Kenilworth by Walter Scott (libby ebook reader TXT) 📖

“Thus much courtesy, sir,” said the schoolmaster, “I can readily render you, that although there is in this poor hamlet (NOSTRA PAUPERA REGNA) no regular HOSPITIUM, as my namesake Erasmus calleth it, yet, forasmuch as you are somewhat embued, or at least tinged, as it were, with good letters, I will use my interest with the good woman of the house to accommodate you with a platter of furmity—an wholesome food for which I have found no Latin phrase—your horse shall have a share of the cow-house, with a bottle of sweet hay, in which the good woman Sludge so much abounds, that it may be said of her cow, FAENUM HABET IN CORNU; and if it please you to bestow on me the pleasure of your company, the banquet shall cost you NE SEMISSEM QUIDEM, so much is Gammer Sludge bound to me for the pains I have bestowed on the top and bottom of her hopeful heir Dickie, whom I have painfully made to travel through the accidence.”

“Now, God yield ye for it, Master Herasmus,” said the good Gammer, “and grant that little Dickie may be the better for his accident! And for the rest, if the gentleman list to stay, breakfast shall be on the board in the wringing of a dishclout; and for horse-meat, and man's meat, I bear no such base mind as to ask a penny.”

Considering the state of his horse, Tressilian, upon the whole, saw no better course than to accept the invitation thus learnedly made and hospitably confirmed, and take chance that when the good pedagogue had exhausted every topic of conversation, he might possibly condescend to tell him where he could find the smith they spoke of. He entered the hut accordingly, and sat down with the learned Magister Erasmus Holiday, partook of his furmity, and listened to his learned account of himself for a good half hour, ere he could get him to talk upon any other topic, The reader will readily excuse our accompanying this man of learning into all the details with which he favoured Tressilian, of which the following sketch may suffice.

He was born at Hogsnorton, where, according to popular saying, the pigs play upon the organ; a proverb which he interpreted allegorically, as having reference to the herd of Epicurus, of which litter Horace confessed himself a porker. His name of Erasmus he derived partly from his father having been the son of a renowned washerwoman, who had held that great scholar in clean linen all the while he was at Oxford; a task of some difficulty, as he was only possessed of two shirts, “the one,” as she expressed herself, “to wash the other,” The vestiges of one of these CAMICIAE, as Master Holiday boasted, were still in his possession, having fortunately been detained by his grandmother to cover the balance of her bill. But he thought there was a still higher and overruling cause for his having had the name of Erasmus conferred on him—namely, the secret presentiment of his mother's mind that, in the babe to be christened, was a hidden genius, which should one day lead him to rival the fame of the great scholar of Amsterdam. The schoolmaster's surname led him as far into dissertation as his Christian appellative. He was inclined to think that he bore the name of Holiday QUASI LUCUS A NON LUCENDO, because he gave such few holidays to his school. “Hence,” said he, “the schoolmaster is termed, classically, LUDI MAGISTER, because he deprives boys of their play.” And yet, on the other hand, he thought it might bear a very different interpretation, and refer to his own exquisite art in arranging pageants, morris-dances, May-day festivities, and such-like holiday delights, for which he assured Tressilian he had positively the purest and the most inventive brain in England; insomuch, that his cunning in framing such pleasures had made him known to many honourable persons, both in country and court, and especially to the noble Earl of Leicester. “And although he may now seem to forget me,” he said, “in the multitude of state affairs, yet I am well assured that, had he some pretty pastime to array for entertainment of the Queen's Grace, horse and man would be seeking the humble cottage of Erasmus Holiday. PARVO CONTENTUS, in the meanwhile, I hear my pupils parse and construe, worshipful sir, and drive away my time with the aid of the Muses. And I have at all times, when in correspondence with foreign scholars, subscribed myself Erasmus ab Die Fausto, and have enjoyed the distinction due to the learned under that title: witness the erudite Diedrichus Buckerschockius, who dedicated to me under that title his treatise on the letter TAU. In fine, sir, I have been a happy and distinguished man.”

“Long may it be so, sir!” said the traveller; “but permit me to ask, in your own learned phrase, QUID HOC AD IPHYCLI BOVES? what has all this to do with the shoeing of my poor nag?”

“FESTINA LENTE,” said the man of learning, “we will presently came to that point. You must know that some two or three years past there came to these parts one who called himself Doctor Doboobie, although it may be he never wrote even MAGISTER ARTIUM, save in right of his hungry belly. Or it may be, that if he had any degrees, they were of the devil's giving; for he was what the vulgar call a white witch, a cunning man, and such like.—Now, good sir, I perceive you are impatient; but if a man tell not his tale his own way, how have you warrant to think that he can tell it in yours?”

“Well, then, learned sir, take your way,” answered Tressilian; “only let us travel at a sharper pace, for my time is somewhat of the shortest.”

“Well, sir,” resumed Erasmus Holiday, with the most provoking perseverance, “I will not say that this same Demetrius for so he wrote himself when in foreign parts, was an actual conjurer, but certain it is that he professed to be a brother of the mystical Order of the Rosy Cross, a disciple of Geber (EX NOMINE CUJUS VENIT VERBUM VERNACULUM, GIBBERISH). He cured wounds by salving the weapon instead of the sore; told fortunes by palmistry; discovered stolen goods by the sieve and shears; gathered the right maddow and the male fern seed, through use of which men walk invisible; pretended some advances towards the panacea, or universal elixir; and affected to convert good lead into sorry silver.”

“In other words,” said Tressilian, “he was a quacksalver and common cheat; but what has all this to do with my nag, and the shoe which he has lost?”

“With your worshipful patience,” replied the diffusive man of letters, “you shall understand that presently—PATIENTIA then, right worshipful, which word, according to our Marcus Tullius, is 'DIFFICILIUM RERUM DIURNA PERPESSIO.' This same Demetrius Doboobie, after dealing with the country, as I have told you, began to acquire fame INTER MAGNATES, among the prime men of the land, and there is likelihood he might have aspired to great matters, had not, according to vulgar fame (for I aver not the thing as according with my certain knowledge), the devil claimed his right, one dark night, and flown off with Demetrius, who was never seen or heard of afterwards. Now here comes the MEDULLA, the very marrow, of my tale. This Doctor Doboobie had a servant, a poor snake, whom he employed in trimming his furnace, regulating it by just measure—compounding his drugs—tracing his circles—cajoling his patients, ET SIC DE CAETERIS. Well, right worshipful, the Doctor being removed thus strangely, and in a way which struck the whole country with terror, this poor Zany thinks to himself, in the words of Maro, 'UNO AVULSO, NON DEFICIT ALTER;' and, even as a tradesman's apprentice sets himself up in his master's shop when he is dead or hath retired from business, so doth this Wayland assume