced
While they were discussing these matters they heard the distant sound of horses feet
Go said Robin to Little John and invite yonder horseman to dinner
Little John bounded away and soon came before a young man who was riding in a melancholy manner with the bridle hanging loose on the horses neck and his eyes drooping towards the ground
Whither go you said Little John
Whithersoever my horse pleases said the young man
And that shall be said Little John whither I please to lead him I am commissioned to invite you to dine with my master
Who is your master said the young man
Robin Hood said Little John
The bold outlaw said the stranger Neither he nor you should have made me turn an inch aside yesterday but today I care not
Then it is better for you said Little John that you came today than yesterday if you love dining in a whole skin for my master is the pink of courtesy but if his guests prove stubborn he bastes them and his venison together while the friar says mass before meat
The young man made no answer and scarcely seemed to hear what Little John was saying who therefore took the horses bridle and led him to where Robin and his foresters were setting forth their dinner Robin seated the young man next to Marian Recovering a little from his stupor he looked with much amazement at her and the baron and Robin and the friar listened to their conversation and seemed much astonished to find himself in such holy and courtly company Robin helped him largely to rumblepie and cygnet and pheasant and the other dainties of his table and the friar pledged him in ale and wine and exhorted him to make good cheer But the young man drank little ate less spake nothing and every now and then sighed heavily
When the repast was ended Now said Robin you are at liberty to pursue your journey but first be pleased to pay for your dinner
That would I gladly do Robin said the young man but all I have about me are five shillings and a ring To the five shillings you shall be welcome but for the ring I will fight while there is a drop of blood in my veins
Gallantly spoken said Robin Hood A lovetoken without doubt but you must submit to our forest laws Little John must search and if he find no more than you say not a penny will I touch but if you have spoken false the whole is forfeit to our fraternity
And with reason said the friar for thereby is the truth maintained The abbot of Doubleflask swore there was no money in his valise and Little John forthwith emptied it of four hundred pounds Thus was the abbots perjury but of one minutes duration for though his speech was false in the utterance yet was it no sooner uttered than it became true and we should have been participes criminis to have suffered the holy abbot to depart in falsehood whereas he came to us a false priest and we sent him away a true man Marry we turned his cloak to further account and thereby hangs a tale that may be either said or sung for in truth I am minstrel here as well as chaplain I pray for good success to our just and necessary warfare and sing thanksgiving odes when our foresters bring in booty
Bold Robin has robed him in ghostly attire
And forth he is gone like a holy friar
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
And of two grey friars he soon was aware
Regaling themselves with dainty fare
All on the fallen leaves so brown
Good morrow good brothers said bold Robin
Hood
And what make you in the good greenwood
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
Now give me I pray you wine and food
For none can I find in the good greenwood
All on the fallen leaves so brown
Good brother they said we would give you full fain
But we have no more than enough for twain
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
Then give me some money said bold Robin Hood
For none can I find in the good greenwood
All on the fallen leaves so brown
No money have we good brother said they
Then said he we three for money will pray
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
And whatever shall come at the end of our prayer
We three holy friars will piously share
All on the fallen leaves so brown
We will not pray with thee good brother God wot
For truly good brother thou pleasest us not
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
Then up they both started from Robin to run
But down on their knees Robin pulled them each one
All on the fallen leaves so brown
The grey friars prayed with a doleful face
But bold Robin prayed with a right merry grace
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
And when they had prayed their portmanteau he took
And from it a hundred good angels he shook
All on the fallen leaves so brown
The saints said bold Robin have hearkened our prayer
And heres a good angel apiece for your share
If more you would have you must win ere you wear
Singing hey down ho down down derry down
Then he blew his good horn with a musical cheer
And fifty green bowmen came trooping full near
And away the grey friars they bounded like deer
All on the fallen leaves so brown
CHAPTER XIII
What can a young lassie what shall a young lassie
What can a young lassie do wian auld man
—BURNS
Here is but five shillings and a ring said Little John and the young man has spoken true
Then said Robin to the stranger if want of money be the cause of your melancholy speak Little John is my treasurer and he shall disburse to you
It is and it is not said the stranger it is because had I not wanted money I had never lost my love it is not because now that I have lost her money would come too late to regain her
In what way have you lost her said Robin let us clearly know that she is past regaining before we give up our wishes to restore her to you
She is to be married this day said the stranger and perhaps is married by this to a rich old knight and yesterday I knew it not
What is your name said Robin
Allen said the stranger
And where is the marriage to take place Allen said Robin
At Edwinstow church said Allen by the bishop of Nottingham
I know that bishop said Robin he dined with me a month since and paid three hundred pounds for his dinner He has a good ear and loves music The friar sang to him to some tune Give me my harpers cloak and I will play a part at this wedding
These are dangerous times Robin said Marian for playing pranks out of the forest
Fear not said Robin Edwinstow lies not Nottinghamward and I will take my precautions
Robin put on his harpers cloak while Little John painted his eyebrows and cheeks tipped his nose with red and tied him on a comely beard Marian confessed that had she not been present at the metamorphosis she should not have known her own true Robin Robin took his harp and went to the wedding
Robin found the bishop and his train in the church porch impatiently expecting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom The clerk was observing to the bishop that the knight was somewhat gouty and that the necessity of walking the last quarter of a mile from the road to the churchyard probably detained the lively bridegroom rather longer than had been calculated upon
Oh by my fey said the musicloving bishop here comes a harper in the nick of time and now I care not how long they tarry Ho honest friend are you come to play at the wedding
I am come to play anywhere answered Robin where I can get a cup of sack for which I will sing the praise of the donor in lofty verse and emblazon him with any virtue which he may wish to have the credit of possessing without the trouble of practising
A most courtly harper said the bishop I will fill thee with sack I will make thee a walking butt of sack if thou wilt delight my ears with thy melodies
That will I said Robin in what branch of my art shall I exert my faculty I am passing well in all from the anthem to the glee and from the dirge to the coranto
It would be idle said the bishop to give thee sack for playing me anthems seeing that I myself do receive sack for hearing them sung Therefore as the occasion is festive thou shalt play me a coranto
Robin struck up and played away merrily the bishop all the while in great delight noddling his head and beating time with his foot till the bride and bridegroom appeared The bridegroom was richly apparelled and came slowly and painfully forward hobbling and leering and pursing up his mouth into a smile of resolute defiance to the gout and of tender complacency towards his lady love who shining like gold at the old knights expense followed slowly between her father and mother her cheeks pale her head drooping her steps faltering and her eyes reddened with tears
