Ivanhoe: A Romance
Locksley was then heard, “Shout, yeomen!—the den of tyrants is no more!
Let each bring his spoil to our chosen place of rendezvous at the
Trysting-tree in the Harthill-walk; for there at break of day will we
make just partition among our own bands, together with our worthy
allies in this great deed of vengeance.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
Trust me each state must have its policies:
Kingdoms have edicts, cities have their charters;
Even the wild outlaw, in his forest-walk,
Keeps yet some touch of civil discipline;
For not since Adam wore his verdant apron,
Hath man with man in social union dwelt,
But laws were made to draw that union closer.
OLD PLAY
The daylight had dawned upon the glades of the oak forest. The green
boughs glittered with all their pearls of dew. The hind led her fawn
from the covert of high fern to the more open walks of the greenwood,
and no huntsman was there to watch or intercept the stately hart, as he
paced at the head of the antler’d herd.
The outlaws were all assembled around the Trysting-tree in the
Harthill-walk, where they had spent the night in refreshing themselves
after the fatigues of the siege, some with wine, some with slumber,
many with hearing and recounting the events of the day, and computing
the heaps of plunder which their success had placed at the disposal of
their Chief.
The spoils were indeed very large; for, notwithstanding that much was
consumed, a great deal of plate, rich armour, and splendid clothing,
had been secured by the exertions of the dauntless outlaws, who could
be appalled by no danger when such rewards were in view. Yet so strict
were the laws of their society, that no one ventured to appropriate any
part of the booty, which was brought into one common mass, to be at the
disposal of their leader.
The place of rendezvous was an aged oak; not however the same to which
Locksley had conducted Gurth and Wamba in the earlier part of the
story, but one which was the centre of a silvan amphitheatre, within
half a mile of the demolished castle of Torquilstone. Here Locksley
assumed his seat—a throne of turf erected under the twisted branches of
the huge oak, and the silvan followers were gathered around him. He
assigned to the Black Knight a seat at his right hand, and to Cedric a
place upon his left.
“Pardon my freedom, noble sirs,” he said, “but in these glades I am
monarch—they are my kingdom; and these my wild subjects would reck but
little of my power, were I, within my own dominions, to yield place to
mortal man.—Now, sirs, who hath seen our chaplain? where is our curtal
Friar? A mass amongst Christian men best begins a busy morning.”—No one
had seen the Clerk of Copmanhurst. “Over gods forbode!” said the outlaw
chief, “I trust the jolly priest hath but abidden by the wine-pot a
thought too late. Who saw him since the castle was ta’en?”
“I,” quoth the Miller, “marked him busy about the door of a cellar,
swearing by each saint in the calendar he would taste the smack of
Front-de-Bœuf’s Gascoigne wine.”
“Now, the saints, as many as there be of them,” said the Captain,
“forefend, lest he has drunk too deep of the wine-butts, and perished
by the fall of the castle!—Away, Miller!—take with you enow of men,
seek the place where you last saw him—throw water from the moat on the
scorching ruins—I will have them removed stone by stone ere I lose my
curtal Friar.”
The numbers who hastened to execute this duty, considering that an
interesting division of spoil was about to take place, showed how much
the troop had at heart the safety of their spiritual father.
“Meanwhile, let us proceed,” said Locksley; “for when this bold deed
shall be sounded abroad, the bands of De Bracy, of Malvoisin, and other
allies of Front-de-Bœuf, will be in motion against us, and it were well
for our safety that we retreat from the vicinity.—Noble Cedric,” he
said, turning to the Saxon, “that spoil is divided into two portions;
do thou make choice of that which best suits thee, to recompense thy
people who were partakers with us in this adventure.”
“Good yeoman,” said Cedric, “my heart is oppressed with sadness. The
noble Athelstane of Coningsburgh is no more—the last sprout of the
sainted Confessor! Hopes have perished with him which can never
return!—A sparkle hath been quenched by his blood, which no human
breath can again rekindle! My people, save the few who are now with me,
do but tarry my presence to transport his honoured remains to their
last mansion. The Lady Rowena is desirous to return to Rotherwood, and
must be escorted by a sufficient force. I should, therefore, ere now,
have left this place; and I waited—not to share the booty, for, so help
me God and Saint Withold! as neither I nor any of mine will touch the
value of a liard,—I waited but to render my thanks to thee and to thy
bold yeomen, for the life and honour ye have saved.”
“Nay, but,” said the chief Outlaw, “we did but half the work at
most—take of the spoil what may reward your own neighbours and
followers.”
“I am rich enough to reward them from mine own wealth,” answered
Cedric.
“And some,” said Wamba, “have been wise enough to reward themselves;
they do not march off empty-handed altogether. We do not all wear
motley.”
“They are welcome,” said Locksley; “our laws bind none but ourselves.”
“But, thou, my poor knave,” said Cedric, turning about and embracing
his Jester, “how shall I reward thee, who feared not to give thy body
to chains and death instead of mine!—All forsook me, when the poor fool
was faithful!”
A tear stood in the eye of the rough Thane as he spoke—a mark of
feeling which even the death of Athelstane had not extracted; but there
was something in the half-instinctive attachment of his clown, that
waked his nature more keenly than even grief itself.
“Nay,” said the Jester, extricating himself from master’s caress, “if
you pay my service with the water of your eye, the Jester must weep for
company, and then what becomes of his vocation?—But, uncle, if you
would indeed pleasure me, I pray you to pardon my playfellow Gurth, who
stole a week from your service to bestow it on your son.”
