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

>Cedric would have enquired farther into the purpose which she

thus darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Boeuf was

heard, exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the

scallop-shell of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he

loiters here to hatch treason among my domestics!”

“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil conscience! But

heed him not---out and to thy people---Cry your Saxon onslaught,

and let them sing their war-song of Rollo, if they will;

vengeance shall bear a burden to it.”

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and

Reginald Front-de-Boeuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with

some difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the

haughty Baron, who returned his courtesy with a slight

inclination of the head.

“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift---it is the

better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make.

Hast thou prepared them for death?”

“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command,

“expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power

they had fallen.”

“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Boeuf, “thy speech,

methinks, smacks of a Saxon tongue?”

“I was bred in the convent of St Withold of Burton,” answered

Cedric.

“Ay?” said the Baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a

Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of

messengers. That St Withold’s of Burton is an owlet’s nest worth

the harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall

protect the Saxon as little as the mail-coat.”

“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with

passion, which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.

“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are

in thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy

holy office, and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as

safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of proof.”

“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion.

“Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by

the postern.”

And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar,

Front-de-Boeuf thus schooled him in the part which he desired he

should act.

“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared

to environ this castle of Torquilstone---Tell them whatever thou

hast a mind of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that

can detain them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear

thou this scroll---But soft---canst read, Sir Priest?”

“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I

know the characters, because I have the holy service by heart,

praised be Our Lady and St Withold!”

“The fitter messenger for my purpose.---Carry thou this scroll to

the castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is

written by the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray

him to send it to York with all the speed man and horse can make.

Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and

sound behind our battlement---Shame on it, that we should be

compelled to hide thus by a pack of runagates, who are wont to

fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses!

I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art to keep

the knaves where they are, until our friends bring up their

lances. My vengeance is awake, and she is a falcon that slumbers

not till she has been gorged.”

“By my patron saint,” said Cedric, with deeper energy than became

his character, “and by every saint who has lived and died in

England, your commands shall be obeyed! Not a Saxon shall stir

from before these walls, if I have art and influence to detain

them there.”

“Ha!” said Front-de-Boeuf, “thou changest thy tone, Sir Priest,

and speakest brief and bold, as if thy heart were in the

slaughter of the Saxon herd; and yet thou art thyself of kindred

to the swine?”

Cedric was no ready practiser of the art of dissimulation, and

would at this moment have been much the better of a hint from

Wamba’s more fertile brain. But necessity, according to the

ancient proverb, sharpens invention, and he muttered something

under his cowl concerning the men in question being

excommunicated outlaws both to church and to kingdom.

“‘Despardieux’,” answered Front-de-Boeuf, “thou hast spoken the

very truth---I forgot that the knaves can strip a fat abbot, as

well as if they had been born south of yonder salt channel. Was

it not he of St Ives whom they tied to an oak-tree, and compelled

to sing a mass while they were rifling his mails and his wallets?

---No, by our Lady---that jest was played by Gualtier of

Middleton, one of our own companions-at-arms. But they were

Saxons who robbed the chapel at St Bees of cup, candlestick and

chalice, were they not?”

“They were godless men,” answered Cedric.

“Ay, and they drank out all the good wine and ale that lay in

store for many a secret carousal, when ye pretend ye are but

busied with vigils and primes!---Priest, thou art bound to

revenge such sacrilege.”

“I am indeed bound to vengeance,” murmured Cedric; “Saint Withold

knows my heart.”

Front-de-Boeuf, in the meanwhile, led the way to a postern,

where, passing the moat on a single plank, they reached a small

barbican, or exterior defence, which communicated with the open

field by a well-fortified sallyport.

“Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and if thou

return hither when it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap

as ever was hog’s in the shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee,

thou seemest to be a jolly confessor---come hither after the

onslaught, and thou shalt have as much Malvoisie as would drench

thy whole convent.”

“Assuredly we shall meet again,” answered Cedric.

“Something in hand the whilst,” continued the Norman; and, as

they parted at the postern door, he thrust into Cedric’s

reluctant hand a gold byzant, adding, “Remember, I will fly off

both cowl and skin, if thou failest in thy purpose.”

“And full leave will I give thee to do both,” answered Cedric,

leaving the postern, and striding forth over the free field with

a joyful step, “if, when we meet next, I deserve not better at

thine hand.”---Turning then back towards the castle, he threw the

piece of gold towards the donor, exclaiming at the same time,

“False Norman, thy money perish with thee!”

