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

though, whose sword

turned in his hand, so that the blade struck me flatlings, being

averted by the handle of the good mace with which I warded the

blow; had my steel-cap been on, I had not valued it a rush, and

had dealt him such a counter-buff as would have spoilt his

retreat. But as it was, down I went, stunned, indeed, but

unwounded. Others, of both sides, were beaten down and

slaughtered above me, so that I never recovered my senses until I

found myself in a coffin---(an open one, by good luck)---placed

before the altar of the church of Saint Edmund’s. I sneezed

repeatedly---groaned---awakened and would have arisen, when the

Sacristan and Abbot, full of terror, came running at the noise,

surprised, doubtless, and no way pleased to find the man alive,

whose heirs they had proposed themselves to be. I asked for wine

---they gave me some, but it must have been highly medicated, for

I slept yet more deeply than before, and wakened not for many

hours. I found my arms swathed down---my feet tied so fast that

mine ankles ache at the very remembrance---the place was utterly

dark---the oubliette, as I suppose, of their accursed convent,

and from the close, stifled, damp smell, I conceive it is also

used for a place of sepulture. I had strange thoughts of what

had befallen me, when the door of my dungeon creaked, and two

villain monks entered. They would have persuaded me I was in

purgatory, but I knew too well the pursy short-breathed voice of

the Father Abbot.---Saint Jeremy! how different from that tone

with which he used to ask me for another slice of the haunch!

---the dog has feasted with me from Christmas to Twelfth-night.”

“Have patience, noble Athelstane,” said the King, “take breath

---tell your story at leisure---beshrew me but such a tale is as

well worth listening to as a romance.”

“Ay but, by the rood of Bromeholm, there was no romance in the

matter!” said Athelstane.---“A barley loaf and a pitcher of water

---that THEY gave me, the niggardly traitors, whom my father, and

I myself, had enriched, when their best resources were the

flitches of bacon and measures of corn, out of which they

wheedled poor serfs and bondsmen, in exchange for their prayers

---the nest of foul ungrateful vipers---barley bread and ditch

water to such a patron as I had been! I will smoke them out of

their nest, though I be excommunicated!”

“But, in the name of Our Lady, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric,

grasping the hand of his friend, “how didst thou escape this

imminent danger---did their hearts relent?”

“Did their hearts relent!” echoed Athelstane.---“Do rocks melt

with the sun? I should have been there still, had not some stir

in the Convent, which I find was their procession hitherward to

eat my funeral feast, when they well knew how and where I had

been buried alive, summoned the swarm out of their hive. I

heard them droning out their death-psalms, little judging they

were sung in respect for my soul by those who were thus famishing

my body. They went, however, and I waited long for food---no

wonder---the gouty Sacristan was even too busy with his own

provender to mind mine. At length down he came, with an unstable

step and a strong flavour of wine and spices about his person.

Good cheer had opened his heart, for he left me a nook of pasty

and a flask of wine, instead of my former fare. I ate, drank,

and was invigorated; when, to add to my good luck, the Sacristan,

too totty to discharge his duty of turnkey fitly, locked the

door beside the staple, so that it fell ajar. The light, the

food, the wine, set my invention to work. The staple to which my

chains were fixed, was more rusted than I or the villain Abbot

had supposed. Even iron could not remain without consuming in

the damps of that infernal dungeon.”

“Take breath, noble Athelstane,” said Richard, “and partake of

some refreshment, ere you proceed with a tale so dreadful.”

“Partake!” quoth Athelstane; “I have been partaking five times

to-day---and yet a morsel of that savoury ham were not altogether

foreign to the matter; and I pray you, fair sir, to do me reason

in a cup of wine.”

The guests, though still agape with astonishment, pledged their

resuscitated landlord, who thus proceeded in his story:---He had

indeed now many more auditors than those to whom it was

commenced, for Edith, having given certain necessary orders for

arranging matters within the Castle, had followed the dead-alive

up to the stranger’s apartment attended by as many of the guests,

male and female, as could squeeze into the small room, while

others, crowding the staircase, caught up an erroneous edition of

the story, and transmitted it still more inaccurately to those

beneath, who again sent it forth to the vulgar without, in a

fashion totally irreconcilable to the real fact. Athelstane,

however, went on as follows, with the history of his escape:---

“Finding myself freed from the staple, I dragged myself up stairs

as well as a man loaded with shackles, and emaciated with

fasting, might; and after much groping about, I was at length

directed, by the sound of a jolly roundelay, to the apartment

where the worthy Sacristan, an it so please ye, was holding a

devil’s mass with a huge beetle-browed, broad-shouldered brother

of the grey-frock and cowl, who looked much more like a thief

than a clergyman. I burst in upon them, and the fashion of my

grave-clothes, as well as the clanking of my chains, made me more

resemble an inhabitant of the other world than of this. Both

stood aghast; but when I knocked down the Sacristan with my fist,

the other fellow, his pot-companion, fetched a blow at me with a

huge quarter-staff.”

“This must be our Friar Tuck, for a count’s ransom,” said

Richard, looking at Ivanhoe.

