Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (world best books to read .TXT) 📖

and, with bonnet doffed, the future

Chancellor (for to such high preferment did the wily Norman

aspire) hastened to receive the orders of the future sovereign.

CHAPTER XVI

Far in a wild, unknown to public view,

From youth to age a reverend hermit grew;

The moss his bed, the cave his humble cell,

His food the fruits, his drink the crystal well

Remote from man, with God he pass’d his days,

Prayer all his business---all his pleasure praise.

Parnell

The reader cannot have forgotten that the event of the tournament

was decided by the exertions of an unknown knight, whom, on

account of the passive and indifferent conduct which he had

manifested on the former part of the day, the spectators had

entitled, “Le Noir Faineant”. This knight had left the field

abruptly when the victory was achieved; and when he was called

upon to receive the reward of his valour, he was nowhere to be

found. In the meantime, while summoned by heralds and by

trumpets, the knight was holding his course northward, avoiding

all frequented paths, and taking the shortest road through the

woodlands. He paused for the night at a small hostelry lying out

of the ordinary route, where, however, he obtained from a

wandering minstrel news of the event of the tourney.

On the next morning the knight departed early, with the intention

of making a long journey; the condition of his horse, which he

had carefully spared during the preceding morning, being such as

enabled him to travel far without the necessity of much repose.

Yet his purpose was baffled by the devious paths through which he

rode, so that when evening closed upon him, he only found himself

on the frontiers of the West Riding of Yorkshire. By this time

both horse and man required refreshment, and it became necessary,

moreover, to look out for some place in which they might spend

the night, which was now fast approaching.

The place where the traveller found himself seemed unpropitious

for obtaining either shelter or refreshment, and he was likely to

be reduced to the usual expedient of knights-errant, who, on such

occasions, turned their horses to graze, and laid themselves down

to meditate on their lady-mistress, with an oak-tree for a

canopy. But the Black Knight either had no mistress to meditate

upon, or, being as indifferent in love as he seemed to be in war,

was not sufficiently occupied by passionate reflections upon her

beauty and cruelty, to be able to parry the effects of fatigue

and hunger, and suffer love to act as a substitute for the solid

comforts of a bed and supper. He felt dissatisfied, therefore,

when, looking around, he found himself deeply involved in woods,

through which indeed there were many open glades, and some paths,

but such as seemed only formed by the numerous herds of cattle

which grazed in the forest, or by the animals of chase, and the

hunters who made prey of them.

The sun, by which the knight had chiefly directed his course, had

now sunk behind the Derbyshire hills on his left, and every

effort which he might make to pursue his journey was as likely to

lead him out of his road as to advance him on his route. After

having in vain endeavoured to select the most beaten path, in

hopes it might lead to the cottage of some herdsman, or the

silvan lodge of a forester, and having repeatedly found himself

totally unable to determine on a choice, the knight resolved to

trust to the sagacity of his horse; experience having, on former

occasions, made him acquainted with the wonderful talent

possessed by these animals for extricating themselves and their

riders on such emergencies.

The good steed, grievously fatigued with so long a day’s journey

under a rider cased in mail, had no sooner found, by the

slackened reins, that he was abandoned to his own guidance, than

he seemed to assume new strength and spirit; and whereas,

formerly he had scarce replied to the spur, otherwise than by a

groan, he now, as if proud of the confidence reposed in him,

pricked up his ears, and assumed, of his own accord, a more

lively motion. The path which the animal adopted rather turned

off from the course pursued by the knight during the day; but as

the horse seemed confident in his choice, the rider abandoned

himself to his discretion.

He was justified by the event; for the footpath soon after

appeared a little wider and more worn, and the tinkle of a small

bell gave the knight to understand that he was in the vicinity

of some chapel or hermitage.

Accordingly, he soon reached an open plat of turf, on the

opposite side of which, a rock, rising abruptly from a gently

sloping plain, offered its grey and weatherbeaten front to the

traveller. Ivy mantled its sides in some places, and in others

oaks and holly bushes, whose roots found nourishment in the

cliffs of the crag, waved over the precipices below, like the

plumage of the warrior over his steel helmet, giving grace to

that whose chief expression was terror. At the bottom of the

rock, and leaning, as it were, against it, was constructed a rude

hut, built chiefly of the trunks of trees felled in the

neighbouring forest, and secured against the weather by having

its crevices stuffed with moss mingled with clay. The stem of a

young fir-tree lopped of its branches, with a piece of wood tied

across near the top, was planted upright by the door, as a rude

emblem of the holy cross. At a little distance on the right

hand, a fountain of the purest water trickled out of the rock,

and was received in a hollow stone, which labour had formed into

a rustic basin. Escaping from thence, the stream murmured down

the descent by a channel which its course had long worn, and so

wandered through the little plain to lose itself in the

neighbouring wood.