Robin stopped his minstrelsy and said to the bishop This seems to me an unfit match
What do you say rascal said the old knight hobbling up to him
I say said Robin this seems to me an unfit match What in the devils name can you want with a young wife who have one foot in flannels and the other in the grave
What is that to thee sirrah varlet said the old knight stand away from the porch or I will fracture thy sconce with my cane
I will not stand away from the porch said Robin unless the bride bid me and tell me that you are her own true love
Speak said the brides father in a severe tone and with a look of significant menace The girl looked alternately at her father and Robin She attempted to speak but her voice failed in the effort and she burst into tears
Here is lawful cause and just impediment said Robin and I forbid the banns
Who are you villain said the old knight stamping his sound foot with rage
I am the Roman law said Robin which says that there shall not be more than ten years between a man and his wife and here are five times ten and so says the law of nature
Honest harper said the bishop you are somewhat overofficious here and less courtly than I deemed you If you love sack forbear for this course will never bring you a drop As to your Roman law and your law of nature what right have they to say any thing which the law of Holy Writ says not
The law of Holy Writ does say it said Robin I expound it so to say and I will produce sixty commentators to establish my exposition
And so saying he produced a horn from beneath his cloak and blew three blasts and threescore bowmen in green came leaping from the bushes and trees and young Allen was the first among them to give Robin his sword while Friar Tuck and Little John marched up to the altar Robin stripped the bishop and clerk of their robes and put them on the friar and Little John and Allen advanced to take the hand of the bride Her cheeks grew red and her eyes grew bright as she locked her hand in her lovers and tripped lightly with him into the church
This marriage will not stand said the bishop for they have not been thrice asked in church
We will ask them seven times said Little John lest three should not suffice
And in the meantime said Robin the knight and the bishop shall dance to my harping
So Robin sat in the church porch and played away merrily while his foresters formed a ring in the centre of which the knight and bishop danced with exemplary alacrity and if they relaxed their exertions Scarlet gently touched them up with the point of an arrow
The knight grimaced ruefully and begged Robin to think of his gout
So I do said Robin this is the true antipodagron you shall dance the gout away and be thankful to me while you live I told you he added to the bishop I would play at this wedding but you did not tell me that you would dance at it The next couple you marry think of the Roman law
The bishop was too much out of breath to reply and now the young couple issued from church and the bride having made a farewell obeisance to her parents they departed together with the foresters the parents storming the attendants laughing the bishop puffing and blowing and the knight rubbing his gouty foot and uttering doleful lamentations for the gold and jewels with which he had so unwittingly adorned and cowered the bride
CHAPTER XIV
As ye came from the holy land
Of blessed Walsinghame
Oh met ye not with my true love
As by the way ye came
—Old Ballad
In pursuance of the arrangement recorded in the twelfth chapter the baron Robin and Marian disguised themselves as pilgrims returned from Palestine and travelling from the seacoast of Hampshire to their home in Northumberland By dint of staff and cockleshell sandal and scrip they proceeded in safety the greater part of the way for Robin had many sly inns and restingplaces between Barnsdale and Sherwood and were already on the borders of Yorkshire when one evening they passed within view of a castle where they saw a lady standing on a turret and surveying the whole extent of the valley through which they were passing A servant came running from the castle and delivered to them a message from his lady who was sick with expectation of news from her lord in the Holy Land and entreated them to come to her that she might question them concerning him This was an awkward occurrence but there was no presence for refusal and they followed the servant into the castle The baron who had been in Palestine in his youth undertook to be spokesman on the occasion and to relate his own adventures to the lady as having happened to the lord in question This preparation enabled him to be so minute and circumstantial in his detail and so coherent in his replies to her questions that the lady fell implicitly into the delusion and was delighted to find that her lord was alive and in health and in high favour with the king and performing prodigies of valour in the name of his lady whose miniature he always wore in his bosom The baron guessed at this circumstance from the customs of that age and happened to be in the right
This miniature added the baron I have had the felicity to see and should have known you by it among a million The baron was a little embarrassed by some questions of the lady concerning her lords personal appearance but Robin came to his aid observing a picture suspended opposite to him on the wall which he made a bold conjecture to be that of the lord in question and making a calculation of the influences of time and war which he weighed with a comparison of the ladys age he gave a description of her lord sufficiently like the picture in its groundwork to be a true resemblance and sufficiently differing from it in circumstances to be more an original than a copy The lady was completely deceived and entreated them to partake her hospitality for the night but this they deemed it prudent to decline and with many humble thanks for her kindness and representations of the necessity of not delaying their homeward course they proceeded on their way
As they passed over the drawbridge they met Sir Ralph Montfaucon and his squire who were wandering in quest of Marian and were entering to claim that hospitality which the pilgrims had declined Their countenances struck Sir Ralph with a kind of imperfect recognition which would never have been matured but that the eyes of Marian as she passed him encountered his and the images of those stars of beauty continued involuntarily twinkling in his sensorium to the exclusion of all other ideas till memory love and hope concurred with imagination to furnish a probable reason for their haunting him so pertinaciously Those eyes he thought were certainly the eyes of Matilda Fitzwater and if the eyes were hers it was extremely probable if not logically consecutive that the rest of the body they belonged to was hers also Now if it were really Matilda Fitzwater who were her two companions The baron Aye and the elder pilgrim was something like him And the earl of Huntingdon Very probably The earl and the baron might be good friends again now that they were both in disgrace together While he was revolving these cogitations he was introduced to the lady and after claiming and receiving the promise of hospitality he inquired what she knew of the pilgrims who had just departed The lady told him they were newly returned from Palestine having been long in the Holy Land The knight expressed some scepticism on this point The lady replied that they had given her so minute a detail of her lords proceedings and so accurate a description of his person that she could not be deceived in them This staggered the knights confidence in his own penetration and if it had not been a heresy in knighthood to suppose for a moment that there could be in rerum natura such another pair of eyes as those of his mistress he would have acquiesced implicitly in the ladys judgment But while the lady and the knight were conversing the warder blew his buglehorn and presently entered a confidential messenger from Palestine who gave her to understand that her lord was well but entered into a detail of his adventures most completely at variance with the barons narrative to which not the correspondence of a single incident gave the remotest colouring of similarity It now became manifest that the pilgrims were not true men and Sir Ralph Montfaucon sate down to supper with his head full of cogitations which we shall leave him to chew and digest with his pheasant and canary
