Ivanhoe Walter Scott (best desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📖

the knight; “I would I had the chastising of them. Nevertheless, Holy Clerk, it is true that all have their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather speak to through the bars of my helmet than barefaced.”

“Get thine iron pot on thy head then, friend Sluggard, as quickly as thy nature will permit,” said the hermit, “while I remove these pewter flagons, whose late contents run strangely in mine own pate; and to drown the clatter⁠—for, in faith, I feel somewhat unsteady⁠—strike into the tune which thou hearest me sing; it is no matter for the words⁠—I scarce know them myself.”

So saying, he struck up a thundering de profundis clamavi, under cover of which he removed the apparatus of their banquet: while the knight, laughing heartily, and arming himself all the while, assisted his host with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.

“What devil’s matins are you after at this hour?” said a voice from without.

“Heaven forgive you, Sir Traveller!” said the hermit, whose own noise, and perhaps his nocturnal potations, prevented from recognising accents which were tolerably familiar to him⁠—“Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother.”

“Mad priest,” answered the voice from without, “open to Locksley!”

“All’s safe⁠—all’s right,” said the hermit to his companion.

“But who is he?” said the Black Knight; “it imports me much to know.”

“Who is he?” answered the hermit; “I tell thee he is a friend.”

“But what friend?” answered the knight; “for he may be friend to thee and none of mine?”

“What friend?” replied the hermit; “that, now, is one of the questions that is more easily asked than answered. What friend?⁠—why, he is, now that I bethink me a little, the very same honest keeper I told thee of a while since.”

“Ay, as honest a keeper as thou art a pious hermit,” replied the knight, “I doubt it not. But undo the door to him before he beat it from its hinges.”

The dogs, in the meantime, which had made a dreadful baying at the commencement of the disturbance, seemed now to recognise the voice of him who stood without; for, totally changing their manner, they scratched and whined at the door, as if interceding for his admission. The hermit speedily unbolted his portal, and admitted Locksley, with his two companions.

“Why, hermit,” was the yeoman’s first question as soon as he beheld the knight, “what boon companion hast thou here?”

“A brother of our order,” replied the friar, shaking his head; “we have been at our orisons all night.”

“He is a monk of the church militant, I think,” answered Locksley; “and there be more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the rosary and take up the quarterstaff; we shall need every one of our merry men, whether clerk or layman.⁠—But,” he added, taking him a step aside, “art thou mad? to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know? Hast thou forgot our articles?”

“Not know him!” replied the friar, boldly, “I know him as well as the beggar knows his dish.”

“And what is his name, then?” demanded Locksley.

“His name,” said the hermit⁠—“his name is Sir Anthony of Scrabelstone⁠—as if I would drink with a man, and did not know his name!”

“Thou hast been drinking more than enough, friar,” said the woodsman, “and, I fear, prating more than enough too.”

“Good yeoman,” said the knight, coming forward, “be not wroth with my merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have compelled from him if he had refused it.”

“Thou compel!” said the friar; “wait but till have changed this grey gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarterstaff ring twelve upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman.”

While he spoke thus, he stript off his gown, and appeared in a close black buckram doublet and drawers, over which he speedily did on a cassock of green, and hose of the same colour. “I pray thee truss my points,” said he to Wamba, “and thou shalt have a cup of sack for thy labour.”

“Gramercy for thy sack,” said Wamba; “but think’st thou it is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into a sinful forester?”

“Never fear,” said the hermit; “I will but confess the sins of my green cloak to my greyfriar’s frock, and all shall be well again.”

“Amen!” answered the Jester; “a broadcloth penitent should have a sackcloth confessor, and your frock may absolve my motley doublet into the bargain.”

So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the doublet were then termed.

While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart, and addressed him thus:⁠—“Deny it not, Sir Knight⁠—you are he who decided the victory to the advantage of the English against the strangers on the second day of the tournament at Ashby.”

“And what follows if you guess truly, good yeoman?” replied the knight.

“I should in that case hold you,” replied the yeoman, “a friend to the weaker party.”

“Such is the duty of a true knight at least,” replied the Black Champion; “and I would not willingly that there were reason to think otherwise of me.”

“But for my purpose,” said the yeoman, “thou shouldst be as well a good Englishman as a good knight; for that, which I have to speak of, concerns, indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a true-born native of England.”

“You can speak to no one,” replied the knight, “to whom England, and the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me.”

“I would willingly believe so,” said the woodsman, “for never had this country such need to be supported by those who love her. Hear me, and I will tell thee of an enterprise, in which, if