Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock

by Thomas Love Peacock

  “No, by my fay,” said Robin; “and right welcome again to Sherwood.”

  Little John bustled to re-array the disorganised economy of the table, and replace the dilapidations of the provender.

  “I come late, Robin,” said Sir William, “but I came by a wrestling, where I found a good yeoman wrongfully beset by a crowd of sturdy varlets, and I staid to do him right.”

  “I thank thee for that, in God’s name,” said Robin, “as if thy good service had been to myself.”

  “And here,” said the knight, “is thy four hundred pound; and my men have brought thee an hundred bows and as many well-furnished quivers; which I beseech thee to receive and to use as a poor token of my grateful kindness to thee: for me and my wife and children didst thou redeem from beggary.”

  “Thy bows and arrows,” said Robin, “will I joyfully receive: but of thy money, not a penny. It is paid already. My Lady, who was thy security, hath sent it me for thee.”

  Sir William pressed, but Robin was inflexible.

  “It is paid,” said Robin, “as this good knight can testify, who saw my Lady’s messenger depart but now.”

  Sir William looked round to the stranger knight, and instantly fell on his knee, saying, “God save King Richard.”

  The foresters, friar and all, dropped on their knees together, and repeated in chorus: “God save King Richard.”

  “Rise, rise,” said Richard, smiling: “Robin is king here, as his lady hath shown. I have heard much of thee, Robin, both of thy present and thy former state. And this, thy fair forest-queen, is, if tales say true, the lady Matilda Fitzwater.”

  Marian signed acknowledgment.

  “Your father,” said the king, “has approved his fidelity to me, by the loss of his lands, which the newness of my return, and many public cares, have not yet given me time to restore: but this justice shall be done to him, and to thee also, Robin, if thou wilt leave thy forest-life and resume thy earldom, and be a peer of Coeur-de-Lion: for braver heart and juster hand I never yet found.”

  Robin looked round on his men.

  “Your followers,” said the king, “shall have free pardon, and such of them as thou wilt part with shall have maintenance from me; and if ever I confess to priest, it shall be to thy friar.”

  “Gramercy to your majesty,” said the friar; “and my inflictions shall be flasks of canary; and if the number be (as in grave cases I may, peradventure, make it) too great for one frail mortality, I will relieve you by vicarious penance, and pour down my own throat the redundancy of the burden.”

  Robin and his followers embraced the king’s proposal. A joyful meeting soon followed with the baron and Sir Guy of Gamwell: and Richard himself honoured with his own presence a formal solemnization of the nuptials of our lovers, whom he constantly distinguished with his peculiar regard.

  The friar could not say, Farewell to the forest, without something of a heavy heart: and he sang as he turned his back upon its bounds, occasionally reverting his head:

  Ye woods, that oft at sultry noon

  Have o’er me spread your messy shade:

  Ye gushing streams, whose murmured tune

  Has in my ear sweet music made,

  While, where the dancing pebbles show

  Deep in the restless fountain-pool

  The gelid water’s upward flow,

  My second flask was laid to cool:

  Ye pleasant sights of leaf and flower:

  Ye pleasant sounds of bird and bee:

  Ye sports of deer in sylvan bower:

  Ye feasts beneath the greenwood tree:

  Ye baskings in the vernal sun:

  Ye slumbers in the summer dell:

  Ye trophies that this arm has won:

  And must ye hear your friar’s farewell?

  But the friar’s farewell was not destined to be eternal. He was domiciled as the family confessor of the earl and countess of Huntingdon, who led a discreet and courtly life, and kept up old hospitality in all its munificence, till the death of King Richard and the usurpation of John, by placing their enemy in power, compelled them to return to their greenwood sovereignty; which, it is probable, they would have before done from choice, if their love of sylvan liberty had not been counteracted by their desire to retain the friendship of Coeur-de-Lion. Their old and tried adherents, the friar among the foremost, flocked again round their forest-banner; and in merry Sherwood they long lived together, the lady still retaining her former name of Maid Marian, though the appellation was then as much a misnomer as that of Little John.