Meanwhile our three pilgrims proceeded on their way The evening set in black and lowering when Robin turned aside from the main track to seek an asylum for the night along a narrow way that led between rocky and woody hills A peasant observed the pilgrims as they entered that narrow pass and called after them Whither go you my masters there are rogues in that direction
Can you show us a direction said Robin in which there are none If so we will take it in preference The peasant grinned and walked away whistling
The pass widened as they advanced and the woods grew thicker and darker around them Their path wound along the slope of a woody declivity which rose high above them in a thick rampart of foliage and descended almost precipitously to the bed of a small river which they heard dashing in its rocky channel and saw its white foam gleaming at intervals in the last faint glimmerings of twilight In a short time all was dark and the rising voice of the wind foretold a coming storm They turned a point of the valley and saw a light below them in the depth of the hollow shining through a cottagecasement and dancing in its reflection on the restless stream Robin blew his horn which was answered from below The cottage door opened a boy came forth with a torch ascended the steep showed tokens of great delight at meeting with Robin and lighted them down a flight of steps rudely cut in the rock and over a series of rugged steppingstones that crossed the channel of the river They entered the cottage which exhibited neatness comfort and plenty being amply enriched with pots pans and pipkins and adorned with flitches of bacon and sundry similar ornaments that gave goodly promise in the firelight that gleamed upon the rafters A woman who seemed just old enough to be the boys mother had thrown down her spinning wheel in her joy at the sound of Robins horn and was bustling with singular alacrity to set forth her festal ware and prepare an abundant supper Her features though not beautiful were agreeable and expressive and were now lighted up with such manifest joy at the sight of Robin that Marian could not help feeling a momentary touch of jealousy and a halfformed suspicion that Robin had broken his forest law and had occasionally gone out of bounds as other great men have done upon occasion in order to reconcile the breach of the spirit with the preservation of the letter of their own legislation However this suspicion if it could be said to exist in a mind so generous as Marians was very soon dissipated by the entrance of the womans husband who testified as much joy as his wife had done at the sight of Robin and in a short time the whole of the party were amicably seated round a smoking supper of riverfish and wild wood fowl on which the baron fell with as much alacrity as if he had been a true pilgrim from Palestine
The husband produced some recondite flasks of wine which were laid by in a binn consecrated to Robin whose occasional visits to them in his wanderings were the festal days of these warmhearted cottagers whose manners showed that they had not been born to this low estate Their story had no mystery and Marian easily collected it from the tenour of their conversation The young man had been like Robin the victim of an usurious abbot and had been outlawed for debt and his nutbrown maid had accompanied him to the depths of Sherwood where they lived an unholy and illegitimate life killing the kings deer and never hearing mass In this state Robin then earl of Huntingdon discovered them in one of his huntings and gave them aid and protection When Robin himself became an outlaw the necessary qualification or gift of continency was too hard a law for our lovers to subscribe to and as they were thus disqualified for foresters Robin had found them a retreat in this romantic and secluded spot He had done similar service to other lovers similarly circumstanced and had disposed them in various wild scenes which he and his men had discovered in their flittings from place to place supplying them with all necessaries and comforts from the reluctant disgorgings of fat abbots and usurers The benefit was in some measure mutual for these cottages served him as restingplaces in his removals and enabled him to travel untraced and unmolested and in the delight with which he was always received he found himself even more welcome than he would have been at an inn and this is saying very much for gratitude and affection together The smiles which surrounded him were of his own creation and he participated in the happiness he had bestowed
The casements began to rattle in the wind and the rain to beat upon the windows The wind swelled to a hurricane and the rain dashed like a flood against the glass The boy retired to his little bed the wife trimmed the lamp the husband heaped logs upon the fire Robin broached another flask and Marian filled the barons cup and sweetened Robins by touching its edge with her lips
Well said the baron give me a roof over my head be it never so humble Your greenwood canopy is pretty and pleasant in sunshine but if I were doomed to live under it I should wish it were watertight
But said Robin we have tents and caves for foul weather good store of wine and venison and fuel in abundance
Ay but said the baron I like to pull off my boots of a night which you foresters seldom do and to ensconce myself thereafter in a comfortable bed Your beechroot is overhard for a couch and your mossy stump is somewhat rough for a bolster
Had you not dry leaves said Robin with a bishops surplice over them What would you have softer And had you not an abbots travelling cloak for a coverlet What would you have warmer
Very true said the baron but that was an indulgence to a guest and I dreamed all night of the sheriff of Nottingham I like to feel myself safe he added stretching out his legs to the fire and throwing himself back in his chair with the air of a man determined to be comfortable I like to feel myself safe said the baron
At that moment the woman caught her husbands arm and all the party following the direction of her eyes looked simultaneously to the window where they had just time to catch a glimpse of an apparition of an armed head with its plumage tossing in the storm on which the light shone from within and which disappeared immediately
CHAPTER XV
O knight thou lackst a cup of canary
When did I see thee so put down—Twelfth Night
Several knocks as from the knuckles of an iron glove were given to the door of the cottage and a voice was heard entreating shelter from the storm for a traveller who had lost his way Robin arose and went to the door
What are you said Robin
A soldier replied the voice an unfortunate adherent of Longchamp flying the vengeance of Prince John
Are you alone said Robin
Yes said the voice it is a dreadful night Hospitable cottagers pray give me admittance I would not have asked it but for the storm I would have kept my watch in the woods
That I believe said Robin You did not reckon on the storm when you turned into this pass Do you know there are rogues this way
I do said the voice
So do I said Robin
A pause ensued during which Robin listening attentively caught a faint sound of whispering
You are not alone said Robin Who are your companions
None but the wind and the water said the voice and I would I had them not
The wind and the water have many voices said Robin but I never before heard them say What shall we do
Another pause ensued after which
Look ye master cottager said the voice in an altered tone if you do not let us in willingly we will break down the door
Ho ho roared the baron you are become plural are you rascals How many are there of you thieves What I warrant you thought to rob and murder a poor harmless cottager and his wife and did not dream of a garrison You looked for no weapon of opposition but spit poker and basting ladle wielded by unskilful hands but rascals here is short sword and long cudgel in hands well tried in war wherewith you shall be drilled into cullenders and beaten into mummy
