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

reconcile them with

God; since it is our fixed intention to execute them this morning

before noon, so that their heads being placed on the battlements,

shall show to all men how lightly we esteem those who have

bestirred themselves in their rescue. Wherefore, as above, we

require you to send a priest to reconcile them to God, in doing

which you shall render them the last earthly service.”

This letter being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him

to the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which

he had brought.

The yeoman having thus accomplished his mission, returned to the

head-quarters of the allies, which were for the present

established under a venerable oak-tree, about three arrow-flights

distant from the castle. Here Wamba and Gurth, with their allies

the Black Knight and Locksley, and the jovial hermit, awaited

with impatience an answer to their summons. Around, and at a

distance from them, were seen many a bold yeoman, whose silvan

dress and weatherbeaten countenances showed the ordinary nature

of their occupation. More than two hundred had already

assembled, and others were fast coming in. Those whom they

obeyed as leaders were only distinguished from the others by a

feather in the cap, their dress, arms, and equipments being in

all other respects the same.

Besides these bands, a less orderly and a worse armed force,

consisting of the Saxon inhabitants of the neighbouring township,

as well as many bondsmen and servants from Cedric’s extensive

estate, had already arrived, for the purpose of assisting in his

rescue. Few of these were armed otherwise than with such rustic

weapons as necessity sometimes converts to military purposes.

Boar-spears, scythes, flails, and the like, were their chief

arms; for the Normans, with the usual policy of conquerors, were

jealous of permitting to the vanquished Saxons the possession or

the use of swords and spears. These circumstances rendered the

assistance of the Saxons far from being so formidable to the

besieged, as the strength of the men themselves, their superior

numbers, and the animation inspired by a just cause, might

otherwise well have made them. It was to the leaders of this

motley army that the letter of the Templar was now delivered.

Reference was at first made to the chaplain for an exposition of

its contents.

“By the crook of St Dunstan,” said that worthy ecclesiastic,

“which hath brought more sheep within the sheepfold than the

crook of e’er another saint in Paradise, I swear that I cannot

expound unto you this jargon, which, whether it be French or

Arabic, is beyond my guess.”

He then gave the letter to Gurth, who shook his head gruffly, and

passed it to Wamba. The Jester looked at each of the four

corners of the paper with such a grin of affected intelligence as

a monkey is apt to assume upon similar occasions, then cut a

caper, and gave the letter to Locksley.

“If the long letters were bows, and the short letters broad

arrows, I might know something of the matter,” said the brave

yeoman; “but as the matter stands, the meaning is as safe, for

me, as the stag that’s at twelve miles distance.”

“I must be clerk, then,” said the Black Knight; and taking the

letter from Locksley, he first read it over to himself, and then

explained the meaning in Saxon to his confederates.

“Execute the noble Cedric!” exclaimed Wamba; “by the rood, thou

must be mistaken, Sir Knight.”

“Not I, my worthy friend,” replied the knight, “I have explained

the words as they are here set down.”

“Then, by St Thomas of Canterbury,” replied Gurth, “we will have

the castle, should we tear it down with our hands!”

“We have nothing else to tear it with,” replied Wamba; “but mine

are scarce fit to make mammocks of freestone and mortar.”

“‘Tis but a contrivance to gain time,” said Locksley; “they dare

not do a deed for which I could exact a fearful penalty.”

“I would,” said the Black Knight, “there were some one among us

who could obtain admission into the castle, and discover how the

case stands with the besieged. Methinks, as they require a

confessor to be sent, this holy hermit might at once exercise his

pious vocation, and procure us the information we desire.”

“A plague on thee, and thy advice!” said the pious hermit; “I

tell thee, Sir Slothful Knight, that when I doff my friar’s

frock, my priesthood, my sanctity, my very Latin, are put off

along with it; and when in my green jerkin, I can better kill

twenty deer than confess one Christian.”

“I fear,” said the Black Knight, “I fear greatly, there is no one

here that is qualified to take upon him, for the nonce, this same

character of father confessor?”

All looked on each other, and were silent.

“I see,” said Wamba, after a short pause, “that the fool must be

still the fool, and put his neck in the venture which wise men

shrink from. You must know, my dear cousins and countrymen, that

I wore russet before I wore motley, and was bred to be a friar,

until a brain-fever came upon me and left me just wit enough to

be a fool. I trust, with the assistance of the good hermit’s

frock, together with the priesthood, sanctity, and learning which

are stitched into the cowl of it, I shall be found qualified to

administer both worldly and ghostly comfort to our worthy master

Cedric, and his companions in adversity.”

“Hath he sense enough, thinkst thou?” said the Black Knight,

addressing Gurth.

“I know not,” said Gurth; “but if he hath not, it will be the

first time he hath wanted wit to turn his folly to account.”

“On with the frock, then, good fellow,” quoth the Knight, “and

let thy master send us an account of their situation within the

castle. Their numbers must be few, and it is five to one they

may be accessible by a sudden and bold attack. Time wears---away

with thee.”