  THE END

  The Misfortunes of Elphin

  Peacock’s fifth novel was published in 1829 and is set in a somewhat historically fanciful Arthurian Britain, while the text incorporates many Welsh legends, though it avoids all supernatural and mystical elements. One of the main protagonists is Seithenyn – a figure from Welsh tradition, whose neglect of the sea defences at Cantre’r Gwaelod, in the kingdom of the legendary King Gwyddno Garanhir, is said to have led to the drowning of the town. Cantre’r Gwaelod is believed to be beneath the waters of Cardigan Bay off the coast of Ceredigion near Aberdyfi, Wales.

  Title page of the first edition

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  Part of an ancient submerged forest at Ynyslas, Ceredigion, thought to be associated with Cantre’r Gwaelod

  CHAPTER I

  THE PROSPERITY OF GWAELOD

  Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,

  That, hush’d in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

  Gray

  IN THE beginning of the sixth century, when Uther Pendragon held the nominal sovereignty of Britain over a number of petty kings, Gwythno Garanhir was king of Caredigion. The most valuable portion of his dominions was the Great Plain of Gwaelod, an extensive tract of level land, stretching along that part of the sea-coast which now belongs to the counties of Merioneth and Cardigan. This district was populous and highly cultivated. It contained sixteen fortified towns, superior to all the towns and cities of the Cymry, excepting Caer Lleon upon Usk; and, like Caer Lleon, they bore in their architecture, their language, and their manners, vestiges of past intercourse with the Roman lords of the world. It contained also one of the three privileged ports of the isle of Britain, which was called the Port of Gwythno. This port, we may believe if we please, had not been unknown to the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, when they visited the island for metal, accommodating the inhabitants, in return, with luxuries which they would not otherwise have dreamed of, and which they could very well have done without; of course, in arranging the exchange of what they denominated equivalents, imposing on their simplicity, and taking advantage of their ignorance, according to the approved practice of civilized nations; which they called imparting the blessings of Phoenician and Carthaginian light.

  An embankment of massy stone protected this lowland country from the sea, which was said, in traditions older than the embankment, to have, in occasional spring-tides, paid short but unwelcome visits to the interior inhabitants, and to have, by slow aggressions, encroached considerably on the land. To prevent the repetition of the first of these inconveniences, and to check the progress of the second, the people of Gwaelod had built the stony rampart, which had withstood the shock of the waves for centuries, when Gwythno began his reign.

  Gwythno, like other kings, found the business of governing too light a matter to fill up the vacancy of either his time or his head, and took to the more solid pursuits of harping and singing; not forgetting feasting, in which he was glorious; nor hunting, wherein he was mighty. His s
everal pursuits composed a very harmonious triad. The chace conduced to the good cheer of the feast, and to the good appetite which consumed it; the feast inspired the song; and the song gladdened the feast, and celebrated the chace.

  Gwythno and his subjects went on together very happily. They had little to do with him but to pay him revenue, and he had little to do with them but to receive it. Now and then they were called on to fight for the protection of his sacred person, and for the privilege of paying revenue to him rather than to any of the kings in his vicinity, a privilege of which they were particularly tenacious. His lands being far more fertile, and his people, consequently, far more numerous, than those of the rocky dwellers on his borders, he was always victorious in the defensive warfare to which he restricted his military achievements; and, after the invaders of his dominions had received two or three inflictions of signal chastisement, they limited their aggressions to coming quietly in the night, and vanishing, before morning, with cattle: an heroic operation, in which the pre-eminent glory of Scotland renders the similar exploits of other nations not worth recording.

  Gwythno was not fond of the sea: a moonstruck bard had warned him to beware of the oppression of Gwenhidwy; and he thought he could best do so by keeping as far as possible out of her way. He had a palace built of choice slate stone on the rocky banks of the Mawddach, just above the point where it quitted its native mountains, and entered the Plain of Gwaelod. Here, among green woods and sparkling waters, he lived in festal munificence, and expended his revenue in encouraging agriculture, by consuming a large quantity of produce.