No reply was made but furious strokes from without resounded upon the door Robin Marian and the baron threw by their pilgrims attire and stood in arms on the defensive They were provided with swords and the cottager gave them bucklers and helmets for all Robins haunts were furnished with secret armouries But they kept their swords sheathed and the baron wielded a ponderous spear which he pointed towards the door ready to run through the first that should enter and Robin and Marian each held a bow with the arrow drawn to its head and pointed in the same direction The cottager flourished a strong cudgel a weapon in the use of which he prided himself on being particularly expert and the wife seized the spit from the fireplace and held it as she saw the baron hold his spear The storm of wind and rain continued to beat on the roof and the casement and the storm of blows to resound upon the door which at length gave way with a violent crash and a cluster of armed men appeared without seemingly not less than twelve Behind them rolled the stream now changed from a gentle and shallow river to a mighty and impetuous torrent roaring in waves of yellow foam partially reddened by the light that streamed through the open door and turning up its convulsed surface in flashes of shifting radiance from restless masses of halfvisible shadow The steppingstones by which the intruders must have crossed were buried under the waters On the opposite bank the light fell on the stems and boughs of the rockrooted oak and ash tossing and swaying in the blast and sweeping the flashing spray with their leaves
The instant the door broke Robin and Marian loosed their arrows Robins arrow struck one of the assailants in the juncture of the shoulder and disabled his right arm Marians struck a second in the juncture of the knee and rendered him unserviceable for the night The barons long spear struck on the mailed breastplate of a third and being stretched to its full extent by the longarmed hero drove him to the edge of the torrent and plunged him into its eddies along which he was whirled down the darkness of the descending stream calling vainly on his comrades for aid till his voice was lost in the mingled roar of the waters and the wind A fourth springing through the door was laid prostrate by the cottagers cudgel but the wife being less dexterous than her company though an Amazon in strength missed her pass at a fifth and drove the point of the spit several inches into the right hand doorpost as she stood close to the left and thus made a new barrier which the invaders could not pass without dipping under it and submitting their necks to the sword but one of the assailants seizing it with gigantic rage shook it at once from the grasp of its holder and from its lodgment in the post and at the same time made good the irruption of the rest of his party into the cottage
Now raged an unequal combat for the assailants fell two to one on Robin Marian the baron and the cottager while the wife being deprived of her spit converted every thing that was at hand to a missile and rained pots pans and pipkins on the armed heads of the enemy The baron raged like a tiger and the cottager laid about him like a thresher One of the soldiers struck Robins sword from his hand and brought him on his knee when the boy who had been roused by the tumult and had been peeping through the inner door leaped forward in his shirt picked up the sword and replaced it in Robins hand who instantly springing up disarmed and wounded one of his antagonists while the other was laid prostrate under the dint of a brass cauldron launched by the Amazonian dame Robin now turned to the aid of Marian who was parrying most dexterously the cuts and slashes of her two assailants of whom Robin delivered her from one while a wellapplied blow of her sword struck off the helmet of the other who fell on his knees to beg a boon and she recognised Sir Ralph Montfaucon The men who were engaged with the baron and the peasant seeing their leader subdued immediately laid down their arms and cried for quarter The wife brought some strong rope and the baron tied their arms behind them
Now Sir Ralph said Marian once more you are at my mercy
That I always am cruel beauty said the discomfited lover
Odso courteous knight said the baron is this the return you make for my beef and canary when you kissed my daughters hand in token of contrition for your intermeddling at her wedding Heart I am glad to see she has given you a bloody coxcomb Slice him down Mawd slice him down and fling him into the river
Confess said Marian what brought you here and how did you trace our steps
I will confess nothing said the knight
Then confess you rascal said the baron holding his sword to the throat of the captive squire
Take away the sword said the squire it is too near my mouth and my voice will not come out for fear take away the sword and I will confess all The baron dropped his sword and the squire proceeded Sir Ralph met you as you quitted Lady Falklands castle and by representing to her who you were borrowed from her such a number of her retainers as he deemed must ensure your capture seeing that your familiar the friar was not at your elbow We set forth without delay and traced you first by means of a peasant who saw you turn into this valley and afterwards by the light from the casement of this solitary dwelling Our design was to have laid an ambush for you in the morning but the storm and your observation of my unlucky face through the casement made us change our purpose and what followed you can tell better than I can being indeed masters of the subject
You are a merry knave said the baron and here is a cup of wine for you
Gramercy said the squire and better late than never but I lacked a cup of this before Had I been potvaliant I had held you play
Sir knight said Marian this is the third time you have sought the life of my lord and of me for mine is interwoven with his And do you think me so spiritless as to believe that I can be yours by compulsion Tempt me not again for the next time shall be the last and the fish of the nearest river shall commute the flesh of a recreant knight into the fastday dinner of an uncarnivorous friar I spare you now not in pity but in scorn Yet shall you swear to a convention never more to pursue or molest my lord or me and on this condition you shall live
The knight had no alternative but to comply and swore on the honour of knighthood to keep the convention inviolate How well he kept his oath we shall have no opportunity of narrating Di lui la nostra istoria piu non parla
CHAPTER XVI
Carry me over the water thou fine fellowe—Old Ballad
The pilgrims without experiencing further molestation arrived at the retreat of Sir Guy of Gamwell They found the old knight a cup too low partly from being cut off from the scenes of his old hospitality and the shouts of his Nottinghamshire vassals who were wont to make the rafters of his ancient hall reecho to their revelry but principally from being parted from his son who had long been the better half of his flask and pasty The arrival of our visitors cheered him up and finding that the baron was to remain with him he testified his delight and the cordiality of his welcome by pegging him in the ribs till he made him roar
Robin and Marian took an affectionate leave of the baron and the old knight and before they quitted the vicinity of Barnsdale deeming it prudent to return in a different disguise they laid aside their pilgrims attire and assumed the habits and appurtenances of wandering minstrels
They travelled in this character safely and pleasantly till one evening at a late hour they arrived by the side of a river where Robin looking out for a mode of passage perceived a ferryboat safely moored in a nook on the opposite bank near which a chimney sending up a wreath of smoke through the thickset willows was the only symptom of human habitation and Robin naturally conceiving the said chimney and wreath of smoke to be the outward signs of the inward ferryman shouted Over with much strength and clearness but no voice replied and no ferryman appeared Robin raised his voice and shouted with redoubled energy Over Over Oooover A faint echo alone responded Over and again died away into deep silence but after a brief interval a voice from among the willows in a strange kind of mingled intonation that was half a shout and half a song answered