“He may be the devil, an he will,” said Athelstane. “Fortunately

he missed the aim; and on my approaching to grapple with him,

took to his heels and ran for it. I failed not to set my own

heels at liberty by means of the fetter-key, which hung amongst

others at the sexton’s belt; and I had thoughts of beating out

the knave’s brains with the bunch of keys, but gratitude for the

nook of pasty and the flask of wine which the rascal had imparted

to my captivity, came over my heart; so, with a brace of hearty

kicks, I left him on the floor, pouched some baked meat, and a

leathern bottle of wine, with which the two venerable brethren

had been regaling, went to the stable, and found in a private

stall mine own best palfrey, which, doubtless, had been set apart

for the holy Father Abbot’s particular use. Hither I came with

all the speed the beast could compass---man and mother’s son

flying before me wherever I came, taking me for a spectre, the

more especially as, to prevent my being recognised, I drew the

corpse-hood over my face. I had not gained admittance into my

own castle, had I not been supposed to be the attendant of a

juggler who is making the people in the castle-yard very merry,

considering they are assembled to celebrate their lord’s funeral

---I say the sewer thought I was dressed to bear a part in the

tregetour’s mummery, and so I got admission, and did but disclose

myself to my mother, and eat a hasty morsel, ere I came in quest

of you, my noble friend.”

“And you have found me,” said Cedric, “ready to resume our brave

projects of honour and liberty. I tell thee, never will dawn a

morrow so auspicious as the next, for the deliverance of the

noble Saxon race.”

“Talk not to me of delivering any one,” said Athelstane; “it is

well I am delivered myself. I am more intent on punishing that

villain Abbot. He shall hang on the top of this Castle of

Coningsburgh, in his cope and stole; and if the stairs be too

strait to admit his fat carcass, I will have him craned up from

without.”

“But, my son,” said Edith, “consider his sacred office.”

“Consider my three days’ fast,” replied Athelstane; “I will have

their blood every one of them. Front-de-Boeuf was burnt alive

for a less matter, for he kept a good table for his prisoners,

only put too much garlic in his last dish of pottage. But these

hypocritical, ungrateful slaves, so often the self-invited

flatterers at my board, who gave me neither pottage nor garlic,

more or less, they die, by the soul of Hengist!”

“But the Pope, my noble friend,”---said Cedric---

“But the devil, my noble friend,”---answered Athelstane; “they

die, and no more of them. Were they the best monks upon earth,

the world would go on without them.”

“For shame, noble Athelstane,” said Cedric; “forget such wretches

in the career of glory which lies open before thee. Tell this

Norman prince, Richard of Anjou, that, lion-hearted as he is, he

shall not hold undisputed the throne of Alfred, while a male

descendant of the Holy Confessor lives to dispute it.”

“How!” said Athelstane, “is this the noble King Richard?”

“It is Richard Plantagenet himself,” said Cedric; “yet I need not

remind thee that, coming hither a guest of free-will, he may

neither be injured nor detained prisoner---thou well knowest thy

duty to him as his host.”

“Ay, by my faith!” said Athelstane; “and my duty as a subject

besides, for I here tender him my allegiance, heart and hand.”

“My son,” said Edith, “think on thy royal rights!”

“Think on the freedom of England, degenerate Prince!” said

Cedric.

“Mother and friend,” said Athelstane, “a truce to your

upbraidings---bread and water and a dungeon are marvellous

mortifiers of ambition, and I rise from the tomb a wiser man than

I descended into it. One half of those vain follies were puffed

into mine ear by that perfidious Abbot Wolfram, and you may now

judge if he is a counsellor to be trusted. Since these plots

were set in agitation, I have had nothing but hurried journeys,

indigestions, blows and bruises, imprisonments and starvation;

besides that they can only end in the murder of some thousands of

quiet folk. I tell you, I will be king in my own domains, and

nowhere else; and my first act of dominion shall be to hang the

Abbot.”

“And my ward Rowena,” said Cedric---“I trust you intend not to

desert her?”

“Father Cedric,” said Athelstane, “be reasonable. The Lady

Rowena cares not for me---she loves the little finger of my

kinsman Wilfred’s glove better than my whole person. There she

stands to avouch it---Nay, blush not, kinswoman, there is no

shame in loving a courtly knight better than a country franklin

---and do not laugh neither, Rowena, for grave-clothes and a thin

visage are, God knows, no matter of merriment---Nay, an thou wilt

needs laugh, I will find thee a better jest---Give me thy hand,

or rather lend it me, for I but ask it in the way of friendship.

---Here, cousin Wilfred of Ivanhoe, in thy favour I renounce and

abjure------Hey! by Saint Dunstan, our cousin Wilfred hath

vanished!---Yet, unless my eyes are still dazzled with the

fasting I have undergone, I saw him stand there but even now.”

All now looked around and enquired for Ivanhoe, but he had

vanished. It was at length discovered that a Jew had been to

seek him; and that, after very brief conference, he had called

for Gurth and his armour, and had left the castle.

“Fair cousin,” said Athelstane to Rowena, “could I think that

this sudden disappearance of Ivanhoe was occasioned by other than

the weightiest