  Watchtowers were erected along the embankment, and watchmen were appointed to guard against the first approaches of damage or decay. The whole of these towers, and their companies of guards, were subordinate to a central castle, which commanded the sea-port already mentioned, and wherein dwelt Prince Seithenyn ap Seithyn Saidi, who held the office of Arglwyd Gorwarcheidwad yr Argae Breninawl, which signifies, in English, Lord High Commissioner of Royal Embankment; and he executed it as a personage so denominated might be expected to do: he drank the profits, and left the embankment to his deputies, who left it to their assistants, who left it to itself.

  The condition of the head, in a composite as in a simple body, affects the entire organization to the extremity of the tail, excepting that, as the tail in the figurative body usually receives the largest share in the distribution of punishment, and the smallest in the distribution of reward, it has the stronger stimulus to ward off evil, and the smaller supply of means to indulge in diversion; and it sometimes happens that one of the least regarded of the component parts of the said tail will, from a pure sense of duty, or an inveterate love of business, or an oppressive sense of ennui, or a development of the organ of order, or some other equally cogent reason, cheerfully undergo all the care and labour, of which the honour and profit will redound to higher quarters.

  Such a component portion of the Gwaelod High Commission of Royal Embankment was Teithrin ap Tathral, who had the charge of a watchtower where the embankment terminated at the point of Mochres, in the high land of Ardudwy. Teithrin kept his portion of the embankment in exemplary condition, and paced with daily care the limits of his charge; but one day, by some accident, he strayed beyond them, and observed symptoms of neglect that filled him with dismay. This circumstance induced him to proceed till his wanderings brought him round to the embankment’s southern termination in the high land of Caredigion. He met with abundant hospitality at the towers of his colleagues, and at the castle of Seithenyn: he was supposed to be walking for his amusement; he was asked no questions, and he carefully abstained from asking any. He examined and observed in silence; and, when he had completed his observations, he hastened to the palace of Gwythno.

  Preparations were making for a high festival, and Gwythno was composing an ode. Teithrin knew better than to interrupt him in his awen.

  Gwythno had a son named Elphin, who is celebrated in history as the most expert of fishers. Teithrin, finding the king impracticable, went in search of the young prince.

  Elphin had been all the morning fishing in the Mawddach, in a spot where the river, having quitted the mountains and not yet entered the plain, ran in alternate streams and pools sparkling through a pastoral valley. Elphin sat under an ancient ash, enjoying the calm brightness of an autumnal noon, and the melody and beauty of the flying stream, on which the shifting sunbeams fell chequering through the leaves. The monotonous music of the river, and the profound stillness of the air, had contributed to the deep abstraction of a meditation into which Elphin had fallen. He was startled into attention by a sudden rush of the wind through the trees, and during the brief interval of transition from the state of reverie to that of perfect consciousness, he heard, or seemed to hear, in the gust that hurried by him, the repetition of the words, “Beware of the oppression of Gwenhidwy.” The gust was momentary: the leaves ceased to rustle, and the deep silence of nature returned.

  The prophecy, which had long haunted the memory and imagination of his father, had been often repeated to Elphin, and had sometimes occupied his thoughts, but it had formed no part of his recent meditation, and he could not persuade himself that the words had not been actually spoken near him. He emerged from the shade of the trees that fringed the river, and looked round him from the rocky bank.

  At this moment Teithrin ap Tathral discovered and approached him.

  Elphin knew him not, and inquired his name. He answered, “Teithrin ap Tathral.”

  “And what seek you here?” said Elphin.

  “I seek,” answered Teithrin, “the Prince of Gwaelod, Elphin ap Gwythno Garanhir.”

  “You spoke,” said Elphin, “as you approached.” Teithrin answered in the negative.