“And, in the meantime,” said Locksley, “we will beset the place

so closely, that not so much as a fly shall carry news from

thence. So that, my good friend,” he continued, addressing

Wamba, “thou mayst assure these tyrants, that whatever violence

they exercise on the persons of their prisoners, shall be most

severely repaid upon their own.”

“Pax vobiscum,” said Wamba, who was now muffled in his religious

disguise.

And so saying he imitated the solemn and stately deportment of a

friar, and departed to execute his mission.

CHAPTER XXVI

The hottest horse will oft be cool,

The dullest will show fire;

The friar will often play the fool,

The fool will play the friar.

Old Song

When the Jester, arrayed in the cowl and frock of the hermit, and

having his knotted cord twisted round his middle, stood before

the portal of the castle of Front-de-Boeuf, the warder demanded

of him his name and errand.

“Pax vobiscum,” answered the Jester, “I am a poor brother of the

Order of St Francis, who come hither to do my office to certain

unhappy prisoners now secured within this castle.”

“Thou art a bold friar,” said the warder, “to come hither, where,

saving our own drunken confessor, a cock of thy feather hath not

crowed these twenty years.”

“Yet I pray thee, do mine errand to the lord of the castle,”

answered the pretended friar; “trust me it will find good

acceptance with him, and the cock shall crow, that the whole

castle shall hear him.”

“Gramercy,” said the warder; “but if I come to shame for leaving

my post upon thine errand, I will try whether a friar’s grey gown

be proof against a grey-goose shaft.”

With this threat he left his turret, and carried to the hall of

the castle his unwonted intelligence, that a holy friar stood

before the gate and demanded instant admission. With no small

wonder he received his master’s commands to admit the holy man

immediately; and, having previously manned the entrance to guard

against surprise, he obeyed, without further scruple, the

commands which he had received. The harebrained self-conceit

which had emboldened Wamba to undertake this dangerous office,

was scarce sufficient to support him when he found himself in the

presence of a man so dreadful, and so much dreaded, as Reginald

Front-de-Boeuf, and he brought out his “pax vobiscum”, to which

he, in a good measure, trusted for supporting his character, with

more anxiety and hesitation than had hitherto accompanied it.

But Front-de-Boeuf was accustomed to see men of all ranks tremble

in his presence, so that the timidity of the supposed father did

not give him any cause of suspicion.

“Who and whence art thou, priest?” said he.

“‘Pax vobiscum’,” reiterated the Jester, “I am a poor servant of

St Francis, who, travelling through this wilderness, have fallen

among thieves, (as Scripture hath it,) ‘quidam viator incidit in

latrones’, which thieves have sent me unto this castle in order

to do my ghostly office on two persons condemned by your

honourable justice.”

“Ay, right,” answered Front-de-Boeuf; “and canst thou tell me,

holy father, the number of those banditti?”

“Gallant sir,” answered the Jester, “‘nomen illis legio’, their

name is legion.”

“Tell me in plain terms what numbers there are, or, priest, thy

cloak and cord will ill protect thee.”

“Alas!” said the supposed friar, “‘cor meum eructavit’, that is

to say, I was like to burst with fear! but I conceive they may be

---what of yeomen ---what of commons, at least five hundred men.”

“What!” said the Templar, who came into the hall that moment,

“muster the wasps so thick here? it is time to stifle such a

mischievous brood.” Then taking Front-de-Boeuf aside “Knowest

thou the priest?”

“He is a stranger from a distant convent,” said Front-de-Boeuf;

“I know him not.”

“Then trust him not with thy purpose in words,” answered the

Templar. “Let him carry a written order to De Bracy’s company

of Free Companions, to repair instantly to their master’s aid.

In the meantime, and that the shaveling may suspect nothing,

permit him to go freely about his task of preparing these Saxon

hogs for the slaughter-house.”

“It shall be so,” said Front-de-Boeuf. And he forthwith

appointed a domestic to conduct Wamba to the apartment where

Cedric and Athelstane were confined.

The impatience of Cedric had been rather enhanced than diminished

by his confinement. He walked from one end of the hall to the

other, with the attitude of one who advances to charge an enemy,

or to storm the breach of a beleaguered place, sometimes

ejaculating to himself, sometimes addressing Athelstane, who

stoutly and stoically awaited the issue of the adventure,

digesting, in the meantime, with great composure, the liberal

meal which he had made at noon, and not greatly interesting

himself about the duration of his captivity, which he concluded,

would, like all earthly evils, find an end in Heaven’s good time.

“‘Pax vobiscum’,” said the Jester, entering the apartment; “the

blessing of St Dunstan, St Dennis, St Duthoc, and all other

saints whatsoever, be upon ye and about ye.”

“Enter freely,” answered Cedric to the supposed friar; “with what

intent art thou come hither?”

“To bid you prepare yourselves for death,” answered the Jester.

“It is impossible!” replied Cedric, starting. “Fearless and

wicked as they are, they dare not attempt such open and

gratuitous cruelty!”

“Alas!” said the Jester, “to restrain them by their sense of

humanity, is the same as to stop a runaway horse with a bridle of

silk thread. Bethink thee, therefore, noble Cedric, and you

also, gallant Athelstane, what crimes you have committed in the

flesh; for this very day will ye be called to answer at