Beside this fountain were the ruins of a very small chapel, of

which the roof had partly fallen in. The building, when entire,

had never been above sixteen feet long by twelve feet in breadth,

and the roof, low in proportion, rested upon four concentric

arches which sprung from the four corners of the building, each

supported upon a short and heavy pillar. The ribs of two of

these arches remained, though the roof had fallen down betwixt

them; over the others it remained entire. The entrance to this

ancient place of devotion was under a very low round arch,

ornamented by several courses of that zig-zag moulding,

resembling shark’s teeth, which appears so often in the more

ancient Saxon architecture. A belfry rose above the porch on

four small pillars, within which hung the green and weatherbeaten

bell, the feeble sounds of which had been some time before heard

by the Black Knight.

The whole peaceful and quiet scene lay glimmering in twilight

before the eyes of the traveller, giving him good assurance of

lodging for the night; since it was a special duty of those

hermits who dwelt in the woods, to exercise hospitality towards

benighted or bewildered passengers.

Accordingly, the knight took no time to consider minutely the

particulars which we have detailed, but thanking Saint Julian

(the patron of travellers) who had sent him good harbourage, he

leaped from his horse and assailed the door of the hermitage

with the butt of his lance, in order to arouse attention and

gain admittance.

It was some time before he obtained any answer,

and the reply, when made, was unpropitious.

“Pass on, whosoever thou art,” was the answer given by a deep

hoarse voice from within the hut, “and disturb not the servant of

God and St Dunstan in his evening devotions.”

“Worthy father,” answered the knight, “here is a poor wanderer

bewildered in these woods, who gives thee the opportunity of

exercising thy charity and hospitality.”

“Good brother,” replied the inhabitant of the hermitage, “it has

pleased Our Lady and St Dunstan to destine me for the object of

those virtues, instead of the exercise thereof. I have no

provisions here which even a dog would share with me, and a horse

of any tenderness of nurture would despise my couch---pass

therefore on thy way, and God speed thee.”

“But how,” replied the knight, “is it possible for me to find my

way through such a wood as this, when darkness is coming on? I

pray you, reverend father as you are a Christian, to undo your

door, and at least point out to me my road.”

“And I pray you, good Christian brother,” replied the anchorite,

“to disturb me no more. You have already interrupted one

‘pater’, two ‘aves’, and a ‘credo’, which I, miserable sinner

that I am, should, according to my vow, have said before

moonrise.”

“The road---the road!” vociferated the knight, “give me

directions for the road, if I am to expect no more from thee.”

“The road,” replied the hermit, “is easy to hit. The path from

the wood leads to a morass, and from thence to a ford, which, as

the rains have abated, may now be passable. When thou hast

crossed the ford, thou wilt take care of thy footing up the left

bank, as it is somewhat precipitous; and the path, which hangs

over the river, has lately, as I learn, (for I seldom leave the

duties of my chapel,) given way in sundry places. Thou wilt then

keep straight forward-----”

“A broken path---a precipice---a ford, and a morass!” said the

knight interrupting him,---“Sir Hermit, if you were the holiest

that ever wore beard or told bead, you shall scarce prevail on me

to hold this road to-night. I tell thee, that thou, who livest

by the charity of the country---ill deserved, as I doubt it is

---hast no right to refuse shelter to the wayfarer when in

distress. Either open the door quickly, or, by the rood, I will

beat it down and make entry for myself.”

“Friend wayfarer,” replied the hermit, “be not importunate; if

thou puttest me to use the carnal weapon in mine own defence, it

will be e’en the worse for you.”

At this moment a distant noise of barking and growling, which the

traveller had for some time heard, became extremely loud and

furious, and made the knight suppose that the hermit, alarmed

by his threat of making forcible entry, had called the dogs who

made this clamour to aid him in his defence, out of some inner

recess in which they had been kennelled. Incensed at this

preparation on the hermit’s part for making good his inhospitable

purpose, the knight struck the door so furiously with his foot,

that posts as well as staples shook with violence.

The anchorite, not caring again to expose his door to a similar

shock, now called out aloud, “Patience, patience---spare thy

strength, good traveller, and I will presently undo the door,

though, it may be, my doing so will be little to thy pleasure.”

The door accordingly was opened; and the hermit, a large,

strong-built man, in his sackcloth gown and hood, girt with a

rope of rushes, stood before the knight. He had in one hand a

lighted torch, or link, and in the other a baton of crab-tree,

so thick and heavy, that it might well be termed a club. Two

large shaggy dogs, half greyhound half mastiff, stood ready to

rush upon the traveller as soon as the door should be opened.

But when the torch glanced upon the lofty crest and golden spurs

of the knight, who stood without, the hermit, altering probably

his original intentions, repressed the rage of his auxiliaries,

and, changing his tone to a sort of churlish courtesy, invited

the knight to enter his hut, making excuse for his unwillingness

to