Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (33 page)

“Nevertheless, were I as thou,” said the knight, “I would take my walk by moonlight, when foresters and keepers were warm in bed, and ever and anon—as I pattered my prayers—I would let fly a shaft among the herds of dun deer that feed in the glades. Resolve me, Holy Clerk, hast thou never practised such a pastime?”

“Friend Sluggard,” answered the hermit, “thou hast seen all that can concern thee of my housekeeping, and something more than he deserves who takes up his quarters by violence. Credit me, it is better to enjoy the good which God sends thee, than to be impertinently curious how it comes. Fill thy cup, and welcome; and do not, I pray thee, by further impertinent inquiries, put me to show that thou couldst hardly have made good thy lodging had I been earnest to oppose thee.”

“By my faith,” said the knight, “thou makest me more curious than ever! Thou art the most mysterious hermit I ever met; and I will know more of thee ere we part. As for thy threats, know, holy man, thou speakest to one whose trade it is to find out danger wherever it is to be met with.”

“Sir Sluggish Knight, I drink to thee,” said the hermit, “respecting thy valour much, but deeming wondrous slightly of thy discretion. If thou wilt take equal arms with me, I will give thee, in all friendship and brotherly love, such sufficing penance and complete absolution that thou shalt not for the next twelve months sin the sin of excess of curiosity.”

The knight pledged him, and desired him to name his weapons.

“There is none,” replied the hermit, “from the scissors of Dalilah and the tenpenny nail of Jael to the scimitar of Goliath,
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at which I am not a match for thee. But, if I am to make the election, what sayest thou, good friend, to these trinkets?”

Thus speaking, he opened another hutch, and took out from it a couple of broadswords and bucklers, such as were used by the yeomanry of the period. The knight, who watched his motions, observed that this second place of concealment was furnished with two or three good long-bows, a cross-bow, a bundle of bolts for the latter, and half a dozen sheaves of arrows for the former. A harp, and other matters of a very uncanonical appearance, were also visible when this dark recess was opened.

“I promise thee, brother Clerk,” said he, “I will ask thee no more offensive questions. The contents of that cupboard are an answer to all my inquiries; and I see a weapon there (here he stooped and took out the harp) on which I would more gladly prove my skill with thee than at the sword and buckler.”

“I hope, Sir Knight,” said the hermit, “thou hast given no good reason for thy surname of the Sluggard. I do promise thee, I suspect thee grievously. Nevertheless, thou art my guest, and I will not put thy manhood to the proof without thine own free will. Sit thee down, then, and fill thy cup; let us drink, sing, and be merry. If thou knowest ever a good lay, thou shalt be welcome to a nook of pasty at Copmanhurst so long as I serve the chapel of St. Dunstan, which, please God, shall be till I change my grey covering for one of green turf. But come, fill a flagon, for it will crave some time to tune the harp; and nought pitches the voice and sharpens the ear like a cup of wine. For my part, I love to feel the grape at my very finger-ends before they make the harp-strings tinkle.”
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Notwithstanding the prescription of the genial hermit, with which his guest willingly complied, he found it no easy matter to bring the harp to harmony.

“Methinks, holy father,” said he, “the instrument wants one string, and the rest have been somewhat misused.”

“Ay, mark’st thou that?” replied the hermit; “that shows thee a master of the craft. Wine and wassail,” he added, gravely casting up his eyes—“all the fault of wine and wassail! I told Allan-a-Dale, the northern minstrel, that he would damage the harp if he touched it after the seventh cup, but he would not be controlled. Friend, I drink to thy successful performance.”

So saying, he took off his cup with much gravity, at the same time shaking his head at the intemperance of the Scottish harper.

The knight, in the meantime, had brought the strings into some order, and, after a short prelude, asked his host whether he would choose a
sirvente
in the language of
oc,
or a
lai
in the language of
oui,
or a
virelai,
or a ballad in the vulgar English.
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“A ballad—a ballad,” said the hermit, “against all the ocs and
ouis
of France. Downright English am I, Sir Knight, and downright English was my patron St. Dunstan, and scorned oc and
oui,
as he would have scorned the parings of the devil’s hoof; downright English alone shall be sung in this cell.”