Over over over jolly jolly rover
Would you then come over Over over over
Jolly jolly rover heres one lives in clover
Who finds the clover The jolly jolly rover
He finds the clover let him then come over
The jolly jolly rover over over over
I much doubt said Marian if this ferryman do not mean by clover something more than the toll of his ferryboat
I doubt not answered Robin he is a levier of toll and tithe which I shall put him upon proof of his right to receive by making trial of his might to enforce
The ferryman emerged from the willows and stepped into his boat As I live exclaimed Robin the ferryman is a friar
With a sword said Marian stuck in his rope girdle
The friar pushed his boat off manfully and was presently half over the river
It is friar Tuck said Marian
He will scarcely know us said Robin and if he do not I will break a staff with him for sport
The friar came singing across the water the boat touched the land Robin and Marian stepped on board the friar pushed off again
Silken doublets silken doublets said the friar slenderly lined I bow your wandering minstrel is always poor toll your sweet angels of voices pass current for a bed and a supper at the house of every lord that likes to hear the fame of his valour without the trouble of fighting for it What need you of purse or pouch You may sing before thieves Pedlars pedlars wandering from door to door with the small ware of lies and cajolery exploits for carpetknights honesty for courtiers truth for monks and chastity for nuns a good saleable stock that costs the vender nothing defies wear and tear and when it has served a hundred customers is as plentiful and as marketable as ever But sirrahs Ill none of your balderdash You pass not hence without clink of brass or Ill knock your musical noddles together till they ring like a pair of cymbals That will be a new tune for your minstrelships
This friendly speech of the friar ended as they stepped on the opposite bank Robin had noticed as they passed that the summer stream was low
Why thou brawling mongrel said Robin that whether thou be thief friar or ferryman or an illmixed compound of all three passes conjecture though I judge thee to be simple thief what barkest thou at thus Villain there is clink of brass for thee Dost thou see this coin Dost thou hear this music Look and listen for touch thou shalt not my minstrelship defies thee Thou shalt carry me on thy back over the water and receive nothing but a cracked sconce for thy trouble
A bargain said the friar for the water is low the labour is light and the reward is alluring And he stooped down for Robin who mounted his back and the friar waded with him over the river
Now fine fellow said the friar thou shalt carry me back over the water and thou shalt have a cracked sconce for thy trouble
Robin took the friar on his back and waded with him into the middle of the river when by a dexterous jerk he suddenly flung him off and plunged him horizontally over head and ears in the water Robin waded to shore and the friar half swimming and half scrambling followed
Fine fellow fine fellow said the friar now will I pay thee thy cracked sconce
Not so said Robin I have not earned it but thou hast earned it and shalt have it
It was not even in those good old times a sight of every day to see a troubadour and a friar playing at singlestick by the side of a river each aiming with fell intent at the others coxcomb The parties were both so skilled in attack and defence that their mutual efforts for a long time expended themselves in quick and loud rappings on each others oaken staves At length Robin by a dexterous feint contrived to score one on the friars crown but in the careless moment of triumph a splendid sweep of the friars staff struck Robins out of his hand into the middle of the river and repaid his crack on the head with a degree of vigour that might have passed the bounds of a jest if Marian had not retarded its descent by catching the friars arm
How now recreant friar said Marian what have you to say why you should not suffer instant execution being detected in open rebellion against your liege lord Therefore kneel down traitor and submit your neck to the sword of the offended law
Benefit of clergy said the friar I plead my clergy And is it you indeed ye scapegraces Ye are well disguised I knew ye not by my flask Robin jolly Robin he buys a jest dearly that pays for it with a bloody coxcomb But here is balm for all bruises outward and inward The friar produced a flask of canary Wash thy wound twice and thy throat thrice with this solar concoction and thou shalt marvel where was thy hurt But what moved ye to this frolic Knew ye not that ye could not appear in a mask more fashioned to move my bile than in that of these gilders and lackerers of the smooth surface of worthlessness that bring the gold of true valour into disrepute by stamping the baser metal with the fairer impression I marvelled to find any such given to fighting for they have an old instinct of selfpreservation but I rejoiced thereat that I might discuss to them poetical justice and therefore have I cracked thy sconce for which let this be thy medicine
But wherefore said Marian do we find you here when we left you joint lord warden of Sherwood
I do but retire to my devotions replied the friar This is my hermitage in which I first took refuge when I escaped from my beloved brethren of Rubygill and to which I still retreat at times from the vanities of the world which else might cling to me too closely since I have been promoted to be peerspiritual of your forestcourt For indeed I do find in myself certain indications and admonitions that my day has past its noon and none more cogent than this that daily of bad wine I grow more intolerant and of good wine have a keener and more fastidious relish There is no surer symptom of receding years The ferryman is my faithful varlet I send him on some pious errand that I may meditate in ghostly privacy when my presence in the forest can best be spared and when can it be better spared than now seeing that the neighbourhood of Prince John and his incessant perquisitions for Marian have made the forest too hot to hold more of us than are needful to keep up a quorum and preserve unbroken the continuity of our forestdominion For in truth without your greenwood majesties we have hardly the wit to live in a body and at the same time to keep our necks out of jeopardy while that archrebel and traitor John infests the precincts of our territory
The friar now conducted them to his peaceful cell where he spread his frugal board with fish venison wildfowl fruit and canary Under the compound operation of this materia medica Robins wounds healed apace and the friar who hated minstrelsy began as usual chirping in his cups Robin and Marian chimed in with his tuneful humour till the midnight moon peeped in upon their revelry
It was now the very witching time of night when they heard a voice shouting Over They paused to listen and the voice repeated Over in accents clear and loud but which at the same time either were in themselves or seemed to be from the place and the hour singularly plaintive and dreary The friar fidgetted about in his seat fell into a deep musing shook himself and looked about him first at Marian then at Robin then at Marian again filled and tossed off a cup of canary and relapsed into his reverie
Will you not bring your passenger over said Robin The friar shook his head and looked mysterious
That passenger said the friar will never come over Every full moon at midnight that voice calls Over I and my varlet have more than once obeyed the summons and we have sometimes had a glimpse of a white figure under the opposite trees but when the boat has touched the bank nothing has been to be seen and the voice has been heard no more till the midnight of the next full moon
It is very strange said Robin
Wondrous strange said the friar looking solemn
The voice again called Over in a long plaintive musical cry
I must go to it said the friar or it will give us no peace I would all my customers were of this world I begin to think that I am Charon and that this river is Styx