“Pardon him!” exclaimed Cedric; “I will both pardon and reward
him.—Kneel down, Gurth.”—The swineherd was in an instant at his
master’s feet—“THEOW and ESNE 40 art thou no longer,” said Cedric
touching him with a wand; “FOLKFREE and SACLESS 41 art thou in town and
from town, in the forest as in the field. A hide of land I give to thee
in my steads of Walbrugham, from me and mine to thee and thine aye and
for ever; and God’s malison on his head who this gainsays!”
No longer a serf, but a freeman and a landholder, Gurth sprung upon his
feet, and twice bounded aloft to almost his own height from the ground.
“A smith and a file,” he cried, “to do away the collar from the neck of
a freeman!—Noble master! doubled is my strength by your gift, and
doubly will I fight for you!—There is a free spirit in my breast—I am a
man changed to myself and all around.—Ha, Fangs!” he continued,—for
that faithful cur, seeing his master thus transported, began to jump
upon him, to express his sympathy,—“knowest thou thy master still?”
“Ay,” said Wamba, “Fangs and I still know thee, Gurth, though we must
needs abide by the collar; it is only thou art likely to forget both us
and thyself.”
“I shall forget myself indeed ere I forget thee, true comrade,” said
Gurth; “and were freedom fit for thee, Wamba, the master would not let
thee want it.”
“Nay,” said Wamba, “never think I envy thee, brother Gurth; the serf
sits by the hall-fire when the freeman must forth to the field of
battle—And what saith Oldhelm of Malmsbury—Better a fool at a feast
than a wise man at a fray.”
The tramp of horses was now heard, and the Lady Rowena appeared,
surrounded by several riders, and a much stronger party of footmen, who
joyfully shook their pikes and clashed their brown-bills for joy of her
freedom. She herself, richly attired, and mounted on a dark chestnut
palfrey, had recovered all the dignity of her manner, and only an
unwonted degree of paleness showed the sufferings she had undergone.
Her lovely brow, though sorrowful, bore on it a cast of reviving hope
for the future, as well as of grateful thankfulness for the past
deliverance—She knew that Ivanhoe was safe, and she knew that
Athelstane was dead. The former assurance filled her with the most
sincere delight; and if she did not absolutely rejoice at the latter,
she might be pardoned for feeling the full advantage of being freed
from further persecution on the only subject in which she had ever been
contradicted by her guardian Cedric.
As Rowena bent her steed towards Locksley’s seat, that bold yeoman,
with all his followers, rose to receive her, as if by a general
instinct of courtesy. The blood rose to her cheeks, as, courteously
waving her hand, and bending so low that her beautiful and loose
tresses were for an instant mixed with the flowing mane of her palfrey,
she expressed in few but apt words her obligations and her gratitude to
Locksley and her other deliverers.—“God bless you, brave men,” she
concluded, “God and Our Lady bless you and requite you for gallantly
perilling yourselves in the cause of the oppressed!—If any of you
should hunger, remember Rowena has food—if you should thirst, she has
many a butt of wine and brown ale—and if the Normans drive ye from
these walks, Rowena has forests of her own, where her gallant
deliverers may range at full freedom, and never ranger ask whose arrow
hath struck down the deer.”
“Thanks, gentle lady,” said Locksley; “thanks from my company and
myself. But, to have saved you requites itself. We who walk the
greenwood do many a wild deed, and the Lady Rowena’s deliverance may be
received as an atonement.”
Again bowing from her palfrey, Rowena turned to depart; but pausing a
moment, while Cedric, who was to attend her, was also taking his leave,
she found herself unexpectedly close by the prisoner De Bracy. He stood
under a tree in deep meditation, his arms crossed upon his breast, and
Rowena was in hopes she might pass him unobserved. He looked up,
however, and, when aware of her presence, a deep flush of shame
suffused his handsome countenance. He stood a moment most irresolute;
then, stepping forward, took her palfrey by the rein, and bent his knee
before her.
“Will the Lady Rowena deign to cast an eye—on a captive knight—on a
dishonoured soldier?”
“Sir Knight,” answered Rowena, “in enterprises such as yours, the real
dishonour lies not in failure, but in success.”
“Conquest, lady, should soften the heart,” answered De Bracy; “let me
but know that the Lady Rowena forgives the violence occasioned by an
ill-fated passion, and she shall soon learn that De Bracy knows how to
serve her in nobler ways.”
“I forgive you, Sir Knight,” said Rowena, “as a Christian.”
“That means,” said Wamba, “that she does not forgive him at all.”
“But I can never forgive the misery and desolation your madness has
occasioned,” continued Rowena.
“Unloose your hold on the lady’s rein,” said Cedric, coming up. “By the
bright sun above us, but it were shame, I would pin thee to the earth
with my javelin—but be well assured, thou shalt smart, Maurice de
Bracy, for thy share in this foul deed.”
“He threatens safely who threatens a prisoner,” said De Bracy; “but
when had a Saxon any touch of courtesy?”
Then retiring two steps backward, he permitted the lady to move on.
Cedric, ere they departed, expressed his peculiar gratitude to the
Black Champion, and earnestly entreated him to accompany him to
Rotherwood.
“I know,” he said, “that ye errant knights desire to carry your
fortunes on the point of your lance, and reck not of land or goods; but