Ivanhoe (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Walter Scott

  “Drinc hael, Holy Clerk of Copmanhurst!” answered the warrior, and did his host reason in a similar brimmer.

  “Holy Clerk,” said the stranger, after the first cup was thus swallowed, “I cannot but marvel that a man possessed of such thews and sinews as thine, and who therewithal shows the talent of so goodly a trencherman, should think of abiding by himself in this wilderness. In my judgment, you are fitter to keep a castle or a fort, eating of the fat and drinking of the strong, than to live here upon pulse and water, or even upon the charity of the keeper. At least, were I as thou, I should find myself both disport and plenty out of the king’s deer. There is many a goodly herd in these forests, and a buck will never be missed that goes to the use of St. Dunstan’s chaplain.”

  “Sir Sluggish Knight,” replied the Clerk, “these are dangerous words, and I pray you to forbear them. I am true hermit to the king and law, and were I to spoil my liege’s game, I should be sure of the prison, and, an my gown saved me not, were in some peril of hanging.”

  “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,3 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.”4

  CHAPTER XVII

  At eve, within yon studious nook,

  I ope my brass-embossed book,

  Portray’d with many a holy deed

  Of martyrs crown’d with heavenly meed;

  Then, as my taper waxes dim,

  Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn.

  Who but would cast his pomp away,

  To take my staff and amice grey,

  And to the world’s tumultuous stage,

  Prefer the peaceful HERMITAGE?

  WARTON1

  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.2 “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.

  THE CRUSADER’S RETURN

  High deeds achieved of knightly fame,

  From Palestine the champion came;

  The cross upon his shoulders borne

  Battle and blast had dimm’d and torn.

  Each dint upon his batter’d shield

  Was token of a foughten field;

  And thus, beneath his lady’s bower,

  He sung, as fell the twilight hour:—

  Joy to the fair!—thy knight behold,

  Return’d from yonder land of gold.

  No wealth he brings, nor wealth can need

  Save his good arms and battle-steed,

  His spurs, to dash against a foe,

  His lance and sword to lay him low;

  Such all the trophies of his toil,

  Such—and the hope of Tekla’sce smile!

  Joy to the fair! whose constant knight,

  Her favour fired to feats of might;

  Unnoted shall she not remain,

  Where meet the bright and noble train;

  Minstrel shall sing and herald tell—

  “Mark yonder maid of beauty well,

  ’Tis she for whose bright eyes was won

  The listed field at Askalon!

  ‘“Note well her smile! it edged the blade

  Which fif
ty wives to widows made,

  When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,

  Iconium’s turban’d soldan fell.3

  Seest thou her locks, whose sunny glow

  Half shows, half shades, her neck of snow?

  Twines not of them one golden thread,

  But for its sake a Paynim bled. ”

  Joy to the fair!—my name unknown,

  Each deed and all its praise thine own;

  Then, oh! unbar this churlish gate,

  The night dew falls, the hour is late.

  Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,

  I feel the north breeze chill as death;

  Let grateful love quell maiden shame,

  And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.’

  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,4 appropriate to an old English ditty:

  THE BAREFOOTED FRIAR

  I’ll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain,

  To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;

  But ne’er shall you find, should you search till you tire,

  So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.

  Your knight for his lady pricks, forth in career,

  And is brought home at evensong prick’d through with a spear;

  I confess him in haste—for his lady desires

  No comfort on earth save the Barefooted Friar’s.

  Your monarch! Pshaw! many a prince has been known

  To barter his robes for our cowl and our gown;

  But which of us e’er felt the idle desire

  To exchange for a crown the grey hood of a Friar!

  The Friar has walk’d out, and where’er he has gone,

  The land and its fatness is mark’d for his own;

  He can roam where he lists, he can stop when he tires,

  For every man’s house is the Barefooted Friar’s.

  He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes

  May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums;

  For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,

  Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.

  He’s expected at night, and the pasty’s made hot,

  They broach the brown ale, and they fill the black pot,

  And the goodwife would wish the goodman in the mire,

  Ere he lack’d a soft pillow, the Barefooted Friar.

  Long flourish the sandal, the cord, and the cope,

  The dread of the devil and trust of the Pope;

  For to gather life’s roses, unscathed by the briar,

  Is granted alone to the Barefooted Friar.

  “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,5 we do not pique ourselves upon continuing uniformly to keep company with any one personage of our drama.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Away! our journey lies through dell and dingle,

  Where the blithe fawn trips by its timid mother,

  Where the broad oak, with intercepting boughs,

  Chequers the sunbeam in the greensward alley—

  Up and away! for lovely paths are these

  To tread, when the glad Sun is on his throne;

  Less pleasant, and less safe, when Cynthia’s lamp

  With doubtful glimmer lights the dreary forest.

  Ettrick Forest1

  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.

  It was in vain that Cedric’s cupbearer looked around for his young master: he saw the bloody spot on which he had lately sunk down, but himself he saw no longer; it seemed as if the fairies had conveyed him from the spot. Perhaps Oswald—for the Saxons were very superstitious—might have adopted some such hypothesis to account for Ivanhoe’s disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eye upon a person attired like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant Gurth. Anxious concerning his master’s fate, and in despair at his sudden disappearance, the translated swineherd was searching for him everywhere, and had neglected, in doing so, the concealment on which his own safety depended. Oswald deemed it his duty to secure Gurth, as a fugitive of whose fate his master was to judge.

  Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, the only information which the cupbearer could collect from the bystanders was, that the knight had been raised with
care by certain well-attired grooms, and placed in a litter belonging to a lady among the spectators, which had immediately transported him out of the press. Oswald, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return to his master for farther instructions, carrying along with him Gurth, whom he considered in some sort as a deserter from the service of Cedric.

  The Saxon had been under very intense and agonising apprehensions concerning his son, for nature had asserted her rights, in spite of the patriotic stoicism which laboured to disown her. But no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful, and probably in friendly, hands than the paternal anxiety, which had been excited by the dubiety of his fate, gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and resentment at what he termed Wilfred’s filial disobedience. “Let him wander his way,” said he; “let those leech his wounds for whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honour of his English ancestry with the glaive and brown-bill,ch the good old weapons of his country.”

  “If to maintain the honour of ancestry,” said Rowena, who was present, “it is sufficient to be wise in council and brave in execution, to be boldest among the bold, and gentlest among the gentle, I know no voice, save his father’s—”

  “Be silent, Lady Rowena! on this subject only I hear you not. Prepare yourself for the Prince’s festival: we have been summoned thither with unwonted circumstance of honour and of courtesy, such as the haughty Normans have rarely used to our race since the fatal day of Hastings. Thither will I go, were it only to show these proud Normans how little the fate of a son who could defeat their bravest can affect a Saxon.”