I will go with you friar said Robin
By my flask said the friar but you shall not
Then I will said Marian
Still less said the friar hurrying out of the cell Robin and Marian followed but the friar outstepped them and pushed off his boat
A white figure was visible under the shade of the opposite trees The boat approached the shore and the figure glided away The friar returned
They reentered the cottage and sat some time conversing on the phenomenon they had seen The friar sipped his wine and after a time said
There is a tradition of a damsel who was drowned here some years ago The tradition is——
But the friar could not narrate a plain tale he therefore cleared his throat and sang with due solemnity in a ghostly voice
A damsel came in midnight rain
And called across the ferry
The weary wight she called in vain
Whose senses sleep did bury
At evening from her fathers door
She turned to meet her lover
At midnight on the lonely shore
She shouted Over over
She had not met him by the tree
Of their accustomed meeting
And sad and sick at heart was she
Her heart all wildly beating
In chill suspense the hours went by
The wild storm burst above her
She turned her to the river nigh
And shouted Over over
A dim discoloured doubtful light
The moons dark veil permitted
And thick before her troubled sight
Fantastic shadows flitted
Her lovers form appeared to glide
And beckon oer the water
Alas his blood that morn had dyed
Her brothers sword with slaughter
Upon a little rock she stood
To make her invocation
She marked not that the rainswolln flood
Was islanding her station
The tempest mocked her feeble cry
No saint his aid would give her
The flood swelled high and yet more high
And swept her down the river
Yet oft beneath the pale moonlight
When hollow winds are blowing
The shadow of that maiden bright
Glides by the dark streams flowing
And when the storms of midnight rave
While clouds the broad moon cover
The wild gusts waft across the wave
The cry of Over over
While the friar was singing Marian was meditating and when he had ended she said Honest friar you have misplaced your tradition which belongs to the aestuary of a nobler river where the damsel was swept away by the rising of the tide for which your landflood is an indifferent substitute But the true tradition of this stream I think I myself possess and I will narrate it in your own way
It was a friar of orders free
A friar of Rubygill
At the greenwoodtree a vow made he
But he kept it very ill
A vow made he of chastity
But he kept it very ill
He kept it perchance in the conscious shade
Of the bounds of the forest wherein it was made
But he roamed where he listed as free as the wind
And he left his good vow in the forest behind
For its woods out of sight were his vow out of mind
With the friar of Rubygill
In lonely hut himself he shut
The friar of Rubygill
Where the ghostly elf absolved himself
To follow his own good will
And he had no lack of canary sack
To keep his conscience still
And a damsel well knew when at lonely midnight
It gleamed on the waters his signallamplight
Over over she warbled with nightingale throat
And the friar sprung forth at the magical note
And she crossed the dark stream in his trim ferryboat
With the friar of Rubygill
Look you now said Robin if the friar does not blush Many strange sights have I seen in my day but never till this moment did I see a blushing friar
I think said the friar you never saw one that blushed not or you saw good canary thrown away But you are welcome to laugh if it so please you None shall laugh in my company though it be at my expense but I will have my share of the merriment The world is a stage and life is a farce and he that laughs most has most profit of the performance The worst thing is good enough to be laughed at though it be good for nothing else and the best thing though it be good for something else is good for nothing better
And he struck up a song in praise of laughing and quaffing without further adverting to Marians insinuated accusation being perhaps of opinion that it was a subject on which the least said would be the soonest mended
So passed the night In the morning a forester came to the friar with intelligence that Prince John had been compelled by the urgency of his affairs in other quarters to disembarrass Nottingham Castle of his royal presence Our wanderers returned joyfully to their forestdominion being thus relieved from the vicinity of any more formidable belligerent than their old bruised and beaten enemy the sheriff of Nottingham
CHAPTER XVII
Oh this life
Is nobler than attending for a check
Richer than doing nothing for a bribe
Prouder than rustling in unpaidfor silk—Cymbeline
So Robin and Marian dwelt and reigned in the forest ranging the glades and the greenwoods from the matins of the lark to the vespers of the nightingale and administering natural justice according to Robins ideas of rectifying the inequalities of human condition raising genial dews from the bags of the rich and idle and returning them in fertilising showers on the poor and industrious an operation which more enlightened statesmen have happily reversed to the unspeakable benefit of the community at large The light footsteps of Marian were impressed on the morning dew beside the firmer step of her lover and they shook its large drops about them as they cleared themselves a passage through the thick tall fern without any fear of catching cold which was not much in fashion in the twelfth century Robin was as hospitable as Cathmor for seven men stood on seven paths to call the stranger to his feast It is true he superadded the small improvement of making the stranger pay for it than which what could be more generous For Cathmor was himself the prime giver of his feast whereas Robin was only the agent to a series of strangers who provided in turn for the entertainment of their successors which is carrying the disinterestedness of hospitality to its acme Marian often killed the deer
Which Scarlet dressed and Friar Tuck blessed
While Little John wandered in search of a guest
Robin was very devout though there was great unity in his religion it was exclusively given to our Lady the Virgin and he never set forth in a morning till he had said three prayers and had heard the sweet voice of his Marian singing a hymn to their mutual patroness Each of his men had as usual a patron saint according to his name or taste The friar chose a saint for himself and fixed on Saint Botolph whom he euphonised into Saint Bottle and maintained that he was that very Panomphic Pantagruelian saint well known in ancient France as a female divinity by the name of La Dive Bouteille whose oracular monosyllable Trincq is celebrated and understood by all nations and is expounded by the learned doctor Alcofribas 6 who has treated at large on the subject to signify drink Saint Bottle then was the saint of Friar Tuck who did not yield even to Robin and Marian in the assiduity of his devotions to his chosen patron Such was their summer life and in their winter caves they had sufficient furniture ample provender store of old wine and assuredly no lack of fuel with joyous music and pleasant discourse to charm away the season of darkness and storms
The reader who desires to know more about this oracular divinity may consult the said doctor Alcofribas Nasier who will usher him into the adytum through the medium of the high priestess Bacbuc
Many moons had waxed and waned when on the afternoon of a lovely summer day a lusty broadboned knight was riding through the forest of Sherwood The sun shone brilliantly on the full green foliage and afforded the knight a fine opportunity of observing picturesque effects of which it is to be feared he did not avail himself But he had not proceeded far before he had an opportunity of observing something much more interesting namely a fine young outlaw leaning in the true Sherwood fashion with his back against a tree The knight was preparing to ask the stranger a question the answer to which if correctly given would have relieved him from a doubt that pressed heavily on his mind as to whether he was in the right road or the wrong when the youth prevented the inquiry by saying In Gods name sir knight you are late to your meals My master has tarried dinner for you these three hours