  “Assuredly you did,” said Elphin. “You repeated the words, “Beware of the oppression of Gwenhidwy.”“

  Teithrin denied having spoken the words; but their mysterious impression made Elphin listen readily to his information and advice; and the result of their conference was a determination, on the part of the Prince, to accompany Teithrin ap Tathral on a visit of remonstrance to the Lord High Commissioner.

  They crossed the centre of the enclosed country to the privileged port of Gwythno, near which stood the castle of Seithenyn. They walked towards the castle along a portion of the embankment, and Teithrin pointed out to the Prince its dilapidated condition. The sea shone with the glory of the setting sun; the air was calm; and the white surf, tinged with the crimson of sunset, broke lightly on the sands below. Elphin turned his eyes from the dazzling splendour of ocean to the green meadows of the Plain of Gwaelod; the trees, that in the distance thickened into woods; the wreaths of smoke rising from among them, marking the solitary cottages, or the populous towns; the massy barrier of mountains beyond, with the forest rising from their base; the precipices frowning over the forest; and the clouds resting on their summits, reddened with the reflection of the west. Elphin gazed earnestly on the peopled plain, reposing in the calm of evening between the mountains and the sea, and thought, with deep feelings of secret pain, how much of life and human happiness was intrusted to the ruinous mound on which he stood.

  CHAPTER II

  THE DRUNKENESS OF SEITHENYN

  THE THREE IMMORTAL drunkards of the isle of Britain: Ceraint of Essyllwg; Gwrtheyrn Gwrthenau; and Seithenyn ap Seithyn Saidi. — Triads of the Isle of Britain.

  THE SUN had sunk beneath the waves when they reached the castle of Seithenyn. The sound of the harp and the song saluted them as they approached it. As they entered the great hall, which was already blazing with the torchlight, they found his highness, and his highness’s household, convincing themselves and each other with wine and wassail, of the excellence of their system of virtual superintendence; and the following jovial chorus broke on the ears of the visitors:

  THE CIRCLING OF THE MEAD-HORNS

  Fill the blue horn, the blue buffalo horn:

  Natural is mead in the buffalo horn:

&n
bsp; As the cuckoo in spring, as the lark in the morn,

  So natural is mead in the buffalo horn.

  As the cup of the flower to the bee when he sips,

  Is the full cup of mead to the true Briton’s lips:

  From the flower-cups of summer, on field and on tree,

  Our mead cups are filled by the vintager bee.

  Seithenyn ap Seithyn, the generous, the bold,

  Drinks the wine of the stranger from vessels of gold;

  But we from the horn, the blue silver-rimmed horn,

  Drink the ale and the mead in our fields that were born.

  The ale-froth is white, and the mead sparkles bright;

  They both smile apart, and with smiles they unite:

  The mead from the flower, and the ale from the corn,

  Smile, sparkle, and sing in the buffalo horn.

  The horn, the blue horn, cannot stand on its tip;

  Its path is right on from the hand to the lip:

  Though the bowl and the wine-cup our tables adorn,

  More natural the draught from the buffalo horn.

  But Seithenyn ap Seithyn, the generous, the bold,

  Drinks the bright-flowing wine from the far-gleaming gold:

  The wine, in the bowl by his lip that is worn,

  Shall be glorious as mead in the buffalo horn.

  The horns circle fast, but their fountains will last,

  As the stream passes ever, and never is past:

  Exhausted so quickly, replenished so soon,

  They wax and they wane like the horns of the moon.

  Fill high the blue horn, the blue buffalo horn;

  Fill high the long silver-rimmed buffalo horn:

  While the roof of the hall by our chorus is torn,

  Fill, fill to the brim, the deep silver-rimmed horn.

  Elphin and Teithrin stood some time on the floor of the hall before they attracted the attention of Seithenyn, who, during the chorus, was tossing and flourishing his golden goblet. The chorus had scarcely ended when he noticed them, and immediately roared aloud, “You are welcome all four.”