Front-de-Boeuf heard the words imperfectly, but the action was

suspicious---“Archers,” he called to the warders on the outward

battlements, “send me an arrow through yon monk’s frock!---yet

stay,” he said, as his retainers were bending their bows, “it

avails not—we must thus far trust him since we have no better

shift. I think he dares not betray me---at the worst I can but

treat with these Saxon dogs whom I have safe in kennel.---Ho!

Giles jailor, let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood before me, and

the other churl, his companion---him I mean of Coningsburgh

---Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names are

an encumbrance to a Norman knight’s mouth, and have, as it were,

a flavour of bacon---Give me a stoup of wine, as jolly Prince

John said, that I may wash away the relish---place it in the

armoury, and thither lead the prisoners.”

His commands were obeyed; and, upon entering that Gothic

apartment, hung with many spoils won by his own valour and that

of his father, he found a flagon of wine on the massive oaken

table, and the two Saxon captives under the guard of four of his

dependants. Front-de-Boeuf took a long drought of wine, and then

addressed his prisoners;---for the manner in which Wamba drew the

cap over his face, the change of dress, the gloomy and broken

light, and the Baron’s imperfect acquaintance with the features

of Cedric, (who avoided his Norman neighbours, and seldom stirred

beyond his own domains,) prevented him from discovering that the

most important of his captives had made his escape.

“Gallants of England,” said Front-de-Boeuf, “how relish ye your

entertainment at Torquilstone?---Are ye yet aware what your

‘surquedy’ and ‘outrecuidance’*

“Surquedy” and “outrecuidance” – insolence and presumption

merit, for scoffing at the entertainment of a prince of the House

of Anjou?---Have ye forgotten how ye requited the unmerited

hospitality of the royal John? By God and St Dennis, an ye pay

not the richer ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the

iron bars of these windows, till the kites and hooded crows have

made skeletons of you!---Speak out, ye Saxon dogs---what bid ye

for your worthless lives?---How say you, you of Rotherwood?”

“Not a doit I,” answered poor Wamba---“and for hanging up by the

feet, my brain has been topsy-turvy, they say, ever since the

biggin was bound first round my head; so turning me upside down

may peradventure restore it again.”

“Saint Genevieve!” said Front-de-Boeuf, “what have we got here?”

And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric’s cap from the

head of the Jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered

the fatal badge of servitude, the silver collar round his neck.

“Giles---Clement---dogs and varlets!” exclaimed the furious

Norman, “what have you brought me here?”

“I think I can tell you,” said De Bracy, who just entered the

apartment. “This is Cedric’s clown, who fought so manful a

skirmish with Isaac of York about a question of precedence.”

“I shall settle it for them both,” replied Front-de-Boeuf; “they

shall hang on the same gallows, unless his master and this boar

of Coningsburgh will pay well for their lives. Their wealth is

the least they can surrender; they must also carry off with them

the swarms that are besetting the castle, subscribe a surrender

of their pretended immunities, and live under us as serfs and

vassals; too happy if, in the new world that is about to begin,

we leave them the breath of their nostrils.---Go,” said he to

two of his attendants, “fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I

pardon your error for once; the rather that you but mistook a

fool for a Saxon franklin.”

“Ay, but,” said Wamba, “your chivalrous excellency will find

there are more fools than franklins among us.”

“What means the knave?” said Front-de-Boeuf, looking towards his

followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief,

that if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew

not what was become of him.

“Saints of Heaven!” exclaimed De Bracy, “he must have escaped in

the monk’s garments!”

“Fiends of hell!” echoed Front-de-Boeuf, “it was then the boar of

Rotherwood whom I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my

own hands!---And thou,” he said to Wamba, “whose folly could

overreach the wisdom of idiots yet more gross than thyself---I

will give thee holy orders---I will shave thy crown for thee!

---Here, let them tear the scalp from his head, and then pitch

him headlong from the battlements---Thy trade is to jest, canst

thou jest now?”

“You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,” whimpered

forth poor Wamba, whose habits of buffoonery were not to be

overcome even by the immediate prospect of death; “if you give

me the red cap you propose, out of a simple monk you will make a

cardinal.”

“The poor wretch,” said De Bracy, “is resolved to die in his

vocation.---Front-de-Boeuf, you shall not slay him. Give him to

me to make sport for my Free Companions.---How sayst thou, knave?

Wilt thou take heart of grace, and go to the wars with me?”

“Ay, with my master’s leave,” said Wamba; “for, look you,