I doubt said the knight I am not he you wot of I am no where bidden to day and I know none in this vicinage
We feared said the youth your memory would be treacherous therefore am I stationed here to refresh it
Who is your master said the knight and where does he abide
My master said the youth is called Robin Hood and he abides hard by
And what knows he of me said the knight
He knows you answered the youth as he does every wayfaring knight and friar by instinct
Gramercy said the knight then I understand his bidding but how if I say I will not come
I am enjoined to bring you said the youth If persuasion avail not I must use other argument
Sayst thou so said the knight I doubt if thy stripling rhetoric would convince me
That said the young forester we will see
We are not equally matched boy said the knight I should get less honour by thy conquest than grief by thy injury
Perhaps said the youth my strength is more than my seeming and my cunning more than my strength Therefore let it please your knighthood to dismount
It shall please my knighthood to chastise thy presumption said the knight springing from his saddle
Hereupon which in those days was usually the result of a meeting between any two persons anywhere they proceeded to fight
The knight had in an uncommon degree both strength and skill the forester had less strength but not less skill than the knight and showed such a mastery of his weapon as reduced the latter to great admiration
They had not fought many minutes by the forest clock the sun and had as yet done each other no worse injury than that the knight had wounded the foresters jerkin and the forester had disabled the knights plume when they were interrupted by a voice from a thicket exclaiming Well fought girl well fought Mass that had nigh been a shrewd hit Thou owest him for that lass Marry stand by Ill pay him for thee
The knight turning to the voice beheld a tall friar issuing from the thicket brandishing a ponderous cudgel
Who art thou said the knight
I am the church militant of Sherwood answered the friar Why art thou in arms against our lady queen
What meanest thou said the knight
Truly this said the friar is our liege lady of the forest against whom I do apprehend thee in overt act of treason What sayest thou for thyself
I say answered the knight that if this be indeed a lady man never yet held me so long
Spoken said the friar like one who hath done execution Hast thou thy stomach full of steel Wilt thou diversify thy repast with a taste of my oakgraff Or wilt thou incline thine heart to our venison which truly is cooling Wilt thou fight or wilt thou dine or wilt thou fight and dine or wilt thou dine and fight I am for thee choose as thou mayest
I will dine said the knight for with lady I never fought before and with friar I never fought yet and with neither will I ever fight knowingly and if this be the queen of the forest I will not being in her own dominions be backward to do her homage
So saying he kissed the hand of Marian who was pleased most graciously to express her approbation
Gramercy sir knight said the friar I laud thee for thy courtesy which I deem to be no less than thy valour Now do thou follow me while I follow my nose which scents the pleasant odour of roast from the depth of the forest recesses I will lead thy horse and do thou lead my lady
The knight took Marians hand and followed the friar who walked before them singing
When the wind blows when the wind blows
From where under buck the dry log glows
What guide can you follow
Oer brake and oer hollow
So true as a ghostly ghostly nose
CHAPTER XVIII
Robin and Richard were two pretty men
—Mother Gooses Melody
They proceeded following their infallible guide first along a light elastic greensward under the shade of lofty and widespreading trees that skirted a sunny opening of the forest then along labyrinthine paths which the deer the outlaw or the woodman had made through the close shoots of the young coppices through the thick undergrowth of the ancient woods through beds of gigantic fern that filled the narrow glades and waved their green feathery heads above the plume of the knight Along these sylvan alleys they walked in single file the friar singing and pioneering in the van the horse plunging and floundering behind the friar the lady following in maiden meditation fancy free and the knight bringing up the rear much marvelling at the strange company into which his stars had thrown him Their path had expanded sufficiently to allow the knight to take Marians hand again when they arrived in the august presence of Robin Hood and his court
Robins table was spread under a high overarching canopy of living boughs on the edge of a natural lawn of verdure starred with flowers through which a swift transparent rivulet ran sparkling in the sun The board was covered with abundance of choice food and excellent liquor not without the comeliness of snowwhite linen and the splendour of costly plate which the sheriff of Nottingham had unwillingly contributed to supply at the same time with an excellent cook whom Little Johns art had spirited away to the forest with the contents of his masters silver scullery
An hundred foresters were here assembled overready for their dinner some seated at the table and some lying in groups under the trees
Robin bade courteous welcome to the knight who took his seat between Robin and Marian at the festal board at which was already placed one strange guest in the person of a portly monk sitting between Little John and Scarlet with his rotund physiognomy elongated into an unnatural oval by the conjoint influence of sorrow and fear sorrow for the departed contents of his travelling treasury a goodlooking valise which was hanging empty on a bough and fear for his personal safety of which all the flasks and pasties before him could not give him assurance The appearance of the knight however cheered him up with a semblance of protection and gave him just sufficient courage to demolish a cygnet and a rumblepie which he diluted with the contents of two flasks of canary sack
But wine which sometimes creates and often increases joy doth also upon occasion heighten sorrow and so it fared now with our portly monk who had no sooner explained away his portion of provender than he began to weep and bewail himself bitterly
Why dost thou weep man said Robin Hood Thou hast done thine embassy justly and shalt have thy Ladys grace
Alack alack said the monk no embassy had I luckless sinner as well thou wottest but to take to my abbey in safety the treasure whereof thou hast despoiled me
Propound me his case said Friar Tuck and I will give him ghostly counsel
You well remember said Robin Hood the sorrowful knight who dined with us here twelve months and a day gone by
Well do I said Friar Tuck His lands were in jeopardy with a certain abbot who would allow him no longer day for their redemption Whereupon you lent to him the four hundred pounds which he needed and which he was to repay this day though he had no better security to give than our Lady the Virgin
I never desired better said Robin for she never yet failed to send me my pay and here is one of her own flock this faithful and wellfavoured monk of St Marys hath brought it me duly principal and interest to a penny as Little John can testify who told it forth To be sure he denied having it but that was to prove our faith We sought and found it
I know nothing of your knight said the monk and the money was our own as the Virgin shall bless me
She shall bless thee said Friar Tuck for a faithful messenger
The monk resumed his wailing Little John brought him his horse Robin gave him leave to depart He sprang with singular nimbleness into the saddle and vanished without saying God give you good day
The stranger knight laughed heartily as the monk rode off
They say sir knight said Friar Tuck they should laugh who win but thou laughest who art likely to lose
I have won said the knight a good dinner some mirth and some knowledge and I cannot lose by paying for them
Bravely said answered Robin Still it becomes thee to pay for it is not meet that a poor forester should treat a rich knight How much money hast thou with thee
Troth I know not said the knight Sometimes much sometimes little sometimes none But search and what thou findest keep and for the sake of thy kind heart and open hand be it what it may I shall wish it were more