“I will assay, then,” said the knight, “a ballad composed by a Saxon gleeman, whom I knew in Holy Land.”

It speedily appeared that, if the knight was not a complete master of the minstrel art, his taste for it had at least been cultivated under the best instructors. Art had taught him to soften the faults of a voice which had little compass, and was naturally rough rather than mellow, and, in short, had done all that culture can do in supplying natural deficiencies. His performance, therefore, might have been termed very respectable by abler judges than the hermit, especially as the knight threw into the notes now a degree of spirit, and now of plaintive enthusiasm, which gave force and energy to the verses which he sung.

During this performance, the hermit demeaned himself much like a first-rate critic of the present day at a new opera. He reclined back upon his seat with his eyes half shut: now folding his hands and twisting his thumbs, he seemed absorbed in attention, and anon, balancing his expanded palms, he gently flourished them in time to the music. At one or two favourite cadences he threw in a little assistance of his own, where the knight’s voice seemed unable to carry the air so high as his worshipful taste approved. When the song was ended, the anchorite emphatically declared it a good one, and well sung.

“And yet,” said he, “I think my Saxon countrymen had herded long enough with the Normans to fall into the tone of their melancholy ditties. What took the honest knight from home? or what could he expect but to find his mistress agreeably engaged with a rival on his return, and his serenade, as they call it, as little regarded as the caterwauling of a cat in the gutter? Nevertheless, Sir Knight, I drink this cup to thee, to the success of all true lovers. I fear you are none,” he added, on observing that the knight, whose brain began to be heated with these repeated draughts, qualified his flagon from the water pitcher.

“Why,” said the knight, “did you not tell me that this water was from the well of your blessed patron, St. Dunstan?”

“Ay, truly,” said the hermit, “and many a hundred of pagans did he baptize there, but I never heard that he drank any of it. Everything should be put to its proper use in this world. St. Dunstan knew, as well as any one, the prerogatives of a jovial friar.”

And so saying, he reached the harp, and entertained his guest with the following characteristic song, to a sort of derry-down chorus,
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appropriate to an old English ditty:

“By my troth,” said the knight, “thou hast sung well and lustily, and in high praise of thine order. And, talking of the devil, Holy Clerk, are you not afraid that he may pay you a visit during some of your uncanonical pastimes?”

“I uncanonical!” answered the hermit; “I scorn the charge—I scorn it with my heels! I serve the duty of my chapel duly and truly. Two masses daily, morning and evening, primes, noons, and vespers,
aves, credos, paters—”

“Excepting moonlight nights, when the venison is in season,” said his guest.

“Exceptis excipiendis,”
^cf
replied the hermit, “as our old abbot taught me to say, when impertinent laymen should ask me if I kept every punctilio of mine order.”

“True, holy father,” said the knight; “but the devil is apt to keep an eye on such exceptions; he goes about, thou knowest, like a roaring lion.”

“Let him roar here if he dares,” said the Friar; “a touch of my cord will make him roar as loud as the tongs of St. Dunstan himself did. I never feared man, and I as little fear the devil and his imps. St. Dunstan, St. Dubric, St. Winibald, St. Winifred, St. Swibert, St. Willick, not forgetting St. Thomas a Kent and my own poor merits to speed,—I defy every devil of them, come cut and long tail.
^cg
But to let you into a secret, I never speak upon such subjects, my friend, until after morning vespers.”

He changed the conversation: fast and furious grew the mirth of the parties, and many a song was exchanged betwixt them, when their revels were interrupted by a loud knocking at the door of the hermitage.

The occasion of this interruption we can only explain by resuming the adventures of another set of our characters; for, like old Ariosto,
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we do not pique ourselves upon continuing uniformly to keep company with any one personage of our drama.

When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the lists at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the custody and care of his own attendants; but the words choked in his throat. He could not bring himself to acknowledge, in presence of such an assembly, the son whom he had renounced and disinherited. He ordered, however, Oswald to keep an eye upon him; and directed that officer, with two of his serfs, to convey Ivanhoe to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. Oswald, however, was anticipated in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the knight was nowhere to be seen.