Then since thou sayest so said Robin not a penny will I touch Many a false churl comes hither and disburses against his will and till there is lack of these I prey not on true men
Thou art thyself a true man right well I judge Robin said the stranger knight and seemest more like one bred in court than to thy present outlaw life
Our life said the friar is a craft an art and a mystery How much of it think you could be learned at court
Indeed I cannot say said the stranger knight but I should apprehend very little
And so should I said the friar for we should find very little of our bold open practice but should hear abundance of praise of our principles To live in seeming fellowship and secret rivalry to have a hand for all and a heart for none to be everybodys acquaintance and nobodys friend to meditate the ruin of all on whom we smile and to dread the secret stratagems of all who smile on us to pilfer honours and despoil fortunes not by fighting in daylight but by sapping in darkness these are arts which the court can teach but which we by r Lady have not learned But let your courtminstrel tune up his throat to the praise of your courthero then come our principles into play then is our practice extolled not by the same name for their Richard is a hero and our Robin is a thief marry your hero guts an exchequer while your thief disembowels a portmanteau your hero sacks a city while your thief sacks a cellar your hero marauds on a larger scale and that is all the difference for the principle and the virtue are one but two of a trade cannot agree therefore your hero makes laws to get rid of your thief and gives him an ill name that he may hang him for might is right and the strong make laws for the weak and they that make laws to serve their own turn do also make morals to give colour to their laws
Your comparison friar said the stranger fails in this that your thief fights for profit and your hero for honour I have fought under the banners of Richard and if as you phrase it he guts exchequers and sacks cities it is not to win treasure for himself but to furnish forth the means of his greater and more glorious aim
Misconceive me not sir knight said the friar We all love and honour King Richard and here is a deep draught to his health but I would show you that we foresters are miscalled by opprobrious names and that our virtues though they follow at humble distance are yet truly akin to those of CoeurdeLion I say not that Richard is a thief but I say that Robin is a hero and for honour did ever yet man miscalled thief win greater honour than Robin Do not all men grace him with some honourable epithet The most gentle thief the most courteous thief the most bountiful thief yea and the most honest thief Richard is courteous bountiful honest and valiant but so also is Robin it is the false word that makes the unjust distinction They are twinspirits and should be friends but that fortune hath differently cast their lot but their names shall descend together to the latest days as the flower of their age and of England for in the pure principles of freebootery have they excelled all men and to the principles of freebootery diversely developed belong all the qualities to which song and story concede renown
And you may add friar said Marian that Robin no less than Richard is king in his own dominion and that if his subjects be fewer yet are they more uniformly loyal
I would fair lady said the stranger that thy latter observation were not so true But I nothing doubt Robin that if Richard could hear your friar and see you and your lady as I now do there is not a man in England whom he would take by the hand more cordially than yourself
Gramercy sir knight said Robin—— But his speech was cut short by Little John calling Hark
All listened A distant trampling of horses was heard The sounds approached rapidly and at length a group of horsemen glittering in holyday dresses was visible among the trees
Gods my life said Robin what means this To arms my merrymen all
No arms Robin said the foremost horseman riding up and springing from his saddle have you forgotten Sir William of the Lee
No by my fay said Robin and right welcome again to Sherwood
Little John bustled to rearray the disorganised economy of the table and replace the dilapidations of the provender
I come late Robin said Sir William but I came by a wrestling where I found a good yeoman wrongfully beset by a crowd of sturdy varlets and I staid to do him right
I thank thee for that in Gods name said Robin as if thy good service had been to myself
And here said the knight is thy four hundred pound and my men have brought thee an hundred bows and as many wellfurnished quivers which I beseech thee to receive and to use as a poor token of my grateful kindness to thee for me and my wife and children didst thou redeem from beggary
Thy bows and arrows said Robin will I joyfully receive but of thy money not a penny It is paid already My Lady who was thy security hath sent it me for thee
Sir William pressed but Robin was inflexible
It is paid said Robin as this good knight can testify who saw my Ladys messenger depart but now
Sir William looked round to the stranger knight and instantly fell on his knee saying God save King Richard
The foresters friar and all dropped on their knees together and repeated in chorus God save King Richard
Rise rise said Richard smiling Robin is king here as his lady hath shown I have heard much of thee Robin both of thy present and thy former state And this thy fair forestqueen is if tales say true the lady Matilda Fitzwater
Marian signed acknowledgment
Your father said the king has approved his fidelity to me by the loss of his lands which the newness of my return and many public cares have not yet given me time to restore but this justice shall be done to him and to thee also Robin if thou wilt leave thy forestlife and resume thy earldom and be a peer of CoeurdeLion for braver heart and juster hand I never yet found
Robin looked round on his men
Your followers said the king shall have free pardon and such of them as thou wilt part with shall have maintenance from me and if ever I confess to priest it shall be to thy friar
Gramercy to your majesty said the friar and my inflictions shall be flasks of canary and if the number be as in grave cases I may peradventure make it too great for one frail mortality I will relieve you by vicarious penance and pour down my own throat the redundancy of the burden
Robin and his followers embraced the kings proposal A joyful meeting soon followed with the baron and Sir Guy of Gamwell and Richard himself honoured with his own presence a formal solemnization of the nuptials of our lovers whom he constantly distinguished with his peculiar regard
The friar could not say Farewell to the forest without something of a heavy heart and he sang as he turned his back upon its bounds occasionally reverting his head
Ye woods that oft at sultry noon
Have oer me spread your messy shade
Ye gushing streams whose murmured tune
Has in my ear sweet music made
While where the dancing pebbles show
Deep in the restless fountainpool
The gelid waters upward flow
My second flask was laid to cool
Ye pleasant sights of leaf and flower
Ye pleasant sounds of bird and bee
Ye sports of deer in sylvan bower
Ye feasts beneath the greenwood tree
Ye baskings in the vernal sun
Ye slumbers in the summer dell
Ye trophies that this arm has won
And must ye hear your friars farewell
But the friars farewell was not destined to be eternal He was domiciled as the family confessor of the earl and countess of Huntingdon who led a discreet and courtly life and kept up old hospitality in all its munificence till the death of King Richard and the usurpation of John by placing their enemy in power compelled them to return to their greenwood sovereignty which it is probable they would have before done from choice if their love of sylvan liberty had not been counteracted by their desire to retain the friendship of CoeurdeLion Their old and tried adherents the friar among the foremost flocked again round their forestbanner and in merry Sherwood they long lived together the lady still retaining her former name of Maid Marian though the appellation was then as much a misnomer as that of Little John
THE END